Burundi: the turmoil of Rwasa
The Burundian Minister of Internal Affairs Martin Niteretse confirmed on Monday the conclusions of the extraordinary congress which placed Nestor Girukwishaka at the head of the CNL party on March 10. The congress also ousted the traditional CNL leader, Agathon Rwasa, who still considers himself the leader of the first political opposition group in Burundi. But Mr. Girukwishaka is aware of one thing: in the eyes of Burundian law, he is the CNL boss. He reassures Rwasa that he will not be kicked out of his party but that he is now considered a simple activist. INFO SOS Médias Burundi
According to Nestor Girukwishaka, Rwasa will not be sidelined even if Ngozi’s congress removed him from his position as CNL leader.
“What we plan to do with him (Rwasa), he campaigned for the CNL, he is still a CNL activist, I think he is always welcome as a CNL activist.
What happened is just a choice to change the leadership at the higher level, but it is not a change to exclude Rwasa from the party. If he wants, he is always there, he is always welcome as a party activist, like the rest of us have also been party activists…And when we lead a cause, we fight for it until we win. We do not only fight for a cause to be at the head of the activists, we fight for a cause to make it triumph whether we are an activist or a leader,” explains the new CNL leader boss.
Dissidents to Rwasa?
We were not loyal to him, we are loyal to the party, we are still loyal to the party, even today, the activists are still loyal to the CNL. They are not loyal to the new elected official or the former elected official, no, continues Nestor Girukwishaka.
Rwasa failed to realize his own vision?
According to Mr. Girukwishaka, Agathon Rwasa failed to realize his own vision.
“He had his vision, he is certainly a visionary. He had a vision but today, this vision, he was not able to realize it because he was not able to reunify the activists, which left them pushed to want to change leadership,” he says.
2025 Elections
According to Agathon Rwasa, the 2025 legislative elections are impossible without CNL. But the new team does not agree as it believes “this time it was not the CNDD-FDD which disrupted Rwasa’s party but it was the members of the political bureau who noticed these failings and who said to themselves ‘we are not going to lose the party, we are not going to let the party fall into the abyss. We must do everything to revitalize it.”
Rwasa does not intend to disarm and above all create another political party
“I consider that it is not time to create other political parties. We currently have 35 political parties in Burundi, but look at it, the political space is closed for everyone. And most of these political parties are there to endorse everything that those in power commit against the will of the people. So should we still continue to deceive the public that we are in a democracy when it is not one”, deplores the former Hutu rebel leader.
According to Mr. Rwasa, the CNDD-FDD regime was not able to assume the functions entrusted to it by the Burundian people, and accept that the Burundians decide for themselves freely who to lead them, through free elections, democracy and transparency.
https://www.sosmediasburundi.org/2024/03/10/burundi-le-pouvoir-aide-le-cnl-a-se-fendre-ce-qui-ne-fait-pas-peur-a-son- leader-agathon-rwasa/
Rescue
“We ask that the entire sub-regional and international community stand up as one man to put all their weight behind this regime which is increasingly becoming an apparently outlaw regime,” concludes Rwasa, who still considers himself CNL leader.
