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Security Council briefed on proposed truth commission for Burundi

15 June 2005 – A senior United Nations official today briefed the Security Council on the feasibility of setting up a truth commission in Burundi to establish the facts surrounding the years-long conflict in the central African country and promote peace and establishing a special chamber to bring war criminals to justice.

Ralph Zacklin, Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, told the Security Council that a 2004 UN Secretariat mission to Burundi, convinced of the acute need to support the peace process and foster truth and reconciliation while achieving justice, had considered modalities for establishing a "twin-accountability mechanism" to shed light on the historical truth regarding the conflict, investigate the crimes committed and bring those responsible to justice.

Presenting the report of the mission to Burundi, which was led by Tuliameni Kalomoh, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Mr Zacklin said that a proposed truth commission classify the crimes committed since independence in 1962 and identify those responsible. The mission also recommended establishing a special chamber within Burundi's court system with the competence to prosecute those bearing the greatest responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The experience gained in establishing parallel judicial and non-judicial accountability mechanisms in Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste would be helpful in determining the relationship between the truth commission and the proposed judicial accountability mechanism, he said. An expeditious establishment of a truth commission would ensure that by the time a special chamber was established, the results of the investigations carried out by the commission could be shared with the prosecutor of the special chamber.

He said that a request in July 2002 by then-President Pierre Buyoya for an international judicial commission of inquiry must be considered in the light of Burundi's history of ethnic conflict, the events that had taken place since the conclusion of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement in 2000, and the experience gained by the UN in promoting justice and the rule of law over the past 12 years. Mr. Zacklin said that it also be examined against the background of four international commissions of inquiry established between 1993 and 1995, including three at the request of the Security Council.

Burundi's Justice Minister Didace Kiganahe said his Government supported setting up a single commission responsible for establishing the truth and a special chamber within the court system of Burundi to establish responsibility. At the same time, he pointed out that the distinction between the national truth and reconciliation commission and the international judicial commission of inquiry was not clear.

There was a clear risk of overlap, he said. Also, Burundi's judicial structure was unable to deal with complex cases of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The proposed commission would be created under national law and an agreement between the UN and the Government.

He said the mission's recommendations had met the dual concerns of the political negotiators in Arusha and the people of Burundi, which was to establish the truth and then to bring to justice and punish the guilty. Furthermore, the Government also wished that, beyond establishing truth and justice, reconciliation should be placed at the heart of peace and national unity.

The aspect of reconciliation was not adequately emphasized and the Council should also specify the financing modalities for the dual mechanisms. The very credibility of the system being put in place would depend on its enjoying adequate funding during its entire operation, he said.