Editor,

RE: "International community should not give up on Burundi” (The New Times, November 2).

Apologies to Dr. Richard Sezibera; Burundian authorities have somewhat become blind.

As an educated citizen from Burundi, I would like to present our apologies to Dr. Sezibera. The mistakes by those who are supposed to be our leaders unnecessarily affect and /or are likely to tarnish our image in our neighbourhood and in the civilized world at large.

The aggression exerted upon Dr. Richard Sezibera, the top diplomat of EAC, is a shame for Burundian authorities but it does not reflect Burundi’s legendary culture towards visitors, especially our respect towards the elderly, the parents and all community leaders. Dr. Sezibera belongs to the latter category.

Anybody working in the EAC secretariat can attest to the relentless effort that this proud son of Rwanda has deployed to help Burundians and Burundi fully participate in all activities of the Community when it was not obvious to everybody. The incident shall be taken seriously as it reflects the current mindset of Burundian authorities.

To be sure, very recently, Burundi’s Senate President Révérien Ndikuriyo perfectly emulated almost word by word Théodore Sindikubwabo (president of Rwanda during the Genocide against the Tutsi)’s speech in Butare on or about April 19, 1994.

We all know that this very infamous speech launched the Genocide against the Tutsi in Butare the following days. Burundi’s Senate President was addressing a gathering of local administrators in Bujumbura. Local administrators who were asked to stand ready to "work” (gukora) with the military and police and eventually take the property of those who would either flee or be massacred.

The work "gukora”, also used during the 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda was used more than ten times in a less than 20 minutes speech. On average, the word "gukora” was used in each minute of the hate speech.

The world should take note of this other hopeless and hate speech and act without delay.

We specifically beg EAC leaders to take the lead and work closely with the African Union (others would most likely support these efforts) to stay alert and ready to prevent another pogrom of the Tutsi in the sub-region.

All former close aides to President Nkurunziza who decided to distance themselves from his genocide project have consistently warned of the existence of a well-planned project of mass killing and the risk of an imminent genocide.

This weekend, Burundi’s Senate President told the gathering that they should stand ready to start "working” (this word meant killing Tutsis in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi) as in Sindikubwabo’s speech 21 years ago.

Bela