Burundi rejects African Union peacekeeping force amid deadly unrest

The African Prevention and Protection Mission will be deployed to Burundi for at least six months and its mission can be extended, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council said.

The African Union gave the Burundi government 96 hours to cooperate fully and accept the deployment of peacekeepers, warning that it reserved the right to enforce its decision to send in forces – as per its charter.

Preliminary findings have indicated that the current situation is of grave concern and those conducting the mission reported that they received information from pertinent stakeholders of ongoing human rights violations along with other abuses.

“An inclusive political dialogue is required urgently”.

Uganda announced Saturday that it would mediate peace talks between government and opposition groups in Burundi in an effort to end Burundi’s deadly political unrest.

The AU PSC, taking into account the preliminary results of the African Commission of People’s and Human Rights’ recent fact-finding mission, has recognised both the unacceptable threats faced by the people of Burundi and the risk that the crisis poses to the Great Lakes region.

Amnesty International and others have warned that Burundi is on the brink of a civil war.

According to Clark, it remains to be seen which African Union member states will send forces to Burundi.

Last Friday saw the country’s worst violence in months, with the government saying 87 people were killed in a single day.

And since the beginning of August, it appears that his opponents are being subjected to extrajudicial assassination, said Carina Tertsakian, a senior researcher on Burundi for the global organization Human Rights Watch.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said that “Burundi is at bursting point, on the very cusp of a civil war” which could have “ethnic overtones” similar to past conflicts in Burundi. Nyamitwe said on national television, referring to Burundi’s contribution to an African Union peacekeeping misson in Somalia. Observers say that over and above any criticism of Nkurunziza for authoritarianism, repression, or for failing to tackle poverty and corruption, what is at stake is the continuing existence of the Arusha accords, which have become the cornerstone of the country’s democracy.

However, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, president of the U.N. Security Council for December, said on Wednesday there had been “insufficient contingency planning”.

The U.N. Security Council has already been looking at ways to tackle the crisis, including sending peacekeepers.

“Of the 220,000 terrified people who have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, many are the same families that had to flee their homes during Burundi’s civil war, and had returned home over the past decade, full of hope for peace, stability and economic growth in their homeland”, he said.