Burundi : authorities ban associations and parents from commemorating the Kibimba massacres and ask them to go and lay wreaths on the tomb of the unknown victims

For the fifth consecutive year, Burundian authorities are preventing AC-Génocide Cirimoso and parents from commemorating the Kibimba massacres. Burundian authorities explain that October 21 is a date reserved for the commemoration of the assassination of the hero of democracy, Melchior Ndadaye, a national hero, according to them. The associations speak of an “attack on the memory of the genocide of the Tutsi victims”.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Since 2020, associations and parents of pupils have not been allowed to go and pay their respects in front of their own as they wish.

The AC-Génocide Cirimoso association wrote to President Neva this year, asking him to get involved, in vain.

But the Ministry of Internal Affairs has always explained this refusal by the fact that the event coincides with the commemoration of the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu to have been elected head of state, assassinated on October 21, 1993.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs speaks of celebration and not commemoration

Pierre Nkurikiye had to answer the question during a public broadcast of spokespersons of state institutions which took place in the town center of the province of Bururi in the south of Burundi, on October 11. Speaking in the national language (Kirundi), he repeated the verb “Guhimbaza or celebrate in English” instead of “commemorate”.

“Regarding Kibimba, no one stopped them from celebrating. What happened is that the people who lost their loved ones want to celebrate on the same date of October 21, which coincides with a national holiday that everyone knows. This risks creating unrest,” explained Pierre Nkurikiye, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Pierre Nkurikiye, spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Affairs (SOS Médias Burundi)

And he continued :”it is abnormal that there is a group of people who are preparing an action on their own while the entire country is organizing an event that is well recognized by the laws of the country.”

Mock the victims’ families

Burundian authorities are calling on the victims’ families and associations campaigning for the recognition of the genocide against the Tutsis to go and lay a wreath on the tomb of the unknown victims.

“[…] Families of the victims were asked to go and lay their wreaths on the monument of the martyrs of democracy, the place where the event is taking place at the national level because there is a tomb reserved for the unknown martyr. But they refused to do so,” insisted Mr. Nkurikiye.

The associations and parents of pupils believe that this is a violation of their rights.

“This is a decision that does not promote reconciliation. Ndadaye was killed by state officials just like these children. People must have the right to commemorate the death of their loved ones,” continues to remind Térence Mushano, vice-president of AC-Génocide Cirimoso. Emmanuel Nkurunziza, secretary general of the association AC-Génocide, Canada branch, for his part finds that “it is an attack on the memory of the genocide of the Tutsi victims.”

In 2020 and 2021, Burundian authorities had, among other things, mentioned health reasons related to Covid-19 and security at this place which is in the birthplace of President Évariste Ndayishimiye who has a residence there.

As a reminder, more than 150 Tutsi pupils from the Kibimba secondary school, in the district of Giheta in the province of Gitega (central Burundi) were gathered in a gas station at Kwibubu on October 21, 1993 before suffering a terrible death. Some were burned alive, others beheaded. This happened following the assassination of the first democratically elected Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye.

Burundi has the same ethnic composition as Rwanda, its northern neighbor where the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis was recognized by the UN.

In Burundi, Hutus and Tutsis are struggling to agree on the qualification of the crimes that took theirs. Tutsis want the 1993 massacres that followed the assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye to be considered “genocide” at a time when Hutus, including a former president and local associations as well as political parties including Ndadaye’s Frodebu, are campaigning tirelessly to label the 1972 killings – which took more Hutus than Tutsis – as “genocide against Hutus”.

In May 2022, President Neva refused to endorse a decision by the National Assembly recognizing the 1972 massacres as “genocide against Hutus in Burundi”, an adoption based on a report from the highly controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR).

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File photo : people at the Kwibubu monument commemorating more than 150 Tutsi pupils killed on October 21, 1993 following the assassination of the first democratically elected Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye (SOS Médias Burundi)