-WHAT  HAPPEND ?-

LES ÉVÉNEMENTS QUI ONT SUIVI L'ASSASSINAT (Rapport S/1996/682)

95. Dans la journée du jeudi 21 octobre, les membres du Gouvernement qui avaient survécu se sont réfugiés dans des ambassades de pays étrangers ou sont entrés dans la clandestinité.

96. Vers 14 heures ce jour-là, un "comité de gestion de la crise" a été constitué au quartier général de l'armée. Cet organe était présidé par François Ngeze, député hutu membre de l'UPRONA et ex-ministre de l'intérieur du gouvernement Buyoya, le lieutenant-colonel Jean Bikomagu, chef d'état-major de l'armée et deux autres lieutenants-colonels, Pascal Simbanduku et Jean-Bosco Daradangwe. Le lieutenant-colonel Sylvestre Ningaba, qui avait été libéré de prison, les a rejoints par la suite. Le Comité a ordonné aux commandants militaires dans les provinces d'arrêter les gouverneurs et de les remplacer, a replacé la gendarmerie sous le commandement de l'armée et a convoqué les dirigeants politiques et les diplomates étrangers pour "examiner les moyens de gérer la crise". À 21 heures, Ngeze, se présentant comme le président d'un fantomatique "Conseil national de salut public", a annoncé un certain nombre de mesures en vue de "gérer la crise", entre autres le remplacement des gouverneurs.

- Election Watch, Volume 4 (1993) Marc F. Plattner and Larry Diamond, Editors  Copyright © 1993 The National Endowment for Democracy and the Johns Hopkins University Press - 
Newly elected president Melchior Ndadaye's Burundi Democratic Front party won 65 seats in the National Assembly in parliamentary voting on June 29. The Unity for National Progress party, the former ruling party, won the legislature's remaining 16 seats. Burundi's first multiparty parliamentary election since independence in 1962 was judged free and fair by international monitors, and marked the end of the longstanding political domination of the majority Hutu ethnic group by the minority Tutsi.

DO YOU REMEMBER 21/10/1993

In Burundi's first free elections in 1993, Buyoya was beaten by Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu who garnered most of the votes of his majority tribe, allowed to vote for the first time. But elements in the Tutsi army refused to accept a Hutu leader and they staged a failed coup in October 1993, assassinating Ndadaye and other top Hutus.

Burundi’s army staged a coup which overthrew President Melchior Ndadaye. Jean Marie Ngedahayo, communication minister and spokesman for the Ndadaye government,telephoned a Reuters correspondent in Uganda from a hiding place in the Burundi capital Bujumbura. He said the pre-dawn coup was led by soldiers from the 2nd parachute battalion but other units apparently backed them. Ngedahayo said the soldiers had arrested Ndadaye, and detained him at Muha barracks on the outskirts of Bujumbura.Ndadaye’s family was reported hiding at the French embassy in the capital.

Burundi army units attacked Burundi’s radio and television station. Rwanan radio reported that ’’extremists hostile to newly- stablished democratic institutions attacked the presidential palace of President Ndadaye (in Bujumbura). ’’They are reported to have at least four armoured tanks. ’’’Another group headed to the Burundi radio station where they sealed it off, the reason why Radio Bujumbura remains silent this morning ,’’ Rwandan radio said. Reporters from neighbouring Rwanda could not get through to Bujumbura by telephone. In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, the Posts and Telecommunications Corporation said telex and telephone communication with Bujumbura had been cut. ’’The situation remains tense in Bujumbura...where heavy gunfire broke out last night from 2 a.m.,’’ the radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, said. A burundi embassy official in Kenya added: ’’Our efforts to communicate with government offices in Bujumbura have failed. We are relying on information being received from Rwanda. It looks like communication with the outside world has been cut.’’

Burundi army forces killed Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye during a coup, Rwanda radio reported. The radio said Ndadaye together with the speaker of parliament Pontien Karibwami, vice-speaker Giles Bimazubiute and vice Prime Minister Bernard Ciza had been executed.

The Burundi National Salvation Committee,set up by military coup leaders, elected civilian Francois Ngeze as head of state. Radio Burundi returned to the air for the first time since the coup, broadcasting military music. ’’The committee late on Thursday elected Francois Ngeze head of state,’’ the radio said. The committee, it added, would draw its membership from the armed forces, political parties, human rights groups and clerics.

Army coup leaders who ended Burundi’s fledgling democracy declared a state of emergency and set up a National Salvation Committee headed by a former interior minister. State-run radio Burundi, monitored by Reuters in the capital of neighbouring Rwanda Friday, said the committee had elected civilian Francois Ngeze as head of state.Ngeze,from the majority Hutu tribe, was interior minister in the government of military ruler Pierre Buyoya, who was defeated by President Melchior Ndadaye in Burundi’s first multiparty elections in June.

