Saturday, March 5, 2016

Slow Saturday Special: Burundi's Mass Graves

The EUSraeli Empire must want to get rid of the leader.

"Burundi mass graves hold dozens, Amnesty International reports" by Eloge Willy Kaneza and Rodney Muhumuza Associated Press  January 29, 2016

BUJUMBURA, Burundi — Satellite images, video footage and witness accounts show that dozens of people allegedly killed by Burundian security forces in December were later buried in mass graves, Amnesty International reported Friday.

Maybe it is all true; however, here in AmeriKa we have been subjected to such charges regarding foreign dictators, etc, that later turned out not to be true so forgive me for viewing the war pre$$ charges with skepticism.

The news came as unrest in Burundi escalated with the arrest of 17 people in a security sweep, including two foreign journalists who were released later Friday. 

So? 

Then they would be no different than Bahrain, Israel, or Missouri.

The rights group reported five possible mass graves in the Buringa area on the outskirts of the capital, Bujumbura, which has been wracked by violence as the security forces go into neighborhoods seen as opposition strongholds.

Wait a minute! 

Now it's "possible" mass graves? 

Two journalists on assignment for the French newspaper Le Monde were among 17 people swept up in a military operation Thursday, said Moise Nkurunziza, a deputy spokesman for Burundian police.

Are you sure they were journalists?

Journalists Jean-Philippe Remy of France and British photographer Philip Edward Moore were released on Friday afternoon, Le Monde said.

France, which had called on Burundian authorities to free the journalists, suspended its security defense cooperation activities in Burundi late Friday.

Witnesses described how police and local officials scoured Nyakabiga and other neighborhoods in Bujumbura to retrieve the bodies of those who were killed late last year and took them to undisclosed locations, according to Amnesty International.

‘‘The imagery, dating from late December and early January, shows disturbed earth consistent with witness accounts. Witnesses told Amnesty International that the graves were dug on the afternoon of Dec. 11, in the immediate aftermath of the bloodiest day of Burundi’s escalating crisis,’’ the group said.

Yeah, well, they lied about Serbs doing it and ever since.... sigh.

Earlier this month, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein also called for an urgent investigation into the alleged existence of mass graves following the violence in December. Zeid said the ‘‘increasing number of enforced disappearances, coupled with allegations of secret detention facilities and mass graves is extremely alarming.’’

I'm sitting here thinking of the millions murdered by the U.S. war machine over the last 15 years in so many places and nations (not to mention Israeli oppression against Palestinians) and wondering why are they picking on this African tinpot.

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Friday the reports of mass graves ‘‘underscore the futility of trying to cover up such crimes. Perpetrators of atrocities in Burundi must realize that the international community is watching and those responsible for such horrors will be brought to account.’’

Finally, some light on the subject

I think they have set a record for most uses of the term mass graves in one article.

Burundi’s government has dismissed these allegations, saying they are based on false information supplied by the regime’s opponents.

Oh, western authorities and their mouthpiece pre$$ would never give us that.

In coordinated attacks, gunmen stormed three military installations in Burundi on Dec. 11. The next day, 28 people were found shot dead in three Bujumbura neighborhoods. An witness told The Associated Press that some of the dead had their hands tied behind their backs. Another witness blamed government security forces, saying they went after the victims in door-to-door searches.

President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek re-election to a third term last April touched off street protests that led to a failed coup in May and a rebellion that has left the central African country on the brink of civil war.

 That is the standard playbook for a CIA destabilization campaign. 

So what did Nkurunziza do wrong?

The Burundian government has rejected the proposed deployment of African Union peacekeepers in Burundi, saying they will be treated as an invading force.

And the AU is simply the U.N.'s African branch office, so....

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I'm told the country is crashing into civil war:

"African Union OK’s peacekeeper mission to deteriorating Burundi" by Elias Meseret Associated Press  December 19, 2015

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The African Union on Friday authorized sending 5,000 peacekeepers to Burundi to stop deadly unrest there from deteriorating further over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s extended tenure in office.

They are going to stop deadly unrest by creating more deadly unrest.

An African Prevention and Protection Mission will be deployed to Burundi for at least six months and the mission can be extended, the group’s Peace and Security Council said.

The force’s mandate will include protecting civilians under imminent threat in the central African nation and helping to create conditions for holding inter-Burundian dialogue.

