Stop statements, step up effort to protect Burundians

Editor, RE: “Someone save burning Burundi” (The New Times, December 14). The second genocide against the Tutsi is already taking place in Burundi. What happened this last weekend in three mostly Tutsi-dominated districts of Nyakabiga, Jabe and Musaga should be the last warning before a much larger scale of atrocities and indeed genocide. Young Tutsi males were rounded up, arrested and ordered to wear military or police uniforms depending on stock availability and then shot dead from unknown places and their bodies brought back in the neighborhood to render credence to claims that they were rebels killed in combat with the army. These youth (and sometimes very young), most of whom were high school students, were awoken from their sleep, while others were arrested from a church in Musaga District while attending a mass and taken to unknown localities. Tomorrow, these young men will be found dead and their bodies mutilated and thrown in the streets. Those killed are buried in mass graves by police. Burundi, as a sovereign state, has failed in its obligation and primary responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The international community must protect the Tutsi and Burundi population in general against mass killings under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and its recommendations instead of continuing release communiqués. EAC countries that are already bearing the cost of Burundian refugees need to take the lead and alert the UN and the AU with concrete proposals. Tomorrow will be too late and no one shall say that he did not know. The region should avoid another genocide at all costs. Bela

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Stop statements, step up effort to protect Burundians