Burundi: Three Years Later, Massacre Still Fresh in Mind

17 August 2007
analysis

Nairobi — CHARLES NASIBU argues that the third anniversary of a massacre in Burundi should prompt all governments to take action on the international arms trade.

The events that happened exactly three years ago on that date will always haunt me. I was accustomed to starting the day with the morning radio bulletin - which rarely bore good tidings in Burundi where I was working at the time - but nothing prepared me for the bloody events that had occurred during the night.

One hundred and fifty six refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly women and children, including a three-month-old baby, had been shot and burnt as they slept in a UN refugee camp in Gatumba, four kilometres from the Congolese border in Burundi. As a journalist and researcher based nearby, I felt compelled to see the horror and hear the survivors' testimonies for myself.

Bullet-riddled bodies

I doubt many editors would publish photographs of the macabre scene I witnessed that morning. Men, women, children and babies, their charred bodies riddled with bullets, were scattered on the ground. One of the corpses was Pastor Jacques Rutekereza, a fellow campaigner of mine through the International Action Network On Small Arms.

A tall, statesman-like figure, Pastor Rutekereza had been killed along with six of his children: Mushambaro, 18, Igiraneza, 16, Nyamasoso, 12, Ndatabaye, 9, Nyazahabu, 6, and Nyamuryango, 4. Four-year-old twins Aimmee and Debora Gatoni, also lay dead. Eighty-six children in total lost their lives that fateful night. Forty families had been eliminated or forever torn apart.

Who was responsible for this atrocity? The refugees were from DRC and belonged to the Banyamulenge tribe, one of the nilotic peoples who have a long line of historical disputes with the majority Bantus.

The Banyamulenge had fled from Congo to Burundi after being accused by the Bantus of supporting two rebellions against the Congolese dictators Mobutu and Kabila. Whether this was the motive for the massacre or not, will probably never be known. A subsequent UN investigation was unable "to conclusively identify who authoured, financed, or carried out the killings."

But the blame cannot solely be placed on warring factions. Analysis of the bullet casings on the scene at Gatumba showed that they were not made in DRC or Burundi, but in foreign countries including Bulgaria, China and the former Republic of Yugoslavia.

The same was probably true for the guns that fired those bullets. How did these weapons come to be in the hands of civilians prepared to inflict such barbaric cruelty on a group of refugee families?

Given that the South Kivu province of DRC was under a strict UN arms embargo - why was this not monitored and adhered to? Because there is no international record of arms sales, no international regulatory system, we do not know.

The absence of such information makes it difficult to investigate and prosecute this outrageous crime. Without a global regulatory system, it is impossible to control the international movement of the weapons which made this tragedy possible and continues to fuel criminal and political violence in Central Africa.

Killed sleeping twins

There is some hope in sight, however. The UN has taken the first step toward a solution by beginning a process to develop an international Arms Trade Treaty. More than 90 governments have sent their views on such a treaty to the UN Secretary-General, which is an unprecedented display of interest in an arms control attempts. Some governments oppose the idea, but the great majority is clearly in favour of a strong treaty.

An effective Arms Trade Treaty must prohibit the international sales of arms if they are likely to be used to commit serious human rights violations, serious violations of international humanitarian law, or undermine sustainable development. It must be a legally binding treaty, not a voluntary agreement. It must be of universal application, not restricted to certain countries or regions.

The nations which manufactured the bullets that killed the sleeping twins Debora and Aimee will never be held accountable for their part in the supply trail that led to Gatumba, but with a legally binding treaty, one day they might.

The author is a Congolese refugee living in Norway.

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