Burundi : light on a manipulated death that continues to claim victims
This May 7, 2015, several demonstrators are on the main street which connects the Chaussée Peuple Murundi and the Boulevard du 28 Novembre passing through the Jabe neighborhood in the Bwiza zone and the Nyakabiga zone in the district of Mukaza, center of the city. from Bujumbura. Demonstrators sing in front of “professional” police officers who only prevent them from crossing a barrier to get to the Boulevard. Demonstrators, mostly young people, chant slogans : “You police officers, your mission is not to kill us, it is not to shoot on sight.” Some journalists are present including an SOS Médias Burundi reporter. The latter worked for two foreign media at the time and Bonesha Fm radio, based in Bujumbura. Suddenly, the crowd rushed towards an entrance to the University of Burundi, Mutanga campus opposite the 9th avenue in the Nyakabiga 3 neighborhood. Between the 11th and 10th avenue, there was a small women’s market. A woman selling vegetables and bananas shouts : “There are strangers here!”
The SOS Médias Burundi reporter is the last to leave Avenue de l’Imprimerie commonly called : Avenue de la mort. Many Hutus were killed there, often burned alive, after the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu elected head of state, in October 1993. Arriving at the top of 10th avenue, he saw two men being dragged by the demonstrators. on the ground or immobilized against a container. In the crowd, he picks up some coded language from the demonstrators who say : “we must kill them, we must take revenge.” They wanted to avenge three demonstrators, including a 16-year-old young man, who had been killed three days before. They were shot when Adolphe Nshimirimana, the former head of the Burundian secret service, and his guard opened fire on demonstrators who had blocked the Boulevard du 28 Novembre while the first lady at the time Denise Nkurunziza was going to use it to return to Kiriri Palace in Bujumbura.
With his colleagues, they approached the leaders of the demonstrators to talk to them about it. But enraged young people don’t even want to listen to their leaders. They begin to slap the two men, throw stones at them and beat them. Except for police officers who enter to “kill”, the police normally remain stationed outside the protesting neighborhoods. These are the soldiers who circulate within the neighborhood. However, these were located a little far away in neighborhood 1 of the zone.
Realizing the danger, Éloge Willy Kaneza and his colleagues try to do everything so that the worst does not happen, delaying the young demonstrators exhausted by two weeks of protests and the isolation of their area. They ask questions of the two men who give often controversial answers. But they agree that they work for a mobile phone company and that they had come in this context. The two were in a ditch along the Mutanga campus fence when they were spotted by the traders. Léonidas Misago had a lot of SIM cards on him. He says : our leader is a Ugandan. I have his phone number. You can call them to confirm. But by changing the SIM cards in his little phone, he can’t find his contact. He is very traumatized. The action repeats and repeats…
Despicable murder
Anger is gaining in the minds of the demonstrators with each passing minute. In the meantime, demonstrator leaders went to alert the military. “Enough!”, shout extremist young men, “Let’s kill him”. Stones were thrown everywhere, the journalists fled as did most of the demonstrators. The author of the article saw a large stone which finished off Leonidas. It crushed his chest. This journalist hid in a household in front of which he was killed. A widow comforts her crying daughter and son. She is shocked and has bad memories.
“These young people don’t know what they are doing. We are going to relive the same situation as that of 1993,” she said. She tries to hold back tears. A few minutes later, a major from the Burundian army arrived with his men. Very angry, he wanted to shoot some young people who remained but restrained himself and ordered everyone to leave the area.
“Handling
Léonidas Misago was cowardly murdered by young people barely out of adolescence. When they noticed he was dead, they even had fun. They went looking for tires, and anything that could catch fire that they could find. They burned them on his corpse. The body will remain at 10th Avenue until nightfall. In the afternoon, the ministers in charge of security, defense, internal affairs and external relations went to Nyakabiga, accompanied by some ambassadors and the army chief. They hesitate. “Who will speak?” Finally, it is the home affairs minister who will talk to the media. Edouard Nduwimana was brief, speaking of a despicable killing and an act that will not remain unpunished as it has been suggested by General Pontien Gaciyubwenge, the then defense minister who agreed with General Prime Niyongabo, army chief and Police General Gabriel Nizigama, the then public security minister.
The ruling party and its supporters took the opportunity to accuse the demonstrators of “Tutsis”, “known for their method of killing by burning people alive”. Pacifique Nininahazwe, a famous Burundian activist, was targeted and accused by name of having ordered this death.
