mchambawima1
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 16, 2014
- 2,487
- 738
After looking at recent photographs of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza's bodyguards, it came as no surprise to me when officials of his government began blaming Rwanda for their country's ills.
The man's guards look like members of the kind of armed groups to be found in next-door DR Congo, specifically the FDLR and their friends of the Congolese army, the FARDC.
Nkurunziza's bodyguards can easily be mistaken for an offshoot group of former Rwandan Interahamwe militias and members of former president Juvenal Habyarimana's army; both groups that perpetrated the Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994; the same groups which fled to the former Zaire; the same groups which for their own reasons Congolese leaderships past and present have allowed to stay on, committing – together with the FARDC – all kinds of terror on hapless civilian populations of eastern Congo – looting, raping, massacring.
The bodyguards of Nkurunziza that you see in images widely disseminated on Twitter and in news media are a symptom of the ills that keep ravaging swathes of this continent.
These menacing young men wear combat fatigues whose chests are adorned with chains of bullets for the heavy sub machineguns of old eastern European variety that they carry. One or two of them wear old style flying goggles, creating an incongruous, yet comical effect on someone in his twenties.
Except that there is nothing remotely funny about these young men. They look exactly like the poor African's worst nightmare – the sort of armed men of dubious discipline, who kill and rape and rob without the slightest remorse. If Nkurunziza's guards are not FDLR then they pose a more than passing resemblance.
These are the people the Burundian head of state chooses to surround himself when he goes campaigning. They are the people pointing their guns at the peasants whose votes he supposedly is requesting to give him voluntarily. Any knowledgeable student of African governments knows the first sign of the leadership of a failed state – it is the kind of ragtag, menacing, sullen-looking band of armed individuals that look like Nkurunziza's guards.
The Burundian president is at the head of a crumbling regime. It is one that the majority of his countrymen have signaled they do not want, and will never accept. They have shown it by strenuously protesting their head of state's bid for another five-year tenure in office, clashing, and engaging in running battles with police in Bujumbura and outskirts for several days in the past few months.
More Burundians in the countryside have voted with their feet and fled to neighboring countries, an emphatic demonstration of lack of confidence in their "government". As things have gone from bad to worse for Nkurunziza – ever more Burundians fleeing; several top government officials going into exile, top Burundian generals declaring war on his government from abroad, and most recently what looked like the beginning of a rebel war – some in his government have taken to borrowing a leaf from the playbook of Congolese president Joseph Kabila's propagandists. They are blaming Rwanda for every problem in Burundi.
Lambert Mende comes to mind.
When Burundians began fleeing to exile, some of Nkurunziza's people blamed Rwanda for it. When exiled Burundian generals began declaring they would begin a rebel against Nkurunziza's government, the blame of course fell on Rwanda.
It all comes with a sense of déjà vu for every Rwandan weary of infantile accusations that have always come from the leadership of another crumbling, failing state.
It is phenomenal really, how Rwanda seemingly will be the target of every blame game by so called leaders in our immediate neighborhood who deliberately set their country on the path of ruin, only for their people to fight back or flee en masse.
It is a true wonder to behold the levels of incompetence in Nkurunziza's camp.
The desperate and childish lying they are engaged in won't disguise the fact it is they themselves who created the volatile situation in their country.
They will try mightily to shift the blame on Rwanda when hundreds of thousands of Burundians flee, but they won't find anyone gullible enough to believe it is Rwanda that went into Burundi to drive those refugees into its own territory!
They are yelling that it is Rwanda supporting a rebel group – which rebel group is yet to declare its name – but no one will fail to make the connection between any rebel war that may come about in Burundi and the fact of the violent demonstrations in Bujumbura streets and neighborhoods. Those Burundians are ready to fight using whatever means may be available
Nkurunziza's people will cry, and try to ethnicize the problem in Burundi, pretending it is "Tutsis fighting Hutus". But the generals most against Nkurunziza are Hutus. Many high-ranking Hutu officials are against his government. Even Hutus within his own party, CNDD-FDD, are against him. They are loudly and clearly against his project to change the Arusha accord to give himself five more years in office.
Hutus and Tutsis and Twas and ambassadors and aid agencies and foreign nations are telling Pierre Nkurunziza and his main sidekick Willie Nyamitwe to stop lying.
Burundi's problem is no Tutsi/Hutu problem. This is a national problem; it is a national crisis caused by one individual who is forcefully imposing himself on Burundians that are having no more of his inept administration. That individual is called Pierre Nkurunziza. No matter what he does to try to draw us Rwandans into the mess he has created, all Burundi's problems currently are caused by, and begin and end with him.
