Burundi

Burundi’s ongoing political instability highlights the stark divide between global conflict prevention rhetoric and practice.   By Priyal Singh for ISS TODAY.  First published by ISS Today • Since Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a third term in early 2015, political instability across the country has tested the limits of global conflict prevention responses. This instability has included a failed coup d’état, violent clashes between government and opposition forces, increasing suppressionof the media and civil society, as well as targeted assassinations. The violence has resulted in more than 400,000 Burundians fleeing to neighbouring states and over 55,000 internally displaced, amid allegations of serious human rights violations in the country. Burundi’s instability, however, appears not to feature the central elements or drivers generally associated with the conflicts of other countries. The presence of transnational organised criminal syndicates has not featured prominently, nor have the influence or...

  • The big – not great – powers of the world have embassies everywhere, plenty of intelligence services, special forces on the ground and satellites in space. They can even hit and kill individuals they don’t like. They can intervene here and there and everywhere – particularly if they have economic or strategic interests or their own nationals are in danger. These very weeks they can squander incredible sums of taxpayers’ money on new nukes and huge paranoia-based military exercises in a Europe – to which over a million refugees come because these big – not great – powers have contributed to the destruction of their houses, villages, life opportunities, whole countries and cultures. So it’s amazing what the big ones can do. It would be impressive if it wasn’t so destructive and self-defeating. Again and again. The only things they don’t seem capable of, however, is to: a)...

  Via africanindy.com December 15, 2017 • The Burundi president, whose re-election in 2015 triggered a political and economic crisis, said on national television yesterday that the country was sovereign and that changing its constitution was part of its sovereignty. He warned all those who wanted to challenge the constitutional changes that they would face hardship, adding that it was God’s plan. In power since 2005 after a decade of civil war, Nkurunziza’s re-election was criticised as illegal and led to killings and more than 400000 refugees fleeing the country, triggering a Great Lakes humanitarian crisis. Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader, announced this plan in Bugendana district, in front of several allies and security forces, who gathered for the event. If the constitution is amended, Nkurunziza will be allowed to stay in power until 2034, and his presidential terms will last seven years. Read more… Jan Oberg comments: Oh God,...

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution strongly condemning the escalating violence in Burundi. It paves the way for the UN to send in thousands of blue-helmeted peacekeepers. The resolution, which was passed unanimously, condemns the wave of killings, arrests and human rights violations. It requests that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reports within 15 days – i.e. on Friday the 27th – on options for increasing the UN presence in Burundi. There are fears of a Rwandan-style genocide in Burundi, which like Rwanda has a long history of tribal distrust and, on occasion, hatred, although there are many intermarriages. At least 240 people have been killed there since protests began in April. Since independence from Belgium in 1962 it has been plagued by tension between the dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. The ethnic violence sparked off in 1994 made Burundi

Lund, Sweden, September 5, 2015 Updated September 5 and our apologies if you’ve received this before. We want to catch all and miss no one over all these years. Dear friend! We are happy to invite you to the TFF 30th Anniversary Benefit Event ! September 11-12, 2015 Live Lectures by videostream Exciting lectures on world affairs and peace over two days – See program below. This is not an invitation to visit the foundation in person. It is an online, live video streamed event that you will be able to follow from anywhere in the world Here is the link and it’ll also be shown via Facebook, Twitter and on our website. And all the lectures will be available later as videos on our own video channels. Open House at the foundation Saturday September 12 at 14:00-17:00 It’s at Vegagatan 25 in Lund, Sweden – deadline for your registration...

. We think that it’s 30th Anniversary is a fitting occasion to reflect on what has happened in the big world and in our lives with the foundation. It is also a piece of Lund’s research history in general and of peace research and education in particular. Part 2 Weak aspects of TFF • Being outside many networks and institutions – it has become more and more difficult to influence the world if you are small, independent and don’t accept governmental and corporate funds. • A perception that the interest/commitment of TFF is out of sync with the sentiments of times, of the Zeitgeist. In spite of that we maintain the fundamental belief that peace is essential and that we can forget about the rest if major wars or nuclear exchanges take place. • Too ‘academic’/theoretical to forge deeper, permanent links with public opinion and movements. • Too ‘radical’ or...

