Commission of Inquiry on Burundi produced biased report, CNIDH says

“The UN commission of Inquiry on Burundi has published a false and tendentious report,” said Jean Baptiste Baribonekeza, chairman of the National Independent Commission on Human Rights (CNIDH) on 11 September.

Jean Baptiste Baribonekeza: “The commission did not carrying out field investigations to verify the serious human violations”

The report he rejects was published on September 5 by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi. It reveals that human rights violations persist in Burundi.
According to Baribonekeza the false information, exaggerations and partial interpretations contained in this report seem to aim at dividing Burundian people in order to undermine the progress already made on human rights in the country.

Mr Baribonekeza accuses the commission of not carrying out field investigations to verify the serious human violations. “The 900 witnesses interviewed by the commission of inquiry are neither identified nor geographically located, which raises questions about the veracity of the information and the credibility of the sources,” he says.

He, however, admits that the Commission of Inquiry had requested permission to enter Burundi to conduct investigations. Baribonekeza says the commission should have waited for Burundi government permission before publishing this report.

For Lambert Nigarura, a human rights activist, the accusations of the chairman of CNIDH are neither founded nor credible. “The government was hoping to set them a trap by denying them access to the ground. The world has evolved in communication strategies,” he says.

This human rights activist says the report content is refuted by a counter report. The commission reported real, verifiable facts with supporting evidence. The victims mentioned in the report have names and families. “It’s easy for CNIDH to check if it’s true and produce a counter report.” The fact of protecting perpetrators is the cause of the downgrading of the CNIDH of Burundi from status A to status B. “A commission supposed to defend the oppressed people turned out to defend the perpetrators of crimes in Burundi,” he says.