Editor, Refer to Lonzen Rugira’s article, “He is running for President, come hell or high water” (The New Times, April 29). The Burundi that President Pierre Nkurunziza has created seems, to quote Winston Churchill, like “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Few outside Burundi really understand what drives him and influences his decision-making. Like the Sovietologists of old, outsider observers have to closely observe seemingly unrelated though dramatic enough events to try to piece together a coherent interpretation of what might be happening behind the curtains: the hitherto unexplained bodies floating on Burundi side of Lake Rweru, the killings in Cibitoke, the military incursions on the Rusizi plains in the DR Congo, the unexplained murders of elderly nuns in Bujumbura, the rapid successive appointments and disappointments (to borrow from Idi Amin’s lexicon) of senior security personnel, the unconstitutional replacement of the country’s vice president, etc. The runes have been there for all of us to read and to come to the inevitable conclusion that something extremely dark and foreboding has been writhing behind the curtain the ruling clique has put around the country to make it hard for outsiders to see clearly what has been happening there. But it now becomes clear by the day, if nothing is done by all of us, our brothers and sisters across the Akanyaru could experience what we did in 1994. It is high time East Africa raised its collective voice and told President Nkurunziza and those bent on taking Burundi to hell that we shall not allow them! One genocide in this sub-region is more than enough bloodletting even for all the devils in hell to feel sated in an entire generation. Mwene Kalinda
