Burundi’s president faces social challenges that extend beyond charges of fraud

Burundi’s president was inaugurated today in the country’s capital Bujumbura. President Pierre Nkurunziza won re-election with 92 percent of the vote in the late June presidential race that was boycotted by all opposition parties. They claimed “massive fraud” in the country’s series of elections for the legislature and local government seats.  The new president faces many political and socioeconomic challenges as he assumes leadership of the small Central African nation. FSRN’s Zach Baddorf reports.

TRANSCRIPT

President Nkurunziza was sworn in at noon in Burundi and promised to promote peace, human rights, and social cohesion. According to Xinhua News Agency, he said his win is “a victory” for “every Burundian citizen.”

Yet he faces much criticism. Human rights groups say his party has oppressed and excluded the opposition. International organizations say corruption is limiting the country’s social and economic development. And with the country’s civil war between ethnic Tutsis and Hutus now over, a new security issue has emerged with a terrorist threat from a Somali militant group.

On Monday, Amnesty International issued a report describing how opposition party politicians were allegedly tortured by the country’s security services during the electoral period. Burundi’s National Intelligence Service denies the accusations.

After the elections, Jeremy Ndikumana, the president of the ruling party, said the political environment in Burundi has improved.

NDIKUMANA (IN ENGLISH): The democracy in Burundi is now taking place, slowly of course. We are in the beginning but we see that we are going well.

Despite boycotting the elections, opposition parties also want to participate in the country’s government. Opposition leader Jean de Dieu Mutabazi says the opposition groups can play an important role in building a “strong Burundian society.”

MUTABAZI (IN FRENCH): The problems will now continue since the ruling party will have all the powers and they will have the tendency to dictate everything to the people. The opposition is weak.

Mutabazi said another serious challenge for the country’s new government is corruption. Last month the non-profit watchdog Transparency International named Burundi the most corrupt nation in East Africa. Burundi’s revenue authority and police force topped the list of most corrupt institutions in the region.

ELIAS DINA (IN KIRUNDI): Things like corruption are around. It’s alive.

Elias Dina, is a 29-year-old who sells cell phones in Gitega.

DINA (IN KIRUNDI): Yes, it’s going on and there are goods that come into the country that aren’t taxed. And sometimes if the police officer catches you, he doesn’t take you straight to the police station. You just sort it out on the streets. You give him his little drink and that’s it. It ends there.

The International Monetary Fund expects Burundi's economy to grow by nearly 4 percent this year, mostly due to coffee and tea exports.  The economy could improve even more after Burundi and four other nearby countries started the East African Common Market last month, allowing people, goods, and services to travel across borders with less taxes and less red tape. Again, salesman Dina.

DINA (IN KIRUNDI): The Burundian economy, I wouldn’t say it is as bad as before, because we have our own products, like rice, that are good at the moment. And now that East Africa has come into play, we’ll have good things and cheap stuff, too.

Burundi has one of the lowest average per capita annual incomes in the world--about $300. But Jacques Mafarakura, a 55-year-old museum curator in Gitega, says life has never been better in Burundi, a country the size of Maryland with a population of about 10 million.

MAFARAKURA (IN FRENCH): I would say that if you look at the way people live, they do produce more wealth than they have in the past. They do have more. You can therefore say that although it’s not obvious, things have improved. When you’re walking in the street, you can see that things are slightly better.

Indeed just last year, the last rebel group lay down its arms, putting to rest a civil war between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-controlled government that started in 1993. The conflict left about 300,000 dead in Burundi. About 86 percent of the population is Hutu. The rest are mostly Tutsis.

[NAT SOUND: Bujumbura street sounds]

But in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, Gloria Kaneza said she doesn’t like to think of people along ethnic lines. The 22-year-old student is a Tutsi and is going to marry a Hutu.

KANEZA (IN ENGLISH): “So me I cannot judge someone because he is Tutsi or Hutu because there are Tutsi who are not so good. There are Hutu who are not so good. You can judge someone by his actions, his heart, what he are doing.

Kaneza said discrimination between the two ethnic groups still exists, but with peace, now she is optimistic about the future of her country.

However, the new government also faces challenges from the Somali militant group al Shabab, which promised to target Burundi next after taking credit for the deadly bombings in Uganda that left 76 people dead. Uganda and Burundi both have a few thousand troops each in Somalia under the African Union.

Since arriving in 2007, 29 Burundian soldiers have been killed in Somalia and another 17 have been wounded. Burundi may deploy as many as 2,500 more soldiers there.

Zack Baddorf, FSRN, Bujumbura, Burundi.