“On the afternoon of Tuesday 24 September 2024, at around 5 p.m., two lifeless bodies of young men in their thirties were discovered by farmers on transversal roads 11 and 12 of the Rusiga hill, in the commune of Rugombo of the Cibitoke province (north-west Burundi), some 500 metres from the Rusizi river separating Burundi from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to witnesses to the macabre discovery, the bodies of these young men had been decapitated and were lying in a pool of still-fresh blood. According to eyewitnesses, the bodies of the young men were dumped there by agents of the National Intelligence Service (SNR), who claimed to have seen the vehicle of the head of the SNR in Cibitoke province, police colonel Félix Havyarimana, circulating in the area on the night of 23 to 24 September 2024, and suspected him of involvement in the double murder. The two bodies were buried towards nightfall on the same day, on the orders of the administrator of the Rugombo commune” (SOS-TORTURE BURUNDI REPORT NO. 459 PUBLISHED ON 29 SEPTEMBER 2024, 29.09.2024).
The one that wonders what the meaning of the “code of silence” means. Well, the dead doesn’t speak and the CNDD-FDD knows this. That’s why they are acting and ordering things in this fashion. Life isn’t valued in Burundi. Not under the totalitarian and authoritarian reign of President Évariste Ndayishimiye.
The reports of finding bodies abandoned in the Province of Cibitoke isn’t anything new. It is now common practice and part of how the authorities are operating. This is who the CNDD-FDD are and what they do.
They are apparently behind it and are doing this for reasons to stay in power. That’s why people are singled out and taken out. They stopped and silenced. So that these people aren’t able to speak or say what is wrong. Neither are there any sort of justice or justification for doing so.
President Ndayishimiye is acknowledging it and allowing it too to happen. He is appointing and keeping violent men around him. If it wasn’t for the use of force and lethal means to send a message.
The ones believing the good nature or the possibility of sincere justice here is wrong. The ones who caught the fire and got capture. They are forever lost, and their stories won’t be told. Only mere reflections of their demise. These young men were taken out as a sign and as a message to others. That they should follow the “code” and be loyal to the state. If they trespass or go against it. They can end up where they are, and no one will really know how.
That’s the sort of sinister and horrific ways the CNDD-FDD is ruling the nation. This is who President Ndayishimiye really is and how he wants people to salute his government. Because they are doing it systematically and with a purpose.
These sorts of extra-judicial killings won’t stop anytime soon. Especially, when we know who the Head of State and they are doing this on the regular. It isn’t a one of case. This is a whole system, and the authorities are ordered to do so. That’s why more lives will be taken, and this will not cease to stop. Peace.
MinBane 