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Suspected ex-Rwandan Interahamwe militias captured by protesters in Burundi

Xinhua, April 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Demonstrators opposed to the third term of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza since Sunday in the capital Bujumbura Tuesday said they held suspected ex- Rwandan Interahamwe militias during the protests.

The Interahamwe are Hutu militias blamed for the 1994 Rwanda genocide which left about 800,000 dead.

"In the morning, we captured two Interahamwe militias. Police agents grabbed one of them from us and took him to an unknown destination. But we held the other one," said a protester at Mutakura (north of the capital), but who requested anonymity.

He said that the suspected Interahamwe fighter was arrested while he was speaking Kinyarwanda in a phone conversation and after the protesters realized that he did not know the name of the neighborhood where the demonstration was taking place.

"He was talking to someone in Kinyarwanda language in a phone conversation and he said he was in a neighborhood other than Mutakura. We immediately concluded that it was an Interahamwe who did not know where he was as said that he speaks Kinyarwanda and English only," said the protester.

At Musaga (south of the capital), protesters and witnesses told Xinhua that they also captured an Interahamwe fighter.

"Yesterday, we saw three Interahamwe fighters, but we were able to capture two of them. The two were handed over to the police. Today we captured another one near Musaga marketplace. This time, we are going to take him to the 11th infantry battalion here at Musaga," said Joel Irabaruta, one of the witnesses.

Protesters at Mutakura and at Musaga also said they identified Imbonerakure youths (Burundi ruling party's youth wing) in police uniforms and who are operating with police agents as if they were policemen.

Speaking to local media on Monday evening, the Director General of the National Police Andre Ndayambaje said, "No Imbonerakure or ex-Interahamwe militias are helping police agents during the demonstrations."

Convened by the opposition and some civil society organizations, the protests that kicked off Sunday mainly in Bujumbura are aimed to force Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza to drop his intention to run for third term in the presidential election due on June 26.

Nkurunziza was Saturday elected by his party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD), in an extraordinary congress, to represent the party in the upcoming presidential election.

Earlier, Burundi's opposition and civil society had called for mass protests if the country's ruling party nominates Nkurunziza to run a third term which they say would be a violation of the country's constitution and the Arusha Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Burundi.

The constitution and the Arusha Agreement stipulate that a president of Burundi cannot serve the country for more than two terms.

Nkurunziza was elected by parliament in 2005 and directly re- elected by citizens in 2010.

Burundi is this year to hold general elections between May 26 and August 24, with the presidential election to be held on June 26. Endi