. We think that it’s 30th Anniversary is a fitting occasion to reflect on what has happened in the big world and in our lives with the foundation. It is also a piece of Lund’s research history in general and of peace research and education in particular. Motivation The 1980s was a decade of gross changes in Europe, the struggle against nuclear weapons in particular. Lund University was predominantly about education and single research projects – while TFF could be more of an experimental playground. We wanted to do truly free research and not negotiate with higher levels at, say, the university what to do where, in which countries to work and what to say to the media. Peace has always been controversial and there were – and remain – enough examples of places that become ‘mainstream’ and routine – rather than experimental and radically ’alternative.’ What we did not...

By Jan Oberg The elections taking place in Burundi are no elections. The African Union, the European Union, NATO, BRICS and everybody else must know that by now. They are all turning their heads, pretending they just don’t see. When it comes to Burundi, the much celebrated Western concern about human rights and democracy is conventiently put aside. However, since April developments in Burundi have taken only one direction: towards dictatorship and civil war and, in the worst of cases, a new genocide. If Burundi avoids that it’ll be by miracle and I shall be happy beyond words to be proven wrong. Had this country had oil, important minerals or a significant strategic position – or had Burundi been situated in Europe – I am in no doubt that NATO countries would have conducted a “humanitarian” intervention already. Now when a genuine humanitarian intervention is urgently needed to stop the...

/04/tff-pressinfo-319-burundi-early-warning-and-violence-prevention/”>PressInfo 319 was an early warning. PressInfo 320 dealt with some hopes and possible outcomes – in which a coup d’etat was predicted. However, neither hopes nor denials make a policy and certainly don’t save lives. The international so-called community’s response so far has, no exception, been woefully inefficient. The African Union which ought to have action capacity and serve as mediator came out with the usual diplomatic appeals to all sides about showing restraint (echoing an equally lame UN Secretary-General). Incredibly, it condemned only the coup makers but not the massive brutality with which Burundi’s political and military leadership have attacked every citizen-democratic protest the last weeks – protest against the President’s arrogant violation of both the Arusha agreements and the Burundian constitution. The UN Security Council at least “condemned both those who facilitate violence of any kind against civilians and those who seek to seize power by unlawful...

/10/janoberg.jpg”>[/caption] /05/tff-pressinfo-320-what-hopes-for-burundi-now/”>See also TFF PressInfo 320. The world’s leading countries are busy with ongoing conflicts and wars in areas of strategic importance to them. Organisations that work with humanitarian issues and post-war healing have exhausted their capacities long ago. It’s repair work but it must be done. So there is hardly any capacity in the world to do what would be much more productive: Prevention of violence (yes, not of conflict but of violence). For decades there has been talk of early warning – but if it works at all, there is little or no early listening and even less early action. If it all worked as it ought to, the world would have a violence-prevention machinery in place and it would, these very days, plan what to do before a catastrophe descends upon a small, beautiful African country – poor, mal-developed and of no strategic significance to bigger powers....

Book Review Lee Ann Fujii, Killing neighbors: Webs of violence in Rwanda Cornell University Press 2011 Previous research on driving forces of the genocide Questions of intimate mass violence in ethnic killings are especially puzzling for researchers investigating political violence. Various approaches examine reasons for popular participation in the relatively recent genocide in Rwanda which exhibited especially brutal killings of acquaintances such as neighbors by regular villagers. Some of these approaches link ethnic violence with structural violence by looking at cultural and historical particularities that allegedly led to distinct ethnic identities and a society divided along ethnic lines that can be equated with class divisions (Mamdani, 2001). Others focus on the role of the state and the hierarchical organization of Rwandan society as facilitating conditions for mass participation in the genocide (Prunier, 1995). According to Straus who conducted one of the most extensive field studies in post-genocidal Rwanda, these perspectives...