The Burundi army said on Tuesday it regretted the massacre of 173 mainly civilians in the war-torn central African state this month, but regarded the matter as an isolated incident.
”Military investigations have established that errors of judgment occurred and a judicial enquiry has opened to identify the nature of the faults committed and the exact responsibility of those concerned,” a military representative told a press conference.
Colonel Augustin Nzabampema said the army regretted the incident at Itaba in the province of Gitega, the largest civilian massacre in two years in a civil war that has already claimed more than a quarter million mostly civilian lives since 1993.
”It is an isolated incident, so no one should try and hold the entire security forces responsible for it,” he said.
The government insisted on Sunday that rebels were at least partly to blame for the massacre of the 173 after admitting to the killings last week.
The statement categorically denied a report that the Burundian army had admitted killing 173 people.
It confirmed that 173 civilians were killed ”during clashes between security forces and rebels of the FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy)” but said preliminary investigations had not determined the exact circumstances of the killings or established responsibilities.
Nzabampema said last Thursday that ”through complicity or because they had been taken hostage by the FDD, civilians were shot by elements of the army on the hills of Kanyonga and Kagoma during clashes that day.”
He said ”173 people were shot by army elements,” adding however that the FDD bore ”full and entire responsibility for all the civilians who died.”
A preliminary report by a joint government and army investigation, also received on Sunday, said the high number of dead was due both to a lack of discernment on the part of the army and the ”behavior of the (local) people”.
It said the FDD had told residents in the area that the hills had been assigned to the rebels as cantonment areas under a peace accord, which may explain why the people did not leave the area so as not to be confused with rebels facing army operations.
Even if it is ”difficult to tell the rebels from people taken hostage or as human shields, the security forces could have limited the losses if they had more discernment in the conduct of the operation,” the text said. – Sapa-AFP