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UN Investigators Accuse Burundi of Enacting Strategy to Undermine Elections

Lisa Schlein

   GENEVA - The U.N.'s Commission of Inquiry on Burundi accuses the ruling
   party and Burundian authorities of implementing a strategy based on
   violence that skewers election results in their favor. The commission
   has just submitted its final report to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

   This is the fourth and final year that the human rights situation in
   Burundi has been under the investigative lens of the Commission of
   Inquiry.

   The commission says there has been no reduction in widespread,
   systematic human rights violations in the country over this period.
   Hopes that conditions would improve under the new government of
   Evariste Ndayishimiye - it adds - have been dashed.

   The report finds the electoral process, which concluded on August 24,
   was not marred by mass violence. However, it says serious human rights
   violations, some of which may constitute crimes under international
   law, have been committed.

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