(23-10-1993) Exiled Burundi health minister Jean Minani told Belgian radio from Rwanda on Saturday that the Tutsi-dominated Burundi army was committing ethnic genocide against the Hutu tribe since Thursday’s coup.’’It’s genocide in Burundi,’’ Minani told RTBF radio in an interview. Minani said the military was rounding up villagers in trucks, placing the Tutsis in safe areas and then killing the Hutus.Minani said witnesses returning from Burundi had told him of ethnic massacres.

Tutsi paratroopers assassinated Ndadaye on October 21, 1993, abruptly ending the four-month experiment with democracy in the central African state. The predawn coup was led by army chief of staff Colonel Jean Bikomagu and former president Jean Baptiste Bagaza, who was himself overthrown in 1987. The paratroopers arrested Ndadaye and detained him at the Muha barracks on the outskirts of Bujumbura before executing him.

The trial of those accused of assassinating President Melchior Ndadaye and of participation in the attempted coup of 21 October 1993
The trial by the Supreme Court of 79 people accused of assassinating President Ndadaye has moved very slowly. Key defendants remain at liberty. They and others reported to have been implicated in assassination of President Ndadaye and the attempted coup have been appointed to senior positions within the army and government or in business in which they may be able to hinder investigations, intimidate witnesses or carry out further human rights violations. They include the then Minister of Defence, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Ntakije, the then army chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Jean Bikomagu, Lieutenant Colonel Isaie Nibizi, who was the commander of the military barracks responsible for President Ndadayes security and is currently spokesperson for the armed forces and François Ngeze, a Hutu member of UPRONA and member of parliament who was named as the head of the Conseil national de salut public, National Council of Public Salvation appointed by the coup plotters to head the country.

The country experienced a democratic period of four months, June-Oct. 1993, followed by the assassination of the president by a few Tutsi military officers, and a "creeping coup," which was completed by a new military coup, 25 July 1996. The present President, the Hima-Tutsi Major Pierre Buyoya, suspended the constitution, but the rest of the democratically elected National Assembly (ethnically and politically mixed of 65 Frodebu and 16 Uprona) is still in existence with limited influence; however, its mandate runs out on 30th June, 1998. The Parliament is reduced in numbers as more than 20 Frodebu members have been killed or sought refuge since 1995. Of 81 members only 56 are still there.

- American /Britain & French (three Permanent Members of Security Council in U.N.) reactions after the Coup -

Les responsables du crime sont là. Ils sont connus. Mais qu'ont fait  les Ambassades Française, Américaine et Britanique sachant tout cela ? 

The Burundian Army is reported to have had an indifferent reaction to the UN report questioning the role of the Army in the 1993 assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi's first Hutu president. The report pointed the finger at Colonel Jean Bikomagu the military chief of staff at the time of the 1993 and still in office, but failed to produce enough evidence to proceed with prosecution. A spokesman for the Army is reported to have said, "if some soldiers are punished, no problem".

Rappel :  Au niveau historique, c'est la période où des guerres souterraines commencent en Afrique Francophone entre la France et les Anglo-Saxons (Etats-Unis et les Anglais).

1/ La diplomatie américaine (et britanique):
’

Leur réseau d'influence en Afrique: Ouganda, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa,Zimbabwe ...Tous les pays anglophones de l'Afrique ( Après 1994, le Rwanda se rajoute et après 1996, le Congo (RDC-Ex ZAÏRE)).

Position:  

La diplomatie américaine a condamné le Coup d'Etat,le 21 octobre même : " United States State department spokeswoman Christine Shelly condemned the coup in Burundi. ’’The U.S. government strongly condemns this action, which threatens a government freely and fairly elected by the people of Burundi,’’ State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly said in a written statement. The U.S. statement urged those behind the military action to release Burundi President Melchior Ndadaye and any other government officials reportedly detained, to return to their barracks ’’and cease all interference with the democratically elected government.’

The United States warned coup leaders in Burundi Sunday it was holding them responsible for the safety of all prisoners and U.S. residents and cut off development assistance and military aid.The statement was issued as diplomats in the capital Bujumbura said rebel soldiers fearing a backlash against their collapsing coup began fleeing Burundi and their leaders bargained for an amnesty.

Par la suite, cette diplomatie , sous conseils de spécialistes Belges du Burundi, va soutenir les putschistes... du moins diplomatiquement  et,  comme nouveauté, du point de vue de l'assistance militaire . 

Exemple des actions diplomatiques réalisées:

Aux Nation-Unis :

Le rapport S/1996/682 -LES ÉVÉNEMENTS QUI ONT SUIVI L'ASSASSINAT .  Les commanditaires du coup sont mis à l'abris. On en parle même pas. On y accuse les victimes d'être eux des génocidaires. Absurde!
Le GRAB écrira en réaction, le fameux: 
SCANDALE D'UNE ENQUÊTE DE L'ONU AU BURUNDI"

Au niveau médiatique: 

CNN, BBC ... ne couvriront l'événement que partiellement. Les coupables resteront à l'ombre.

