European Union to evacuate families, a few staff from Burundi

Scores have died in protests and killings and hundreds of thousands have fled since President Pierre Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term in April – a move the opposition said violated a constitution meant to keep the peace after Burundi’s civil war a decade ago. The capital, Bujumbura, has remained unstable – with gunfire and explosions frequently heard -after Nkunrunziza’s eventual re-election in July. The United Nations also joined the African Union and the EU in a call for dialogue.

The European Union says it will evacuate temporarily its employees’ “families and part of the non-essential staff”. Nevertheless, he stressed that “the delegation will continue operating normally”.

The evacuees will leave the country “in the days to come”, the official added.

The Burundi government did not directly respond to the council’s request to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday to study ways to promote dialogue between the government and opposition amid growing global concern that the violence could spiral into an ethnic conflict.

The unanimously adopted resolution drafted by France urges Burundi’s government and all sides to “reject any kind of violence” and demands all parties “refrain from any action that would threaten peace and stability in the country”.

“We are encouraged that the response (to the United Nations Security Council’s resolution) has been quite positive initially by their (the Burundian government’s) recent statements”, said Human Rights Watch’s Carina Tertsakian. Because if we say that police agents kill people, they don’t believe us. “We also regret that they didn’t agree on sanctions”.

Burundi’s population is made up of the majority Hutu, the minority Tutsi and the marginal Twa ethnic groups.

Authorities in Burundi, however, said this week the country is “not in flames”, and that there is no chance for mass murder.

A day earlier, Senate President Reverien Ndikuriyo told his supporters, “If you hear the signal with an instruction that it must end, emotions and tears have no place”, Jeune Afrique reported. Ndikuriyo used the term “work” in his call, an expression that was used during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Obama said killings of innocent people and “hateful rhetoric” from leaders is jeopardizing the Central African country’s future.

“It is reminiscent of the themes of extremist propaganda in Rwanda in the 1990s”, Chretien said.

Burundi has been mired in a political crisis that has raised fears of slide into ethnic conflict in a region where memories of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda are still raw.

If the crisis in Burundi does devolve into genocidal chaos, it will have done so not because of a failure of “global vigilance” but because of the worldwide community’s timidity in the face of evidence.