BUJUMBURA March 8th (ABP) – The chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC-CVR), Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, announced on Tuesday March 7, 2023, in a press café, that the commission will begin this month of March 2023, the phase of the hearings on the violence committed between 1972 and 1973 throughout the country.
According to Ndayicariye, those hearings will be of three types including public hearings, hearings in camera and thematic hearings. He also indicated that this evidence collected by the commission cannot be used against victims, witnesses, alleged perpetrators and other deponents. However, he continued to say, they will allow the speakers to contribute more to the discovery of the truth, to shed light on the painful past that Burundi has known with the aim of an effective reconciliation between all Burundians.
Anyone auditioned must take an oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the chair of the TRC insisted.
In his opening remarks, Pierre Claver Ndayicariye considered what Burundi has known since the colonial period, as “an open secret”. Because, he explained, during the previous phases of inquiries and investigations, honest citizens approached the TRC to talk about it. But it was done discreetly, he added.
He did not fail to point out that today, the time has come to leave the shadows to make them testify in broad daylight and with their faces uncovered.
On the sidelines of those planned hearings, that commission will also organize thematic hearings on the major violations committed in the past, in order to know the root causes and the role played by State or private institutions, TRC Chairman Pierre Claver Ndayicariye specified.
Given the investigations made by the TRC, the province of Ruyigi has a large number of witnesses and the pilot hearing of those activities will be organized there.