Cape Town - The assassination on Sunday of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza’s former intelligence chief General Adolphe Nshimirimana has sparked fears of a plunge into widespread violence in the country.
Nshimirimana was killed in his car by rockets in the capital, Bujumbura. He was regarded by many Burundians as the president’s right-hand man and enforcer, widely credited with putting down a military coup attempt on May 13, but also responsible for violence against the president’s political opponents.
Some commentators are warning of a return to widespread ethnic violence in a country which has a bloody history of massacres carried out by the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis against each other.
African Union chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma tweeted on Sunday that “Burundians must remain calm not be provoked; refrain from acts of retaliation that would further escalate the current delicate situation”.
Yolande Bouka, a Burundi specialist with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Nairobi, said on Sunday the assassination was a major cause for concern, but it was too early to predict a repeat of the major bouts of Hutu-Tutsi violence of previous decades.
She noted that Burundi’s political violence over the past several years had been confined to the Hutu majority which both Nkurunziza and Nshimirimana belonged to.
Bouka said there was nevertheless cause for serious concern that the killing had occurred just when it seemed Burundi was returning to some sort of stability after the turbulence leading up to last month’s presidential elections, which Nkurunziza won despite widespread belief that he should not have contested, as he had already served his constitutionally-limited two terms in office.
She said it was not yet all clear who the assassins might have been. They could have been from the armed rebellion which sprang up in opposition to Nkurunziza’s third term.
But they could also have come from within the military, which was still sharply divided, she said.
She noted that an army colonel had been seized in his camp after the assassination and only returned hours later, with head injuries.
She also noted that “it was no secret that General Adolphe (Nshimirimana) had quite a few enemies”.
“He had been regarded as the president’s enforcer when he headed intelligence and was believed to be behind several extra-judicial killings and torture of political opponents.
He had also been accused by members of the opposition as being responsible for the murder of three Italian nuns last year.
Opponents also regarded him as the leader of the notorious pro-government militia, the Imbonerakure, who had been accused of political violence against the opponents of Nkurunziza’s ruling CNDD-FDD party.
And he was credited by Nkurunziza’s people for defeating the May 13 coup attempt.
“So many people could have done it, including from the armed rebellion or even from inside the army,” Bouka said.
Bouka noted that until a few years ago, Nkurunziza’s chief political opponent Agathon Rwasa, leader of the FNL, would probably have been suspected of the assassination.
But he had joined the post-election government of national unity, designed to return the country to stability, so he was covered.
In any case Rwasa and the FNL were also Hutu and so Bouka said she did not share the alarm that the assassination would plunge Burundi into major ethnic violence.
“I can understand where the concern is coming from; as in Rwanda 1994 a top leader is assassinated and that sparks genocide. But this is not Rwanda; there the genocide was carefully planned. I don’t think anything like that is happening here.”
However, she cautioned that there were still anti-Tutsi elements in the ruling CNDD-FDD although they were not in the majority.
“But this was definitely a blow to stability, which seemed to be returning, because it could provoke a feedback in the days ahead. We will have to see how the government chooses to respond.”
Bouka had also pointedly asked in a tweet: “Are the military experts and human rights observers still in #Burundi?”, suggesting that the military and human rights observers from the African Union should be springing into action now to calm the country.
Other commentators complained that the military observers had not left their hotels, possibly because they were being prevented from doing so.
ANA