But they never mentioned the second man who was saved by demonstrator leaders at the risk of their lives because some were thrown stones several times and were injured. He died after being evacuated to a hospital in Bujumbura by rescuers from the Burundi Red Cross, according to some sources.
Mr.Nininahazwe is called names even by people who do not know him. We don’t miss it on social media just like in the media.
“He’s a former ‘sans-echec’. He wants to reintroduce the way of killing of ‘sans-echec’,” he says. After the assassination of President Ndadaye, two blocks of young people were created in the capital Bujumbura, the sans-echec in the Tutsi neighborhoods. The Tutsi militia were known for their cruelty in killing by burning their victims alive.
In 2015, Pacifique Nininahazwe denounced the assassination of Léonidas Misago. He has the same position today.
“9 years later, I am still filled with indignation and incomprehension of what happened on May 7, 2015 in Nyakabiga. We were fighting for the dignity of all Burundians, including the Imbonerakure. The same day , I strongly condemned the lynching of Léonidas Misago, a human being, a compatriot, I maintain my message and my solidarity with his family”, indicates the activist now in exile and wanted by the Burundian justice system for this act among other things.
But he opposes the manipulation of “this despicable assassination”.
“That said, I believe there are three important considerations to raise.
First of all, this event was unique at the time of the demonstrations against Nkurunziza’s third term. In no other place have we observed such a phenomenon, despite the horrible and unbearable provocations that the demonstrators had to endure from the police and the Imbonerakure. There is therefore reason to wonder whether the murder of Léonidas Misago was only an accident (a crowd reaction) or whether it had been knowingly prepared by an agency that wanted to taint our demonstration.
Next, it is important to look at the identity of the victim. Léonidas Misago was from the Gahombo district in the province of Kayanza. He resided in a locality in Bubanza and sold phone charging units there. Here, there are two important questions : how did he end up in Nyakabiga on May 7, 2015 and how did the Nyakabiga demonstrators know that he was an Imbonerakure militiaman? In my opinion, there must have been people infiltrated into the demonstration who passed on this information to stir up the anger of the crowd. Let us recall in this regard extremely important information which circulated that day : the victim was allegedly taken by the infamous SNR (National Intelligence Service) officer, Joseph Mathias Niyonzima alias Kazungu. This information was even confirmed in 2016 in a testimony from a former CNDD-FDD executive. According to this framework, Léonidas Misago had gone to the national office of the CNDD-FDD before being transported to Nyakabiga by Kazungu. This executive mentioned a meeting held at the office with the aim of sullying the demonstrations by the murder of an innocent person. For him, the murder of Léonidas Misago was planned.
Finally, I would like to condemn and denounce the political-ethnic exploitation that the CNDD-FDD makes of the lynching of Léonidas Misago. Certainly Léonidas Misago was Hutu, but he was not killed because of his ethnic origin. The demonstrators were Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. One of the demonstrators present at the scene, Célestin Ntakirutimana, was arrested in February 2019 and sentenced in 2020. However, Célestin Ntakirutimana is also Hutu. There is nothing ethnic in the protest against Nkurunziza’s third term, all ethnic groups combined, we demanded respect for the Constitution of the Republic of Burundi and the Arusha Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Burundi “.
“For me, Léonidas Misago is a victim of President Nkurunziza’s third term. His case should not divide us. I demand all light on this heinous crime, just as I do for all the other crimes of the third term”, insists the activist.
First victim
In 2015, a man who lived in Mugoboka, a neighborhood on the outskirts between the city and Bujumbura province, joined the protest against another controversial term of the late President Pierre Nkurunziza. Célestin Ntakirutimana, 30 years old at the time, earned his living by providing paid tricycle transport services. After the failed putsch of May 13, he returned to his district of Gitobe, in the province of Kirundo in the north of the country. Before August of the same year, he was arrested and taken to a judiciary police cell in Kirundo. It is the former intelligence chief, Adolphe Nshimirimana, who decided his release after interrogating him in the presence of the chief manager of the prosecution in the provinces of Ngozi, Muyinga and Kirundo in the northeast. Zealous members of the CNDD-FDD had suspected him of bringing ammunition from neighboring Rwanda and to recruit young people in order to be recruited in armed groups and receive military training. After verification, secret services realized that these were gratuitous accusations. He was released.
