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Burundi suspends cooperation with UN human rights office

Xinhua, October 11, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Burundian government has decided to suspend cooperation and collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Burundi, the east African country's government spokesman said Tuesday in a statement.

"The decision is taken in the aftermath of the role played by the Office during the preparation of the biased and controversial report written by three UN experts on violations of human rights in Burundi," said Burundian Government Spokesman Philippe Nzobonariba.

He added that the decision had been announced Monday to the head of the OHCHR in Burundi in a meeting he had with the Burundian external relations and international cooperation minister.

"Meanwhile, Burundi requests the OHCHR in Burundi to appoint a team that will renegotiate a headquarters agreement that will determine the mandate, the duration and the size of its staff in Burundi," said Nzobonariba.

As a result, he said, Burundi declares the three UN independent experts (who wrote the report) "persona non grata" on its territory.

They are accused of "serious breaches and prejudices" caused on Burundi and its people.

The three UN independent experts include South African Christof Heyns, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Algerian Maya Sahli-Fadel, member of the African Commission on Human Rights and Peoples; and Pablo de Greiff, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence.

On Sept. 20, the three UN independent experts issued a report on "gross and abundant" human rights violations in Burundi between April 2015 and June 2016.

The three UN independent experts came to Burundi in March and June this year to carry out their duty, but they did not come back to Burundi in September as planned "for security reasons".

The experts' report adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Sept. 30 said that 564 executions by state agents took place in Burundi between April 2015 and June 2016.

In their report, they also warned a risk of genocide in Burundi if preventive measures are not taken.

Burundi plunged in a crisis since April 2015 when Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run his controversial third term despite the national constitution and the 2000 Arusha Agreement that ended a decade-long civil war.

More than 500 people in Burundi have been killed and the UN Refugee Agency estimates that about 300,000 people fled to neighboring countries, mostly Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda since the outbreak of the crisis. Endit