Violence in Burundi has been escalating since Nkurunziza was reelected in July for a third term. The move was opposed by many Burundians and the international community, who say it violates the country’s constitutional two-term limit. 

They should have recognized the coup then. 

Eighty-seven people were killed last week when unidentified attackers struck at three military installations. Human rights groups have accused Burundi’s security forces of unjustified killings of people in a counter-insurgency crackdown following the attack. Burundi’s government has insisted its troops acted professionally.

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Related:

"Burundi’s government on Saturday rejected the African Union’s plans to deploy a 5,000-strong peacekeeping force to stop escalating violence triggered by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s extended tenure in office, a government spokesman said. If the African Union sends troops without Burundi’s consent it will be viewed as an attack, said government spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba. Burundi has enough forces to maintain peace, he said. Burundi has been in turmoil since April when Nkurunziza’s candidacy for a third term was announced. The African Union on Friday authorized sending a peacekeeping force to Burundi to stop the political violence.The African Union’s decision was unusual as it did not seek an invitation from Burundi’s government for the peacekeepers."

And therefore, it is an invasion!

"New Burundi rebel group says it aims to oust president" Associated Press  December 24, 2015

KIGALI, Rwanda — Burundi edged closer toward a civil war Thursday with the announcement of the launch of a new rebel group that aims to oust President Pierre Nkurunziza.

I smell CIA!!

A former senior officer in Burundi’s army told The Associated Press that he and other army officers have formed a rebel movement known as the Republican Forces of Burundi to remove Nkurunziza from power.

The new rebel group’s main objective is to protect Burundians who are being killed because they are protesting the violation of the country’s constitution by Nkurunziza who extended his time in power, said Lt. Col. Edouard Nshimirimana, who was in charge of military transmissions and communications before he defected in September.

Burundi has been rocked by turmoil since April when it was announced that Nkurunziza would run for a third term in office. Nkurunziza won elections in July but the violence has since escalated.

I'm sorry, what was that last part?

The rebel force was behind the recent attacks on three military camps, where they captured enough weapons to fight Burundi’s army, said Nshimirimana, who trained at ISCAM, a military school in Burundi, and was commander of the 17 Battalion. 

That's also a good cover for the CIA arming of them. 

Read between the lines, folks. Decode the propaganda pre$$.

At least 87 people were killed in Bujumbura in December when rebels attacked two military barracks in Bujumbura and one in Mujejuru in the Bujumbura Rural province. 

So they weren't civilians, and it was the "good guys" that did that?

More than 400 people have been killed in Burundi and some 220,000 have fled to neighboring countries since April .Violent street protests in opposition to Nkurunziza staying in power boiled over into a failed military coup in May. The leader of the coup, Godefroid Niyombare, is at large but a former defense minister is among 28 officials facing trial for the failed overthrow

What I'm thinking here is the U.S. backed the coup and it failed. Nkurunziza's forces were able to push it back.

The other objective of the rebellion is to protect the Arusha Agreement that limits Burundian presidents to two terms in office, said Nshimirimana. All forces against Nkurunziza are united under the Republican Forces of Burundi, Nshimirimana said.

‘‘We have
no choice and the world is not helping Burundians who are being killed, he said. 

Yeah, except who is doing the killing?

‘‘We are calling on all Burundians who believe in the rule of law to join us,’’ Nshimirimana said, adding that many soldiers of various ranks who are suspected of opposing Nkurunziza’s third term in office, have been harassed, arrested and in some cases killed by members of security services.

The Arusha Agreement ended Burundi’s 13-year civil war 10 years ago and integrated former Hutu rebels into the Tutsi-dominated army to create a more ethnically balanced force.

‘‘The Arusha Agreement was the solution to Burundi’s political problems. Now that it has collapsed, the war is inevitable,’’ Nshimirimana told AP.

The Arusha Agreement introduced power-sharing quotas in the government institutions and military forces, with the objective of protecting the minority Tutsis by giving them a disproportionately large share of power in government. Tutsis make up about 14 percent of Burundi’s 10 million people, while the Hutu make up about 85 percent.

I'm also wondering if ethnic issues are being used as a cover for covert skullduggery like the alleged Muslim split. 

You have to consider the source.

Although Burundi’s
current unrest has been based on political divisions, there is growing international concern that the country threatens to descend into ethnic violence, such as neighboring Rwanda’s 1994 genocide by majority Hutus against the minority Tutsi. 

