Kenya says it stands for free and fair elections but will not interfere with the goings-on in Burundi.
Foreign
Affairs PS Karanja Kibicho who toured Bujumbura on Friday said Kenya
will instead focus on supporting the country’s electoral commission to
help Burundians elect their leader.
“Burundi is a sovereign country and what they decide at elections is what we will support.
“The
international community must support the electoral body so that
elections are free, fair and transparent.” he told the Nation on
Saturday.
“Of course the issue of whether Mr (Pierre)
Nkurunziza should vie or not is already before the court and we will
support whatever decision the (constitutional) court comes up with. We
support a peaceful process.”
At least ten people have
been killed and thousands have fled to neighbouring Rwanda, since the
protests broke out in Burundi on Sunday, a day after the ruling party,
National Centre for the Defence of Democracy – Forces for the Defence of
Democracy (CNDD-FDD) nominated Mr Nkurunziza as its candidate for the
June 26, 2015 election.
Security agencies followed the
protests with a crackdown on protesters, arresting about 600, most of
them university students and human rights activists, and shutting down
an influential radio station and a public university in the capital
Bujumbura.
On Thursday, Nkurunziza reportedly warned
protesting youth from “being manipulated… because, just to remind you,
the country’s laws do not allow protests during the electoral period.”
Dr Kibicho was responding to an inquiry on whether Kenya would urge President Nkurunziza to retire for the sake of peace.
EAC QUIET ON BURUNDI
The
East African Community to which Burundi belongs has been largely quiet
on the chaos although Kenya on Friday announced it was donating 150
laptops and $6,000 (Sh564,000) to Burundians to organise the elections.
President
Nkurunziza, a former rebel, has been Burundian President since 2005
when he was voted in to replace a transitional government that had been
in place since 2000 when parties signed the Arusha Accord, to end years
of civil war.
He was re-elected in in 2010.
Opposition
supporters as well as political and civil society activists say a third
term would violate the country’s constitution and the terms of the
Arusha Accord which ended a civil war by creating a power sharing
structure.
But Nkurunziza’s supporters argue his first
term, between 2005 and 2010, does not count because he was elected by
legislators and not directly by the people.
Burundi has
known full peace only since 2008 when the government signed a ceasefire
agreement with the last active rebel group the Party for the Liberation
of the Hutu People – National Liberation Forces (Palipehutu-FNL).
The
chaos were solved through what the AU calls an ‘African solution’ and
the country has been the only known case where African countries
concerted to successfully bring peace after years of civil war.
On
Friday, the African Union sent a team of envoys to Burundi to help
“defuse current tension” but said little on whether they will urge Mr
Nkurunziza to retire.
The violence has been condemned
by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said he was
sending his Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Said Djinnit, to
Bujumbura to meet President Nkurunziza and other government officials in
an attempt to defuse the crisis.
US government
officials have publicly asked President Nkurunziza not to seek
re-election and the British government said it “deeply regrets”
Nkurunziza’s nomination.
Burundi at a glance
•Colonised
by the Belgians, French is the most spoken language although Burundians
have been slowly adopting English to be fully part of the EAC.
•Has a Gross Domestic Product per capita of just $268, making it the poorest country in the EAC.
•Has
only known full peace since 1998 after Nkurunziza’s government signed a
ceasefire agreement with last rebel groups, Palipehutu-FNL.
•Has
had several coups and coup attempts, the last coup was in 1996 by
Pierre Buyoya, the same man who had engineered a similar coup in 1988.
• In 1993, Burundi passed a new democratic constitution and Melchior Ndadaye became the first elected president.
•Burundi
has had two presidents killed; Mr Ndadaye was assassinated in 1993
while Cyprien Ntaryamira who replaced him was killed after a plane which
was also carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down
over Kigali in 1994.
•The shooting of the plane led to civil war which claimed about 250,000 Burundian lives.
•In
1997, regional countries imposed economic sanctions for the first time
on Burundi, forcing rebels to negotiate for peace in Arusha, Tanzania.
•17 parties signed the Arusha Accord in 2000 and in 2001, Buyoya became the transitional president.
•In
2005, Nkurunziza was endorsed by legislators to be president for five
years in a power-sharing deal that was meant to absorb all the ethnic
communities in the country.
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