...

En novembre 1995 et en mars 1996, le sommet régional des chefs d'Etat de la région au Caire et à Tunis, sous la présidence de Jimmy Carter, désigne Julius Nyerere comme premier médiateur au conflit burundais. En juin 1996, le président Ntibatunganiya demande une assistance militaire régionale au premier sommet d'Arusha.

Coup in 1996 :

- En 1996, cette diplomatie  remet en jeu Buyoya. Avec lui, près de 800 000 citoyens Burundais (Hutu) (~ 20% de la population burundaise) vont devoir vivre  dans des camps de concentration (camps de regroupement). 

Two months before you took power, President Clinton's adviser, Anthony Lake, warned that if any group seized power by force, the United States would ensure they were isolated by the international community and felt the full weight of international law. Yet now the US, Belgium and France seem to feel you should be given a chance. What shaped this reaction?

African leaders agreed to impose sanctions on Burundi for a military coup last week ...Buyoya has said that he is against a foreign intervention force.

Neighbours Reject Coup . President Museveni refused to recognise him as President and demanded that he should accept an international peace-keeping force

As the negotiations get underway, the IFD notices with deep concern(s ) that once more the West  has allied itself with Buyoya to have the limited embargo lifted as a reward for his participation in  the negotiations and his total dismantling of the democratic process and institutions through the so called political partnership with FRODEBU. The International Federation for Democracy would like to warn against the misguided policy of placating Buyoya and his almost mono-ethnic tutsi army before (1) any binding agreement is reached together with an implementation mechanism of such an accord, and (2) before  Buyoya proves his commitment to the democratic process, notably by dismantling the concentration camps he initiated. Thousands of innocent civilians in Buyoya's concentration camps  still die of starvation and diseases when they are not summarily executed. Before being forced into death camps, they were growing their own crops and feeding themselves and paying for their own medications. Now that Buyoya has brought their ways of living to an end by throwing them into concentration camps, they are obliged to rely on international humanitarian assistance.

In February 1997, I produced a report for the British NGO ActionAid on the political and economic consequences of the embargo. I concluded that the sanctions  were being systematically violated by participating states, enabling Burundi to import and export all key commodities. I found however that the sanctions had caused the Burundian franc to devalue, rendering most goods more unaffordable to the majority of Burundians, and making life even harder for the poor and very poor. 

Conclusion after the Coup:

In July 1996, Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi leader and former president of Burundi, ousted his country's democratically elected president Sylvestre Ntibatunganya in a military coup. Buyoya proceeded to suspend the national parliament and ban political parties, declaring that he anticipated exercising a three-year period of control before he could restore democratic institutions. In response, the U.S. refused to recognize the Buyoya government, suspending $1.7 million in development aid, as well as $60,000 in self-help development funds, and $50,000 in military-training assistance; the EU also suspended development aid.

2/ La diplomatie française :

Leur réseau d'influence en Afrique: Burundi, Gabon, Congo (Brazza), et l' Afrique Francophone. ( Avant 1994, le Rwanda et avant 1996, le  ZAÏRE (Congo RDC)).

Position: 
 
La réaction de la France vient le 23/10/1993:   France suspended all aid to Burundi except humanitarian relief on Saturday after a military coup in the central African state which toppled President Melchior Ndadaye.

The Francophonie group of French-speaking countries suspended Burundi’s participation on Friday following a military coup in which President Melchior Ndadaye was reported killed, the group’s president said. 

Pour la diplomatie française, Buyoya est l'homme qui a compris le "Discours de la Baule".  De plus, la diplomatie française, après quelques conseils de spécialistes Belges et Français du Burundi, va s'abstenir. Mais la France poursuivra à donner son assistance militaire à Bujumbura.

Après le Coup d'Etat de 1996, la diplomatie française voit qu'elle a encore une carte à jouer avec Buyoya. Comme les "anglo-saxons" sanctionnent, elle va se faire le chantre d'un levé de l'embargo sur le Burundi pour plaire à Buyoya. Et cela va marcher.

According to French Secretary of State for Cooperation Charles Josselin, ''France is doing everything it can to convince regional leaders and those of other countries that the embargo should be lifted.''

-JUSTICE-

9 ans après, le Major BUYOYA n’a encore pas prouvé son innocence

Five sentenced to death in Ndadaye murder trial

He said it was courageous of President Pierre Buyoya to continue the trial as he risked alienating his own supporters, but the real ringleaders were outside the country and it was doubtful whether those who wanted real justice for Ndadaye's murder would be satisfied. "This trial raises the whole issue that Burundians are battling with," Van Eck said. "Do you conclude a trial like this before a peace agreement is in place which would make the institutions more legitimate?" While the trial did not undermine the peace process as it demonstrated an attempt to end impunity in the region, it was a question of perception in that the institutions would be regarded as biased.