Another coup you don't see much about anymore.

Burundi’s army, spokesman Col. Gaspard Baratuza, was not immediately available for comment but had earlier said after Nshimirimana’s defection that Burundi had a force of 30,000 army capable of defending the country.

Looks like a little proxy army, doesn't it?

That military is often an instrument the CIA uses to overthrow governments.

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Before we had mass graves we got gang rapes!

"Burundi’s forces are engaging in gang rape, U.N. official says" by Nick Cumming-Bruce New York Times  January 15, 2016

GENEVA — Burundi’s security forces are engaging in gang rape as part of a crackdown on political opponents that has included a sharp rise in torture, killings and disappearances in the past month, the top U.N. human rights official said Friday, sounding an alarm over the increasingly ethnic character of the violence.

If it is all true, I'm sorry and horrified; however, after the babies tossed out of incubators onto floors, the WMDs, and all the rest, it's tough to buy -- especially when they wave the women and children at us.

The charge of sexual violence adds a brutal new twist to a deepening nine-month-old crisis that has put Burundi, a poor, tiny nation in Central Africa, onto the agenda of the U.N. Security Council and the African Union.

Ready to send troops yet?

The United Nations said that at least 439 people, including many critics and people suspected of being opponents of the government, had been killed, and that close to quarter of a million had fled to neighboring countries since President Pierre Nkurunziza decided in April to run for a third term.

Another refugee crisis!

“All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red,” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement released in Geneva. He reported that his office had identified mass graves, including one in a military camp.

“A complete breakdown in law and order is just around the corner,” he added, citing a rise in armed opposition to the government, along with heightened violence between Burundi’s mainly Hutu leaders and its Tutsi population. “This will inevitably end in disaster if the current rapidly deteriorating trajectory continues.”

Seems to be everywhere.

In a bid to halt that trajectory, representatives of the Security Council’s 15 member states will visit Burundi this month after a stop in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to confer with leaders attending an African Union summit meeting that starts on Jan. 23.

The Security Council’s visit comes hard on the heels of a report to the body by the U.N. peacekeeping department, warning that the United Nations did not have enough troops or resources to cope with a civil war or violence “amounting to genocide” in Burundi, and emphasizing the need for political dialogue and the deployment of an African Union mission.

But Nkurunziza brusquely rejected African Union plans to send 5,000 peacekeepers last month, threatening to attack any troops entering the country. At the same time, his security forces responded to an opposition attack on military bases in the capital, Bujumbura, last month, targeting people suspected of being opponents with increasing ferocity, al-Hussein said.

And that rebel group attacking military bases that wasn't part of my print copies?

Police officers and troops, supported by pro-government militia members, had rounded up “considerable numbers” of young men and said that many had been killed, tortured or disappeared into unknown locations, sometimes forcing victims to dig their own graves. 

The imagery™ brought to mind there.

The United Nations documented nine mass graves it said it believed contained at least 100 bodies and recorded at least 130 people killed in December, double the number from the previous month. But human rights officials said they believed the number of deaths to be much higher.

Al-Hussein said his staff had documented 13 cases of sexual violence against women, describing a pattern of events in which security forces entered victims’ houses, separated women from their families and raped them — in some instances, involving multiple attackers. One case involved the reported rape of five women in one house.

One victim reported that her attacker had told her she was paying the price for her Tutsi ethnicity, al-Hussein reported, reinforcing fears that the violent crackdown by the Hutu-led government was increasingly taking on an ethnic character.

He cited testimony from one witness that Tutsis had been systematically killed in one Bujumbura neighborhood while Hutus were spared. Residents of other neighborhoods had reported that arrests mainly targeted the Tutsi population.

The U.N. Human Rights Council voted last month to send an international team to investigate abuses. Three experts appointed by al-Hussein are preparing to leave in 10 days but had yet to receive visas allowing them into the country, said al-Hussein’s spokesman, Rupert Coalville.

You think Nkurunziza will let them in?

As many as a million people were killed in 1994 in Rwanda, Burundi’s neighbor to the north, when members of that country’s Hutu majority slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The United Nations was faulted for an ineffective response to that genocide. Western countries have been closely monitoring the situation in Burundi since last spring.

