The United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution to create a mixed truth commission and a special court to prosecute war crimes and human-rights violations during decades of civil war in Burundi. The country’s Minister of Justice, Didace Kiganahe, welcomed the adoption of resolution 1606 at the United Nations headquarters in New York this week.
Once operational, the truth commission and the special chamber would fall under Burundi’s judicial system. Three international and two Burundian commissioners will investigate killings that have taken place in the country since independence in 1962 through 2000 when Burundian parties signed the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Accord.
The commission was intended to be operational in September but Kiganahe requested more time to allow the new government to take stock of the situation following presidential elections on August 19.
The commission and special court will classify the types of crimes and identify perpetrators.
Kiganahe said those who sought forgiveness would be accorded a chance to defend themselves.
The commission’s findings would help the special chamber, also three international and two Burundian judges, to prosecute crimes committed in 1972 when the minority Tutsi massacred Hutus and in 1993 when the majority Hutu killed Tutsis. The 1993 deaths followed the assassination of the first democratically elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye.
Kiganahe said the presence of international commissioners and judges would lend fairness to the conclusions of the truth commission and to the special chamber for both the Hutu and Tutsi.
However, the chairperson of the Action Contre le Genocide (Action Against Genocide or AC Genocide), Venant Bamboneyeho said neither the commission nor the chamber would be helpful. “That special chamber has not been created anywhere else, why will it work for Burundi?”
AC Genocide has made several appeals to the UN to set up an international judicial commission of inquiry before the holding of general elections in Burundi to ensure that those implicated did not take part in the polls.
The Arusha peace accord signed in 2000 provided for the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission and an international judicial commission of inquiry.