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BUJUMBURA – Burundi’s foreign ministry said yesterday it had ordered a top United Nations official out of the country following a report claiming the government was arming young supporters ahead of elections.
Paul Debbie, security chief at the UN office in Burundi, has been ordered to leave the country by today, said Foreign Minister Laurent Kavakure.
The expulsion was in connection to a UN report containing “allegations of weapons distribution to members of the youth league of the ruling party”, Kavakure told AFP, saying it had undermined the “image of Burundi” and was a “false rumour.”
The small central African nation is still healing from decades of conflict, and is growing increasingly tense in the run-up to presidential elections in 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza is expected to campaign for a third term in office despite a two-term constitutional limit.
Local media have been quoting from what is alleged to be a leaked internal UN report. It alleges that members of the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of Nkurunziza’s party, are being armed and trained in weapons use, raising fears of a return to civil war, even of genocide.
Vice-President Prosper Bazombanza on Tuesday demanded the UN either provide evidence or retract the report, dismissing the concerns it raised.
“I can assure you that any action to bring about war in general, and to commit genocide in particular, cannot be tolerated,” Bazombanza said in a broadcast on state radio late on Tuesday.
Diplomats criticised the expulsion of the diplomat.
“This does not solve the real problem raised by these allegations,” one said, noting that Burundi has refused UN calls for an independent probe into the reports. – AFP.
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