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Can't keep this guy out:

"UN chief in Burundi to press dialogue as unrest persists" Associated Press  February 22, 2016

BUJUMBURA, Burundi — United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Burundi on Monday to encourage dialogue between the government and its opponents amid violent unrest.

Ban was welcomed at the Bujumbura airport by Vice President Gaston Sindimwo and hundreds of people lined the streets to get a glimpse of the UN chief.

Ban met with President Pierre Nkurunziza and other politicians, along with leaders of opposition groups, pressing them to end the bloodshed.

Gun and grenade attacks continue to plague Burundi, especially the capital, Bujumbura, as Nkurunziza’s supporters and opponents target each other.

Three people were killed in gun and grenade attacks Sunday in Bujumbura and a fourth person was killed in a blast on Monday, deputy police spokesman Moise Nkurunziza said. Another blast happened in the nearby town of Kamenge, officials said.

Burundi’s violence stems from Nkurunziza’s decision last April to seek a third term, which he won.

A new rebel movement has vowed to oust Nkurunziza from power by force.

Ban’s visit follows that of members of the UN Security Council in January to press negotiations between Nkurunziza and his opponents. Nkurunziza insists he cannot negotiate with his opponents in exile, who have united under a coalition called CNARED. Nkurunziza accuses its members of being behind a failed coup attempt last May.

Ban should ask Nkurunziza to allow independent experts to investigate rights abuses and the allegation of mass graves, Leonard Nyangoma, chairman of CNARED, said by phone.

‘‘There must be unconditional dialogue and this is what Ban Ki-moon should tell Nkurunziza,’’ Nyangoma said.

More than 400 people have been killed in Burundi’s unrest, and more than 200,000 Burundians have fled to neighboring countries, mostly to Rwanda, according to the UN.

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"Rights group reports deepening violence in Burundi" New York Times  February 25, 2016

NAIROBI, Kenya — Security forces and their allies in Burundi have beaten people with rocks, bricks, gun butts and iron bars; they have abducted suspects and extorted money for holding them; and they have buried victims in mass graves, a leading human rights group said Thursday.

According to a report from Human Rights Watch, the group that made the claims, the violence is deepening and becoming more sinister in Burundi, a small Central African country that has been embroiled in a political crisis for nearly a year.

AI and HRW are Jewish-backed groups, which is why they are often cited in the agenda-pushing paper.

“Government forces and the ruling party are treating suspected opponents with extreme cruelty and viciousness,” said Daniel Bekele, the executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch said that it had recently interviewed more than 60 people in Bujumbura, the capital, and that the findings pointed to “an alarming new pattern of abductions and possible disappearances.”

The government in Burundi has denied targeting innocent civilians and has said that the only people who have been detained or killed have been “enemies.” At the same time, opposition forces have been waging their own war, attacking government bases and killing supporters of the governing party.

The U.N. and pre$$ don't seem too concerned about that second group, do they?

Burundi erupted in protests and violence last spring, when its president, Pierre Nkurunziza, decided to run for a third term, a move that opponents said violated constitutional term limits.

That is where the print copy ended it.

Nkurunziza disagreed, and later he won an election that Western observers said was deeply flawed.

Aren't they all? 

Have you seen the one over here?

Like neighboring Rwanda, Burundi has been haunted by a history of bloodshed between its two largest ethnic groups, the Tutsis and the Hutus.

Recently, the violence has become more ethnic-based and potentially explosive, witnesses said.

Burundi’s government is led primarily by Hutus. Many of the recent victims, who even include cadets at the government military academy, have been Tutsis. 

Ignore the centuries of intermarriage between the two.

The United States and European countries have imposed sanctions on several Burundian officials in an effort to prevent more atrocities, to little effect.

This week, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, visited Bujumbura, where he met with Nkurunziza, who agreed to release 2,000 prisoners.

On Thursday, several African leaders, including South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, traveled to Burundi to press Nkurunziza to negotiate with the opposition. 

He has his own problems.

In the past, Nkurunziza has said that he is open to dialogue, but he has made few concessions. The African Union has threatened to send a well-armed peacekeeping force to re-establish order in Bujumbura, a proposal that Nkurunziza has also opposed.

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RelatedAn icon of peace in Burundi turns to war

Globe is calling it a coup, too.

NDU: Samantha Power’s squandered moral authority

She wasn't sufficiently bloodthirsty about going into Syria.