• Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The FDNB is called on to go with the TRC in the search for the truth on the painful past experienced by Burundi

ByWebmaster

Aug 3, 2022

BUJUMBURA August 1st (ABP) – The Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Mr. Pierre Claver Ndayicariye moderated on Friday July 29, 2022, in Bujumbura, a public conference of the High Command of the National Defense Force of Burundi (FDNB) under the theme “planning, execution and consequences of the 1972 -1973 genocide in Burundi.

That conference saw the participation of various executives of the FDNB including the Minister of National Defense and Veterans Affairs, Mr. Alain Tribert Mutabazi and the Chief of Staff, General Prime Niyongabo.

View of the participants

In his welcoming remarks, Minister Mutabazi welcomed all the participants and everyone to listen carefully to the investigations carried out by the TRC since the year 2019 until today.

In his presentation, Mr. Ndayicariye informed the participants about the mandate, mission and composition of the TRC. He also presented the years of violence that marked the history of Burundi.

In 2019, he reported that the TRC conducted its search for truth around human remains at Muramvya, Bubanza, Mwaro, Mabanda and at the University of Burundi.

In 2020, he reported that the TRC interviewed 374 resource persons and former 1972 offices of former prisoners’ survivors of the 1972 genocide.

Around the year 2020-2021, the president of the TRC indicated that this commission heard 1030 people in 10 provinces and exhumed 19,887 victims of the year 1972 in 190 mass graves.

After that presentation, he showed the participants a film of the surveys already carried out.

The Minister of the FDNB commended the step taken by that commission in the search for the truth on the violence committed against Burundians 50 years ago.

He took that opportunity to call on the national defense services to accompany that

TRC’s truth-seeking and reconciliation process to learn the truth about Burundi’s painful past. The truth liberates the nation, underlined the  TRC chairman.