Tutu admits that the TRC failed to meet the needs of Apartheid victims

TRC failed to meet needs of victims - Tutu

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is dismayed at the "ungenerous reparations" to victims of apartheid who appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and has appealed to white businesses to contribute funding.

On Thursday night Tutu addressed an audience of TRC participants and local and foreign dignitaries, politicians, academics and media in the cavernous Whale Well in the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town on the TRC's 10th anniversary.

His co-speaker and former TRC commissioner Yasmin Sooka said it was time for former president FW de Klerk to come forward and admit the apartheid state had engaged in criminality.

Tutu and Sooka both suggested the white business community contribute financially, as they had "profiteered while propping up the apartheid state".

The dialogue was led by talk show host Tim Modise.
Former TRC deputy chairperson Alex Boraine was also to participate, but was ill at home with prostate cancer.

The audience heard harrowing accounts by Nohle Mohapi, the TRC's first witness, and Thembisa Simelela, sister of uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) member Nokuthula Simelela, who disappeared after two months of torture.

Mohapi spoke about the pain of her MK husband's disappearance in 1976 and the frustration at never having received feedback after testifying at the TRC. Tutu apologised to her on the TRC's behalf.

Simelela spoke of her aged mother suffering nervous breakdowns and still being unable to cope with her sister's disappearance in 1983.

Tutu said "South Africans are tremendous people" and the successes of the TRC had set an international benchmark in dealing with post-conflict situations, yet it failed to meet the needs of victims or reveal the full truth in many cases.

"My own concern is if we'll be able to uncover the evidence (of atrocities). I have my doubts. The apartheid government was very adept at hiding and destroying evidence. Cases go on for a long time and then people are acquitted and I fear it is traumatising for the victims," he said.

"We probably shouldn't have operated as we did. Amnesty was granted with immediate effect. We should have had a budget (for victims) and estimated what they should get, with immediate effect," Tutu added.

"Some people waited five years. They humbled us. Many only wanted a tombstone or money for their child to go to school."

Sooka said the commission "maybe should have focused on community reparations" instead of individuals only.

Click here to support the call for a war crimes trial for Aloys Nzabampema and independent investigation into the UN Burundi corruption scandal
click here to email UN Burundi spokesman Penangnini Toure and ask him about the progress of the corruption investigation allegedly under way

Take action - Fax your MP!
Take action - sign the Gatumba petition

Burundi, human rights, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa

Tanzanian mediation rejected over government's pro-FNL leanings

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=136&art_id=qw1145544300905R131

Bujumbura - South Africa will serve as mediator of peace talks between the government of Burundi and the country's lone remaining rebel group to be held in Tanzania, a senior Burundian official said Thursday.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has offered his nation's services in attempts to broker a resolution to the ongoing conflict between Bujumbura and the National Liberation Forces (FNL), the official said.

"The venue may be Dar es Salaam but mediation will be ensured by the South African facilitator, President Thabo Mbeki, with the help of regional experts," said Hussein Radjabu, the head of Burundi's ruling party.

Radjabu was speaking to reporters on his return from South Africa where he met with Mbeki, whose country has long played a leading role in Burundi's peace process, to discuss plans for the upcoming talks in Tanzania.

It was not immediately clear if Mbeki himself would attend the negotiations or send a senior representative as he did in the past when he gave the Burundi portfolio to then vice president Jacob Zuma.

Radjabu said Mbeki had told him that Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete had asked for South Africa's help in the talks that had been expected to begin earlier this month, but have yet to start.

However, numerous sources familiar with developments said Burundi was wary of Tanzanian mediation because of concerns Tanzanian officials may be too close to the FNL.

The FNL is the only one of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel groups that remain outside the peace process aimed at ending the tiny central African nation's 12-year ethnically driven civil war that has claimed some 300 000 lives.

The group initially refused to recognize the legitimacy of a power-sharing government headed by President Pierre Nkurunziza, himself a former Hutu rebel leader, that was elected last year.

Since then, however, the FNL has split into two groups: one headed by its longtime hardline chief Agathon Rwasa and one led by a former top lieutenant Jean Bosco Sindayigaya, who favors peace talks with Bujumbura.