Follow Shyaka Kanuma on Twitter: @ShyakaKanuma
The man's guards look like members of the kind of armed groups to be found in next-door DR Congo, specifically the FDLR and their friends of the Congolese army, the FARDC.
Nkurunziza's bodyguards can easily be mistaken for an offshoot group of former Rwandan Interahamwe militias and members of former president Juvenal Habyarimana's army; both groups that perpetrated the Genocide against the Tutsis in 1994; the same groups which fled to the former Zaire; the same groups which for their own reasons Congolese leaderships past and present have allowed to stay on, committing – together with the FARDC – all kinds of terror on hapless civilian populations of eastern Congo – looting, raping, massacring.
The bodyguards of Nkurunziza that you see in images widely disseminated on Twitter and in news media are a symptom of the ills that keep ravaging swathes of this continent.
These menacing young men wear combat fatigues whose chests are adorned with chains of bullets for the heavy sub machineguns of old eastern European variety that they carry. One or two of them wear old style flying goggles, creating an incongruous, yet comical effect on someone in his twenties.
Except that there is nothing remotely funny about these young men. They look exactly like the poor African's worst nightmare – the sort of armed men of dubious discipline, who kill and rape and rob without the slightest remorse. If Nkurunziza's guards are not FDLR then they pose a more than passing resemblance.
These are the people the Burundian head of state chooses to surround himself when he goes campaigning. They are the people pointing their guns at the peasants whose votes he supposedly is requesting to give him voluntarily. Any knowledgeable student of African governments knows the first sign of the leadership of a failed state – it is the kind of ragtag, menacing, sullen-looking band of armed individuals that look like Nkurunziza's guards.
The Burundian president is at the head of a crumbling regime. It is one that the majority of his countrymen have signaled they do not want, and will never accept. They have shown it by strenuously protesting their head of state's bid for another five-year tenure in office, clashing, and engaging in running battles with police in Bujumbura and outskirts for several days in the past few months.
More Burundians in the countryside have voted with their feet and fled to neighboring countries, an emphatic demonstration of lack of confidence in their "government". As things have gone from bad to worse for Nkurunziza – ever more Burundians fleeing; several top government officials going into exile, top Burundian generals declaring war on his government from abroad, and most recently what looked like the beginning of a rebel war – some in his government have taken to borrowing a leaf from the playbook of Congolese president Joseph Kabila's propagandists. They are blaming Rwanda for every problem in Burundi.
Lambert Mende comes to mind.
When Burundians began fleeing to exile, some of Nkurunziza's people blamed Rwanda for it. When exiled Burundian generals began declaring they would begin a rebel against Nkurunziza's government, the blame of course fell on Rwanda.
It all comes with a sense of déjà vu for every Rwandan weary of infantile accusations that have always come from the leadership of another crumbling, failing state.
It is phenomenal really, how Rwanda seemingly will be the target of every blame game by so called leaders in our immediate neighborhood who deliberately set their country on the path of ruin, only for their people to fight back or flee en masse.
It is a true wonder to behold the levels of incompetence in Nkurunziza's camp.
The desperate and childish lying they are engaged in won't disguise the fact it is they themselves who created the volatile situation in their country.
They will try mightily to shift the blame on Rwanda when hundreds of thousands of Burundians flee, but they won't find anyone gullible enough to believe it is Rwanda that went into Burundi to drive those refugees into its own territory!
They are yelling that it is Rwanda supporting a rebel group – which rebel group is yet to declare its name – but no one will fail to make the connection between any rebel war that may come about in Burundi and the fact of the violent demonstrations in Bujumbura streets and neighborhoods. Those Burundians are ready to fight using whatever means may be available
Nkurunziza's people will cry, and try to ethnicize the problem in Burundi, pretending it is "Tutsis fighting Hutus". But the generals most against Nkurunziza are Hutus. Many high-ranking Hutu officials are against his government. Even Hutus within his own party, CNDD-FDD, are against him. They are loudly and clearly against his project to change the Arusha accord to give himself five more years in office.
Hutus and Tutsis and Twas and ambassadors and aid agencies and foreign nations are telling Pierre Nkurunziza and his main sidekick Willie Nyamitwe to stop lying.
Burundi's problem is no Tutsi/Hutu problem. This is a national problem; it is a national crisis caused by one individual who is forcefully imposing himself on Burundians that are having no more of his inept administration. That individual is called Pierre Nkurunziza. No matter what he does to try to draw us Rwandans into the mess he has created, all Burundi's problems currently are caused by, and begin and end with him.
Follow Shyaka Kanuma on Twitter: @ShyakaKanuma
