17 July 2007
Bujumbura — On Sunday July 15, 2007, hundreds of supporters anxiously waited at Burundi international airport to welcome Mr. Leonard Nyangoma, the leader of CNDD, who had been in temporary refuge for nearly a year.
On May 5th, 2007, the CNDD leader had animated a conference in Mons (Belgium) where he announced that he was soon to return to Burundi.
At his arrival to Bujumbura international airport, Nyangoma stated that he took a temporary refuge for security reasons after the government accused him of being involved in coup that it had invented for the purpose of undermining the opposition parties. Recall that the so "Club Kampala" coup invention saw the incarceration of the Burundi ex president Ndayize Domitien, several journalists and others.
Nyangoma was also accused of possession of illegal weapons. His office was destroyed and his office logistics were confiscated, and his party was prevented from holding meeting in many parts of the country. Nyangoma feared for his life and left the country and shortly after, he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and his parliamentary seat was revoked.
Nothing can be more discouraging than trying to discourage a man of courage with a clear objective. With no house, no car, no office, no bank account, and no job, Nyangoma does not seem to be deterred or discouraged from returning back to Burundi to defend democracy.
Shortly after the 2005 elections, Nyangoma immediately declared his party as an opposition party and despite his absence in country for the last 10 months, Nyangoma vowed to keep an eye CNDD-FDD government by releasing a trimestrial report criticizing it's performance.
Since the death of Mr. Melchior Ndadaye in 1993, a first democratically elected HUTU president who was assassinated by the then mono-ethnic Tutsi army only 3 months after he come to power, Mr. Leonard Nyangoma has never took a break from defending democracy that him, Ndadaye and others have fought for, as Leonce Ngendakumana the president of FRODEBU puts it.
In 1994, Nyangoma gave up his position as an interior minister and founded the party CNDD along with its armed wing FDD and lead the armed struggle with the objective to have a representative national army which comprises all the ethnic groups.
Despite divisions that later occurred within CNDD and its armed wing FDD, Nyangoma is still seen by most Burundi citizens as the epicenter of any current positive change in Burundi.
He is often copied, but will probably never be duplicated. The lack of effective mechanisms of implementation by those who try to duplicate his ideas has lead to dissatisfaction among many Burundi citizens.
Nyangoma's political adversary had hard time running against him in 2005 as there was nothing negative to say about him or his party, except his Bururi origin, which, unfortunately he has no control of. A Ngozi native who spoke to BR on condition of anonymity stated that in 2005 elections, those parties running against CNDD used regionalism propaganda as reason not to vote for Nyangoma . He further stated that most intellectuals only voted for CNDD and he felt that there was a need to teach people in rural areas about CNDD, while expressing a need for a clear rule governing Burundi political campaigning.
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