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BURUNDI / TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
STORY: BURUNDI / TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
TRT: 2.00
SOURCE: OHCHR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: RECENT 2009 / FILE
RECENT - 2009, BURUNDI
1. Various shots, Bujumbura
2. Cutaway, Jean Luc Marx head of the UN Human Rights office in Burundi
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Jean Luc Marx head of the UN Human Rights office, Burundi:
“There cannot be peace without reconciliation and there cannot be reconciliation without justice especially for serious crimes such as genocide, war crimes and so on. So it is very important for the people to see that all for the horrible crimes that happened here, the events that have taken place for many years - that there is justice and reconciliation. It is also important for the people to talk about what has happened and to have the victims recognized as such.”
4. Various shots, people sitting in discussion at the National Consultations Commission
5. Med shot, Remy Nahimana, retired teacher,
6. Wide shot, Bujumbura city
7. SOUNDBITE (French) Remy Nahimana, retired teacher:
“When future generations will reread what will come out of these consultations, that will be a way to state the bad things that happened, the slump we experienced, the conflicts, the killing, all the violence we experienced. We shall never do that again.”
ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE - DATE UNKNOWN
8. Various shots, Burundian leaders and South African delegation, signing peace agreement.
ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE – DATE UNKNOWN - SOUTH AFRICAN TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
10. Various shots, South African apartheid victim testifying.
11. Close up, victim,
12. Wide shot, South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
13. Med shot, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu bent down
RECENT - 2009, BURUNDI
14. Wide shot, Gabriel Muhiniaka at the National consultations
16. Wide shot, Burundi streets.
17. Med shot, policeman
18. Close up, gun.
19. Wide shot, group of police men climbing a pick up van
20. Wide shot, burnt school now a turned into a monument
Thirty Hutu students were burnt to death by their Tutsi schoolmates at the Institute Superieur d’agriculture in Gitega central Burundi in 1996.
This was not an isolated massacre. Three decades of violence in Burundi between the two major ethnic groups, the Tutsi’s and Hutu’s was often unimaginably brutal.
Now the government is seeking ways to bring justice to the victims.
Jean Luc Marx heads UN Human Rights Office in Burundi.
SOUNDBITE (English) Jean Luc Marx head of the UN Human Rights office, Burundi:
“There cannot be peace without reconciliation and there cannot be reconciliation without justice especially for serious crimes such as genocide, war crimes and so on. So it is very important for the people to see that all for the horrible crimes that happened here, the events that have taken place for many years - that there is justice and reconciliation. It is also important for the people to talk about what has happened and to have the victims recognized as such.”
The UN Human Rights Office is assisting the government in leading national consultations in Burundi.
Remy Nahimana, a former school teacher, says he witnessed many ethni- related murders over the years. Remy, a Hutu, is attending the national consultations. He is among the thousands of victims of the conflict. But as an older generation Burundian he supports a truth and reconciliation commission as an important process to address the past wrongs.
SOUNDBITE (French) Remy Nahimana, retired teacher:
“When future generations will reread what will come out of these consultations, that will be a way to state the bad things that happened, the slump we experienced, the conflicts, the killing, all the violence we experienced. We shall never do that again.”
In 2000, in the neighbouring Tanzanian town of Arusha, a peace agreement was signed between more than 17 of Burundi’s warring groups.
Peace did not follow immediately. It has taken nearly a decade for the security situation to reach a point where the government can follow through on the transitional justice processes agreed as part of the peace deal.
As a first step, the government is working to establish a truth and reconciliation commission, modelled on the South African experience.
The Arusha Peace Agreement actually envisaged three transitional justice mechanisms: an international commission of judicial inquiry, a national truth and reconciliation commission and an international criminal tribunal.
All of these processes alongside reform of the military, police and judicial processes should help unravel the deep-seated discriminatory beliefs that drove the violence.
Burundi's government and its people will then be able to hold accountable those responsible for the atrocities that left more than half a million dead.
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