RWANDA AND USA ARE INVOLVED IN THE BURUNDI CRISIS

Samantha Power and Alexis Sinduhije

BURUNDI: Ann Garrison “showed that in one way or another Rwanda would be an actor. And that the US was party to the scheme”, by Theogene Karenzi in Friends of Reason, Facebook

Trouble Beckons

A month or so, our friend Ann Garrison posted several updates about a tricky situation in Burundi. A lesson i learned was that she seemed to see something that was beyond sight, yet real. She made us think that something evil was being planned against Nkurunziza and Burundi as a country. She showed that in one way or another Rwanda would be an actor. And that the US was party to the scheme.

Yes, as demonstrators started in Bujumbura, Rwanda leaders eg. Loiuse Mushikiwabo, Kagame and the likes came out to speak for Burundians. Each one had to shoot his mouth as if he/she is the guardian of democracy and guarantor of Burundian security. It became a confusing state.

Even before any one was killed, people fled to Rwanda. The majority who arrived early in Rwanda were Tutsis and Tutsis still outnumber (ten to one) the so called Burundian refugees there. As reports are surfacing, Tutsi refugees are being told they will be killed because they are Tutsis. This is because Nkurunziza and Imbonerakure are working with Interahamwe and have Tutsis killing “ideology” !

Leave those refugees aside, the Rwandan authority has progressed making claims a civilized nation and responsible leadership cannot make eg. warning it may consider interefering with Burundi’s affairs, declaring that the situation is an international responsibility etc etc. As far as Burundi is concerned, Rwanda is playing a superpower’s role. It is a small America of the region. And to Rwanda, Burundi has no soveregnity.

Signs of trouble are in air now! We have some ex-Burundian military men voicing rubbish that Nkurunziza is working with Interahamwe. We have shameless and pitiless x-top officials voicing things that are likely to tore their country in pieces just because Kigali is saying so. A trend is that these are increasingly being Tutsis than Hutus!! Others are Tutsis in Uganda saying the same thing. As Ann Garrison said, surely we are likely going to see another carnage in the region.

But……! I am going beyond Ann to mark that {if a war is fought in Burundi and it turns out to be led based on ethnic lines (so it seems than previously thought), surely the government we see in Burundi might be outsmarted and outmuscled. But……the genocide ideology claim will be evolving to another level. Rwanda and we Tutsis are likely going to press ourselves into a yoke that will take too long to come off. Why? Because the whole Hutu mass will then preach we hate and we are pursuing them!

If any one has sense to view development of Burundi’s crisis objectively, one learns that the region is plummeting into violences of great magnitude. The perceived Interahamwe plus their Imbonerakure will run to Tanzania and Congo most likely! What? We shall have set a pacesetter that these people are naturally evil and thus to be pursued! Shall we then destroy Tanzania? DRC again? For the sin of being host to Hutu refugees? The crises in Burundi is bad for its consequences if ever a war is fought than leaving Nkurunziza to wade through another five years}. My view now is that if Nkurunziza persists it would be commendable to leave himand wait!!!! After all he is a gentleman who causes no trouble to his people!!!!

That much is true Ann Garrison. You did your analysis well and the backdrop you used was right. As things are turning out, we are heading to the impact of RPF propaganda back in 1994. Some people are preparing a pretext to invade a sovereign country. As of the Op-Ed, it is deserved and i wonder how disturbed Kagame will feel. He might say Carson is a genocide sympathizer. In Kagame’s middle-school-dropout mind, the fear of Tutsi killing is an asset to be used against all attempt by Hutus to have their influence felt”.