A standing committee of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) will today start a four-day public hearing workshop on the humanitarian crisis in Burundi. Sitting in Arusha, Tanzania, the regional Assembly’s Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution Committee (RACR) has called for the public hearing workshop to review a petition by the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU) submitted to EALA in November 2015. The committee will look into cases of alleged abuses as cited in the petition and to make recommendations to the House during the next Sitting scheduled to commence on January 24, in Arusha. An EALA statement indicates that participants will include EALA members, government officials from Burundi, Civil Society Organisation representatives from Burundi, and representatives from the country’s political parties and the petitioners. Last November, four civil society organisations led by PALU petitioned EALA to urgently undertake actions to contain the situation in Burundi. In the petition, the civil society representatives urged EALA to call upon the Chair of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union to take concrete steps towards preventing Burundi from descending into genocide or mass atrocities. The petitioners, among others, suggested measures including; enhancing the number and capacity of the human rights monitors and military monitors deployed to Burundi, and called for the sanctions regime of the AU to be activated. They also urged the House to recommend to the Summit of EAC Heads of State that Burundi should not assume the rotating Chairmanship of the EAC until it resolves the political, human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country. The public hearing in Arusha will welcome Burundian and East African citizens to testify on the occurrences in the country and to suggest proposals for resolution to the conflict. The petition stated that there were numerous reports of cases of assassinations, extra-judicial and arbitrary killings of over 130 persons (at the time of presentation) and thus implored EALA to condemn what it called arbitrary killings as well as the inordinate use of force by the police, security officials and members of the ruling party youth wing, Imbonerakure. The petitioners, in addition, want EALA to request the African Union to intervene in the political and humanitarian crisis i Burundi citing its comprehensive and far reaching legal and institutional framework that includes the Constitutive Act of the African Union, 2000 and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights among others. The RACR has monitored developments in Burundi for some time and accordingly, “the crisis is labeled as one of the severest challenges to peace and stability to the EAC.” At the plenary sitting held in Nairobi, last year, the Committee tabled the Report on the Goodwill Mission to the refugee camps hosting Burundi citizens in Rwanda and Tanzania. This report, among others, called on the EAC Partner States to support immediate interventions towards sustaining peace in Burundi and the EAC at large. Last week, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, EAC, Regional and International Relations of Tanzania, and the Chairperson of the EAC Council of Ministers, Amb. Dr Augustine Mahiga, convened a consultative meeting in Arusha to deliberate on the way forward on the situation in Burundi. The session expressed concern over the continued political crisis in Burundi and its potential to degenerate further with far reaching humanitarian implications. The African Union recently resolved to deploy a peace-keeping force to Burundi, a move Bujumbura has since rejected. Burundi was plunged into a crisis last year when President Pierre Nkurunziza declared plans to seek re-election, sparking street protests and refugee exodus to neighbouring countries editorial@newtimes.co.rw
