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In 2000, thanks to the interventions of international forces, the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi
were signed, in which all parties, including the one led by the rebels,
have approved the cease-fire and a transitory period of 4 years in order to
prepare the country to second
democratic elections. The Agreement proposed a six month President’s
periodicity, and the reform of the army including in it the rebel forces.
On the completion of these operations in
2004, 5.600 UN Blue Helmets were displaced, with the task of disarming the
population, supervising the security in Burundi and the course of the
elections, which were held in August 2005. Elections were held properly.
With the victory of the president Pierre Nkurunziza,
Burundi’s
status as a democracy is only on paper. Sadly, this does not match the real
conditions daily experienced by the Burundians.
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The repeated
massacres started in 1962 and the breakout of the civil war in 1993 have left an indelible
mark in the Burundian population, under several perspectives. From a demographic aspect:
thousands of families have been destroyed and 50% of inhabitants are less
than 15 years olds; from an
educative aspect: 65% of population is illiterate, therefore excluded
from public participation; from a
social aspect: everyone has fled more than once from their own houses,
having to make a fresh start in absolute poverty; under a psychological aspect: everyone witnessed horrifying
episodes of war, where life has been completely emptied of its meaning
through weapons and machetes. All for a war whose origins are unknown.
Violence in 1993 reached such an inhumane peak that people are only
left with a huge sense of fear:
fear of the government and its political and economical measures, fear of
the closed Tutsi, but of the Hutu too, fear even of themselves, without
forgetting that in 1993 many were killed on commission (for as little as
5.000 Burundian francs, the equivalent of 3 Euros).
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And this is
the very fear the Burundians are afraid of waking up to.
“... They who have not
met the peace since three generations, they who hear about freedom and
equality only from far away, they who do not know anything about small and
big economic and political interests, they themselves scream today for
peace and the pacific cohabitation. They speak today of democracy, maybe
not entirely understood as governmental institution, but meant as a
complete cease-fire, the acknowledgment of Human Rights and a justice
system ”. (From the documentary: Burundi
2005. Verso la democrazia. Available at the
Association)
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