29 January 2008
Bujumbura — The chief of the Burundian National Police, Fabien Ndayishimiye, says that he will ask all the nations in East Africa to assist in apprehending Col. Vital Bangirinama.
Mr. Ndayishimiye announced this on the first day of a three-day-long meeting held of the organisation for the cooperation of east-African police forces. Chiefs of the police forces from east-African countries are meeting in Burundi to seek jointly ways to combat crime.
Col Vital Bangirinama is the former commander of the Fourth military region. He is accused of having played a major role in the arrests and extrajudicial killings of appoximately 31 people in Muyinga from July to August 2006. Despite these allegations, Col Vital Bangirimana has never appeared before any court.
On 15 January 2008, during his ten-day leave, he fled to Tanzania, leaving behind him a letter confessing to the the clandestine extrajudicial killings that continue to haunt the CNDD-FDD-led government. In his letter, he states that the order to kill the so-called FNL combatants came from the defence minister, Lt.General Germain Niyoyankana and that he informed his superiors before the killings were carried out.
The government has set up various commissions to investigate this affair, but not one has made its results public. Last Friday the spokesman for the national defence force, Lt Colonel Adolphe Manirikiza, announced that the army plans to request Interpol to help in catching Col. Bangirinama.
It is highly unlikely, though, that the government will make efforts to catch Col. Bangirinama who continued to work in the military staff despite several summonses. The government of Burundi has repeatedly tried to hush up this case. In a meeting Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, a human right award nominee and the chairman of the Association for the rights of prisoners, attended last year, the minister in charge of solidarity, Ms Immaculée Nahayo told the international community that the case of Muyinga was closed.
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