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Civil rights in the small
Great Lakes nation, they say, are on the decline -- sacrificed at the altar of
President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial ambition to defy a two-term limit
and stay in power for another five years ©Francois Guillot (AFP)
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As tensions mount in the
central African nation of Burundi ahead of presidential elections, journalists
and activists say they are paying an increasingly heavy price as standard
bearers for free speech.
Civil rights in the small
Great Lakes nation, they say, are on the decline -- sacrificed at the altar of
President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial ambition to defy a two-term limit
and stay in power for another five years.
Local and international media report:
There are allegations of
widespread harassment and threats of violence, and even talk of a hit-list
containing the names of opposition figures, civil society activists and
journalists to be eliminated before parliamentary polls in May and the
presidential election in June.
High-profile arrests have
already been made: human rights defender Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa was detained
last May after reporting that Nkurunziza's ruling party, the CNDD-FDD, was
arming its youth wing and training them in the jungles of neighbouring
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Bob Rugurika, director of
the popular independent African Public Radio (RPA), was also arrested in
January after implicating intelligence officials in the recent murders of
Italian nuns.
"These are the best
known cases, but there are many other cases of activists who are constantly
harassed, intimidated by high-ranking members of the authorities, who receive
threatening phone calls or summonses," explained Carina Tersakian of the
global watchdog Human Rights Watch.
"There is a vibrant
civil society here in Burundi that is an asset for the country, but the
government is taking it very badly," she said. "The same goes for the
media."
Burundi's government
fiercely denies the allegations, yet at the same time makes no secret of its
disdain of a section of the media and non-governmental organisations who are
seen as political opponents in all but name.
"Burundian civil
society is made up of more than 6,000 organisations. The problem is with a few
associations and a few individuals who wear the cap of civil society, but who
use that to attack the government," said Willy Nyamitwe, a communications
advisor to the president.
- On the frontline -
Radio boss Rugurika,
whose release from jail in February sparked a major public outpouring of
support that clearly rattled the authorities, said the government was simply
trying to "silence any voice of dissent".
Since his radio station
started, he explained, "there have been four different regimes of three or
four different presidents, and each has labelled us as being close to the
opposition."
The situation today for
civil society groups, however, appears to be all the more tense given that Burundi's
main opposition parties boycotted the last elections in 2010 over allegations
of fraud, leaving themselves excluded from the official debate.
"We practically
ended up on the frontline, over-exposed in relation to the authorities, and in
a permanent state of tension," explained Innocent Muhozi, president of
Burundi's Press Observatory, a media rights group.
Burundi's media has paid
a high price for being outspoken in its denunciation of alleged extrajudicial
killings, the plundering of the impoverished country's wealth by corrupt
politicians or attacks on freedom of expression.
But Muhozi said the
determination to speak out remained steadfast.
Burundi is still
recovering from a brutal 13-year-long civil war that ended in 2006, and is part
of a region beset by genocide and rebellion. Activists insist they are
determined to oppose the president's bid for a third term -- widely seen as a
move that could plunge the country back into chaos.
"People have come to
say that it is possible to resist," Muhozi said.
On the streets of
Bujumbura, the message does not appear to be falling on deaf ears: at midday,
the time of RPA's main news bulletin, many listened closely to the station's
broadcasts.
"It's an important
radio station," said Abdul Teddy Ntunzwenimana, a 33-year-old motorcycle
taxi rider. "I listen to it everyday. I like it because it tells the
truth."
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