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Burundi's
President Pierre Nkurunziza delivers a speech after being sworn-in for a
controversial third term in power, at the Congress Palace in Kigobe district,
Bujumbura on August 20, 2015 ©Landry Nshimye (AFP)
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Inflammatory language and
divisive rhetoric: Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza's determination to end
months of protest and opposition to his rule has sparked deep concern among
analysts, diplomats and international powers. With almost daily battles between gunmen
and security forces, Nkurunziza this week issued an ultimatum to gunmen to lay
down their weapons by Saturday night.
Tensions
are rising, partly driven by government speeches loaded with
"dangerous" and "war-like" rhetoric with ethnic overtones,
said a Burundian academic.
Burundi
was slowly getting back on track after its 1993-2006 civil war, which killed
300,000 people. Then,
the battlefields were green hills and farmlands where rebels from the majority
Hutu people clashed with an army dominated by the minority Tutsi.
