Burundi: UN Torture Committee deplores lack of cooperation in torture complaints procedure (21.12.2021)

R.M.’s case is the latest among 14 torture complaints against Burundi that have been examined by the Committee since 2014.

GENEVA, Switzerland, December 21, 2021 – The UN Committee against Torture has deplored Burundi’s lack of cooperation in the individual complaints procedure and its failure to implement the Committee’s decisions in all cases where human rights violations were found.

In its latest decision published today, the Committee found that R.M., a political activist for Mouvement pour la solidarité et la démocratie (MSD), was a victim of torture in 2014 when the Burundian authorities routinely denied public assemblies ahead of the 2015 elections.

In March 2014, R.M. was shot and injured when heavily armed police officers stormed into the MSD meeting that he was attending. He escaped the raid but was arrested and beaten by the police the next day. R.M. also said that during his detention, he was denied necessary medical treatment prescribed by his doctor.

He filed complaints about the acts of torture in Burundi but the authorities did not open any investigation. He then brought his case to the Committee in 2017.

The Committee invited Burundi to submit its comments about R.M.’s complaint on several occasions in 2017, 2019 and 2020 but the State party did not respond.

Based on the evidence provided by the complainant, the Committee determined that Burundi had failed to prevent and investigate R.M.’s torture. In addition, it also found Burundi’s lack of cooperation during the proceeding constituted a clear breach of the State party’s obligations under Article 22 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which allows the Committee to examine individual complaints. Burundi accepted the individual complaints procedure in June 2003, thereby undertaking the international obligation to engage with this procedure.

“We are gravely concerned that Burundi has repeatedly ignored our requests to communicate during the complaint examination. Burundi also failed to cooperate in the follow-up procedure in previous cases where the Committee found violations of the Convention,” said Committee Chair Claude Heller.

“This is a serious violation of the State’s obligations. But most importantly, it deprives torture victims of obtaining redress,” he added.

R.M.’s case is the latest among 14 torture complaints against Burundi that have been examined by the Committee since 2014. The Committee found the State party had violated its obligations to the Convention in all these cases. Burundi, however, provided follow-up information on the measures taken to implement the Committee’s decisions only on one of those decisions.

The Committee urged Burundi to comply with its treaty obligations and to resume dialogue in order to ensure the proper implementation of the Convention. The Committee will continue to review this serious situation during its next session.

Burundi: Commission Nationale Independante des Droits de l’Homme (CNIDH) – Communique relatif a deux de torture signales au SNR (10.12.2021)

Burundi: OLUCOME – Communique de Presse No. 08 – Portant sur la Journee Internationale de lutte contre la Corruption (09.12.2021)

Burundi: Mouvement pour la Solidarite et la Democratie (MSD) – Communique (08.12.2021)

Burundi: Ministere de l’Interieur du Developpement Communautaire et de la Securite Publique – Objet: Autrorisation d’entree et visa d’entree (03.12.2021)

Opinion: Museveni forgot about the Wayland Survey

Coming to the East African oil pipeline and the business opportunities it offers, I first declare that I have never been intoxicated by oil. Uganda discovered petroleum in 2006. It is now 15 years but the oil has not been pumped out of the ground. Yet, the economy of Uganda is growing” (Museveni, 27.11.2021).

As the history lecture and President for Life. A man who often back thousands of years in his speeches. You would think that man could reiterate or recite history correctly. However, that is apparently too much to ask for by President Yoweri Tibuhurwa Kaguta Museveni. The President who has been His Excellency since 1986. This man has no bounds, but when coming to the Lake Albertine Graben and the oil exploitation there. He should know the truth.

If not? People like me have to remind the old fella this. You can try to rewrite history as the last victor. That is what all rulers does and especially when people tend to forget what happened before our own generation. Heck, we are soon forgetting the giant tragedies of the 1990s. Because, they are so many decades behind us.

Today, I am going back nearly 100 years. To a British Fellow and who started his work in East Africa before the 1920s, as he started his surveys from the year of 1919. He started his reports in 1920 about the preliminary findings in Uganda. This is written about the Uganda Journal by B.C. Kino, which was published in 1967. Therefore, Yoweri have to try better, as the survey where they found petroleum or was in 1925, 6 years after Wayland came to the Republic.

In 1925, E.J.Wayland, Director of the Geological Survey of Uganda, carried out a survey which confirmed evidence of hydrocarbons, including oil and gas seeps, in the Albertine Graben (Kashambuzi, 2011). This caught the interest of the British colonial government and Anglo-Persian Oil Company which agreed to a joint venture project to prospect for and produce oil in Uganda in 1926, but the plans were later abandoned during Economic depression of 1929 (Guweddeko, 2000)” (KYOMUGASHO, MIRIAM, “Oil Industry in Uganda: The Socio-economic Effects on the People of Kabaale Village, Hoima, and Bunyoro Region in Uganda” (2016). Dissertations – ALL. 613).

For the ones taking his every word and printing it without questioning it. You could easily be fooled. I cannot fact check everything and neither do I care, as this sort of speeches is reckless propaganda and for the Movement crowds, because nothing is transparent about the oil exploitation or the pipeline transactions either.

We just know there will be issues with the routes of the pipeline, the cost of production and the settlements afterwards. There will be shady dealings and corruptions scandals involved. However, at this point, the resources and the oil/petroleum could easily become an asset for the creditors to seize the day it’s produced. Since the President and the Movement has been such steady lenders for every single development and infrastructure project of the Republic during the last decade or so. Therefore, don’t expect a fun adventure or a fairytale. No, expect a dark sinister tale of depression and disgraceful attitude.

Why? Well, we know the man at the helm and his not honest about anything. He cannot even recite history correctly. Nevertheless, that is just before his time and when they we’re a British Enclave… Peace.

Burundi: Alliance Nationale pour le Retabilssement de la Democratie au Burundi (A.N.R) – Communique de Presse (22.11.2021)

Rwanda: Reseu International des Femmes pour la Democratie et la Paix asbl (RifDP) – Rwanda: Repression contre l’opposition et les medias. Graves Inquietudes pour la securite de Victorie Ingabire Umuhoza (20.10.2021)

Burundi: Mouvement pour la Solidarite et la Democratie (MSD) – Communique (13.10.2021)

Burundi: Commission Nationale Independante des Droits de l’Homme (CNIDH) – Declaration de la CNIDH a la suite de graves violences survenues dans certaines localites de la Mairie et de l’interieur du pays (30.09.2021)