Rwasa then held out an offer of peace talks but Nkurunziza balked until last month when the rebel leader agreed to unconditional negotiations in Tanzania's commercial capital.

The dates for the talks have never been formally set but many expected them to begin last weekend.

Radjabu said on Thursday that the government negotiating team would leave by the end of the week as long as details still under discussion were worked out. - Sapa-AFP

Click here to support the call for a war crimes trial for Aloys Nzabampema and independent investigation into the UN Burundi corruption scandal
click here to email UN Burundi spokesman Penangnini Toure and ask him about the progress of the corruption investigation allegedly under way

Take action - Fax your MP!
Take action - sign the Gatumba petition

Burundi, human rights, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa

Regional leaders call for sanctions against the FNL, FDLR and LRA

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21146495.htm

BUJUMBURA, April 21 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from Africa's turbulent Great Lakes region on Friday called on the United Nations and African Union to impose sanctions on leaders of rebel armed groups destabilising the area.

Thousands of rebels from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda have taken shelter in largely lawless eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and the central African region has been marred by violence and conflict for years.

"The commission has agreed to ask the African Union commission and United Nations to impose sanctions on identified leaders of rebel groups," Burundi's Foreign Affairs Minister Antoinette Batumubwira said in a joint communique for Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda as well as Burundi.

Batumubwira said the countries, whose ministers met in Burundi's capital, were committed to pursuing disarmament.

"The commission recommitted itself to refusing any support to leaders of armed groups that destabilise neighbouring countries," she said.

Groups mentioned include the Lord Resistance Army in Uganda, known for targeting civilians, mutilating survivors and kidnapping some 25,000 children during its 20-year insurgency.

Its commanders are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The other groups are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which has bases in eastern Congo and refuses to recognise Rwanda's government, and Rwandan Hutu militia Interahamwe, accused of taking part of in Rwanda's 1994 genocide in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

In Burundi, which suffered a 12 year civil war, the Hutu Forces for National Liberation (FNL), which fights sporadically with the Burundian army, was mentioned.

Peace talks between the government and the FNL were due to start this week but failed to get off the ground.

Batumubwira said the ministers had called for a travel ban on FNL leaders and fundraising sanctions.

The group dismissed the demands.

"We have been accused of terrorism, now were are ready to negotiate peace with Burundi' s government," FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana told Reuters. "Now, they say sanctions must be taken against us ... It is meaningless."

[NB - again, Reuters makes no mention of the FNL's persistent attacks on civilians]

Click here to support the call for a war crimes trial for Aloys Nzabampema and independent investigation into the UN Burundi corruption scandal

Take action - Fax your MP!
Take action - sign the Gatumba petition

Burundi, human rights, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa

Burundi: Tanzania is supporting a "terrorist group"

http://allafrica.com/stories/200604180189.html

The fate of the peace tal-ks between the Burundi government and the remaining rebel group, the Force for National Liberation (FNL) scheduled to take place in Dar es Salaam hangs in the balance.

Burundi, which has boycotted the talks, now accuses Tanzania of supporting a "terrorist group."

Since mid-March, the FNL leader Agathon Rwasa and his delegation have been in Dar es Salaam waiting for "unconditional peace negotiations with the Burundi government."

The Burundi government, through its spokesman Karenga Ramadhani, has confirmed that it has received an invitation from Tanzania requesting it to attend the peace negotiations with FNL in Dar es Salaam.

The major reason for not attending the talks, a source from the Burundi government said in Dar es Salaam last week, was the fact that the "invitation had no agenda."

As a result no delegation will be sent to Tanzania for the talks. However, just "an exploratory team to go and listen to the Tanzania government," would

The source said concerns had been raised in relation to the role being played by Tanzania in the whole issue.

"An initiative by countries in the Great Lakes region to bring peace to Burundi, chaired by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, declared the FNL a terrorist organisation, said the source. He added that the Burundi authorities were surprised to hear that Tanzania had offered a platform to FNL leaders.

This was after the FNL killed at least 150 Congolese refugees in Gatumba in August, 2004. Gatumba is near the Burundi-Democratic Republic of Congo border.

Tanzania's Minister for International Co-operation and Foreign Affairs Dr Asha-Rose Migiro was not available for comment.