In 2019, a friend of Célestin living in Uganda called him and told him that he could earn a better living in this country where Burundians can go without applying for a visa. The former protester ran a bar in his hometown. However, he does not have a passport or pass, the only documents that can allow him to go to Uganda. This is how he leaves for Bujumbura. One weekend in February that year, he was arrested in a bar in Mutanga Sud, a neighborhood of the commercial capital. The suspicions are the same. The Imbonerakure (members of the CNDD-FDD youth league) who arrested him handed him over to police officers who took him through the headquarters of the judicial police in Jabe before taking him to the intelligence cells located not far from the Regina Mundi Cathedral.
“Frankly speaking, I was not tortured during my stay in intelligence. Every time agents started to beat me, Kazungu came to my aid and told them : his case is known in Kirundo, leave him,” recalls the man today in hiding. When he was apprehended by Imbonerakure in civilian clothes, he already had his passport.
On March 6, 2019, he was presented to the press before being sent directly to the central prison of Bujumbura. The man, now 39 years old, was questioned by a magistrate.
“The man who questioned me was on leave. The other magistrates who probably did not have a case to deal with were not authorized to take care of my case. I had to wait,” recalls the concerned. Two telephones and a sum of one hundred euros that an aunt had sent him remained confiscated by the courts.
Célestin testifies to having been held in an isolated cell until the end of 2021.
“Sometimes I could go three days without eating and I was served dough mixed with stones. I developed tuberculosis of the bones and became disabled.”
The man who is disabled until now, begs for mercy from the Head of State.
“My wife married another man during my stay in prison. My five children (between 7 and 15 years old) live like orphans today. My mother is also disabled, she cannot take care of them. “I tried several times to write to the head of state to talk to him about my case, in vain,” he said.
At the end of July 2023, Célestin Ntakirutimana was released as part of a favor granted to detainees whose health had deteriorated miserably. He returned to his native village. But some time later, the manhunt began again. According to sources within the CNDD-FDD party, “his photo was shared in WhatsApp groups in all provinces to especially alert the Imbonerakure so that they arrest him when they see him.”
“He put us in mourning,” said a message accompanying his photo, say activists from the former Hutu rebellion.
Fearing for his safety, he fled and believes that “I am the victim of the manipulation of a despicable assassination”.
On March 6, Pierre Nkurikiye, a spokesperson for the Burundian police, told the media that “Célestin recognized and confessed to all the charges against him.” That is to say, having participated in the assassination of Léonidas Misago, in the action of killing him alive, according to the Burundian authorities.
“I had never seen Pierre Nkurikiye in my life. It was on that day that I saw him for the first and last time. When I was taken out of my cell, I was ordered not to to speak to anyone, not to answer any questions, and journalists came to film I had handcuffs on my hands. Célestin learned of the sins that the Burundian authorities committed against him when he arrived at the prison.
“Should I be treated as a pariah simply for having participated in the demonstrations? I know many CNDD-FDD activists with whom we were together in the demonstrations but who even have positions of responsibility now”, questions the man on the run.
“I regret having witnessed, in complete helplessness, the assassination of Léonidas Misago, a presumed innocent person, instead of bringing him to justice, if there were any charges. Objecting to manipulation, Misago was not burned alive. Instead, he was seized by a large crowd of demonstrators, beaten to death with whips and stone throwing before being burned to death. That his soul rests in peace. Intolerance and popular justice will never be solutions to the diverging socio-political views in Burundi. Only the truth, respect for others and diverse opinions, fair and independent justice are likely to establish democracy and peaceful cohabitation among Burundians,” said a witness to the scene who requested anonymity for reasons of security reasons.
Other victims
Seven officials are in prison. They are accused of having granted conditional release to a prisoner “prosecuted for very serious crimes”. Gordosie Minani, advisor to the Minister in charge of Justice, Oscar Barankariza and Clovis Cimpaye, advisors to the Ministry of Justice, the head of the legal section at Mpimba central prison Odette Ndayisenga, Léoncie Mbonyingingo and Rachelle Ntibindaba, then assigned to the same section as well as the former director of this prison Serges Nibigira alias Gikona have been in detention since the beginning of last March. Gordosie Minani was appointed in July 2023 to lead a commission which should analyze the cases of prisoners already sentenced in order to prepare a list of prisoner candidates for parole.
While waiting to know their fate, Célestin has one and only wish.
“Let me live in peace in Burundi so that I can raise my children. Even if I am disabled, I could ask friends for help.”
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