When the president of the National Assembly of Burundi, Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe informed the country’s newly appointed human rights commission that their mission is to “fight and bring down” Fortune Gaetan Zongo who is the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burundi, it was way more than a rhetorical misstep. It was a statement of war. Not a war against justice or a war against misinformation, but a war against scrutiny, truth and accountability.
This hostile rhetoric reveals a very deep rot within the state apparatus of Burundi: the criminalisation of dissent and the complete capture of supposedly independent institutions. Fortune Zongo is not alone in the crosshairs, but just the idea of impartial human rights monitoring as well. The stakes are alarmingly high.
Let’s be clear: this is not a country that is simply just defending itself from external intrusion, it is a regime that is systematically erasing the channels that could hold it accountable.
The recent reshuffling of the National Independent Human Rights Commission (CNIDH) shows this. After the exile of its former president, Sixte Vigny Nimuraba, who had intended to to publicise a report that details hundreds of violations, the parliament replaced the entire commission with people who are known to be close to the ruling CNDD-FDD party. The new head, Bishop Martin Blaise Nyaboho, has a history of vehemently criticising the opposition and suggesting that being objective is the last item on his agenda.
However, this is not just about who sits on which chair. It is about how institutions are weaponised. The leadership of Burundi is following what can be perceived as a grimly familiar script: discredit the watchdogs, deny violations and create state-friendly replacements that will warrant the actions of the regime.
This pattern is not just unique to Burundi. In Uganda, leaders of civil society have faced harassment, surveillance and arrests. In Rwanda, critics have been arguing that the National Commission for Human Rights operates more as a mouthpiece for government policy than it is a defender of public freedoms. Yet Burundi’s boldness is setting a new standard.
When a state’s own rights commission publishes a report that is contradictory to the state’s narrative, and the result is the exile of the person trusted to lead it and a commission-wide purge, there has to be serious concern. Nimuramba’s ordeal – having his home searched by security forces, being followed by accusations of corruption and eventually fleeing to Europe, should read as a warning to anyone inside Burundi who wants to speak inconvenient truths.
This war on oversight goes beyond domestic borders. Zongo’s August report to the UN painted an unsettling picture: enforced disappearances, impunity, arbitrary arrests and a declining security situation. These are not accusations that are minor or can be overlooked. They speak to the heart of Burundi’s commitments under international law. Instead of introspection, the response has been hostility.
This is not just a crisis of human rights, it is a serious crisis of legitimacy. The government is telling the people of Burundi that it is the government and the government alone can decide what counts as a violation. This inevitably makes fear become law.
It is also not just CNIDH that is under scrutiny. Two members from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission fled this year and were accused of sharing “intelligence with the enemy”. Aloys Batungwanayo and Pastor Clement Noe Ninziza were tasked with healing deep ethnic wounds from the bloody past of Burundi. Their exile shows that even efforts towards reconciliation must be ideologically pure.
This moment needs more than just concern. It needs coordinated pressure. The UN need not to allow Zongo’s work to be undermined, instead, his mandate must be reinforced. The African Union needs to publicly support independent oversight in Burundi. Development partners also need to reassess their engagements – making important taking accountability and conditioning aid on proven reforms.
The government of Burundi may succeed in the silencing of individual critics, but it cannot silence reality forever. Arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and shrinking civic space leaves trails. One day, all of these things will form a record. And when the time for reckoning comes, it will not be on the UN’s envoy that will be discredited, but it will be those who tried to destroy him.
Africa must not look away. The truth is under attack in Burundi.
Written by
Sesona Mdlokovana
BRICS+ Consulting Group Associate: Africa & UAE Specialist
**The Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or .
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