However, a ministry official told The EastAfrican that the accusations made by Burundi were baseless because Tanzania took over the role of the mediator in the Burundi peace talks when Uganda relinquished that responsibility.

Uganda is no longer a mediator in the Burundi peace talks and according to Burundi government sources, there was nothing for mediation because FNL is illegal, and all parties who took part in the Burundi peace talks had sanctioned that stand.

A recent report by Human Rights Watch says the FNL has continued to use violence to punish civilians who refuse to support them.

At the same time, government forces are accused of continuing to commit "extra-judicial executions of suspected FNL combatants and supporters with impunity."

The report, released in February, further says that the human rights monitors on the United Nations peacekeeping force (United Nations Operation in Burundi-ONUB) say it that government soldiers were suspected of having summarily executed FNL members.

The FNL is a Hutu-extremist group linked to the militia who carried out the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Under Rwasa, the FNL forces have been implicated in a systematic campaign of attacks on civilians, both Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

One of its consistent tactics has been the ambushing of civilian vehicles on the roads around Bujumbura. Most of the FNL victims are often tortured before they are killed. Rwasa assumed leadership of the Burundian rebel group Palipehutu-FNL in 2001 after deposing the group's leader, Cossan Kabura.

The ruling CNDD-FDD was also formed by ethnic Hutu rebel group, but later transformed into a political party. Following a series of CNDD-FDD victories in elections held during June and July 2005, Pierre Nkurunziza was elected unopposed by members of parliament on August 19, 2005 and took office on August 26, 2005.

Click here to support the call for a war crimes trial for Aloys Nzabampema and independent investigation into the UN Burundi corruption scandal
click here to email UN Burundi spokesman Penangnini Toure and ask him about the progress of the corruption investigation allegedly under way

Take action - Fax your MP!
Take action - sign the Gatumba petition

Burundi, human rights, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa

Burundian police attack journalists

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=ENGAFR160042006

Burundi: Journalists and human rights monitors under attack

Press freedom and human rights in Burundi suffered a severe blow yesterday, when around thirty journalists and human rights monitors were held -- and some severely assaulted -- by police officers after a press conference in Kinindo, Bujumbura.

The press conference had been called by the CNDD-FDD parliamentarian Mathias Basabose.

The journalists faced no difficulties in gaining access to the premises when they arrived. Reports state that members of the national police and intelligence services were already present from the start of the conference.

When the conference ended, the police officers asked journalists to hand in their tapes and recording equipment so that the information could be checked. The condition was that anyone who did so would then be able to leave the premises.

The journalists refused to comply with the orders to hand over their equipment. One journalist, Charles Nshimiye, tried to escape to hand his tapes over to his colleagues waiting outside. A police officer allegedly stopped him from leaving and physically assaulted him. According to reports, the police officer then stood back and took aim at Nshimiye with his gun, but was prevented from shooting when his colleagues intervened.

On hearing the news, other journalists started to arrive in order to investigate the reports of the incident taking place. An estimated 50 police officers were stationed outside to seal off the premises. Several journalists were reportedly beaten by police officers with the butts of their Kalashnikov guns or with their truncheons. Chantal Gatore, a journalist for Radio Isanganiro, was beaten up and taken to hospital.

"The use of force exercised by police officers was clearly excessive and tantamount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," said Tawanda Hondora, Acting Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme.

The conference participants were held for more than six hours. Amongst those held were two human rights monitors from Ligue ITEKA.

Amnesty International considers last night’s incident to be an assault on press freedom in Burundi and a violation of the right to freedom of expression as enshrined in international human rights standards, including article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which clearly states that: "Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds“"

"The Burundian press must be allowed to operate freely, independently, without fear of reprisals and with the full and unconditional protection from the Burundian authorities," said Tawanda Hondora, Deputy Director of the Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

"Journalists provide a vital contribution to making society more open, fair and transparent by independently reporting on and examining the activities and performance of the government. They must not be intimidated into silence."

Click here to support the call for a war crimes trial for Aloys Nzabampema and independent investigation into the UN Burundi corruption scandal
click here to email UN Burundi spokesman Penangnini Toure and ask him about the progress of the corruption investigation allegedly under way

Take action - Fax your MP!
Take action - sign the Gatumba petition

Burundi, human rights, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa