A special unit of Burundi’s police arbitrarily detained and tortured civilians last year, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) group said in a report released on Wednesday.
In a 42-page report entitled Every Morning They Beat Me: Police Abuses in Burundi, HRW documented 21 cases of beatings and torture carried out in October 2007 by the Rapid Mobile Intervention Group (GMIR).
”Various victims described to Human Rights Watch how they were arbitrarily arrested, beaten with clubs and batons, subjected to death threats and mock executions, and forced to pay large bribes in exchange for freedom,” HRW said.
The GMIR was dispatched to Rutegama in Burundi’s Muramvya province, east of the capital Bujumbura, to stem surging banditry and curb recruitment by the country’s last rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL).
HRW said the small Central African country’s police force was a motley crew of former rebels, soldiers and gendarmes who were poorly trained.
”But lack of training is compounded by the government’s failure to investigate and prosecute abuses. Only two police officers have been convicted in 59 torture cases filed in the last two years,” the watchdog said.
It urged the government of one of the poorest and most aid-dependent countries in the world to reform its criminal code and bring it up to international standards.
The tiny state is struggling to emerge from 14 years of civil fighting that have left an estimated 300 000 people dead and the economy in tatters.
Fighting recently resumed between government troops and FNL rebels, fuelling fears Burundi could be headed for another round of bloodshed. — Sapa-AFP