Une traduction du communiqué de presse est disponible ici, et la version française du rapport peut être téléchargée ici.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Code Blue report Calls for Removal
 of Burundian soldiers from UN Peacekeeping

Click here to read the full report.

March 5, 2020: In a 16-page report titled THE UN’S DEAL WITH A DICTATOR, AIDS-Free World's Code Blue Campaign lays out a narrative substantiating our view that troops from the Pierre Nkurunziza regime in Burundi do not belong in UN Peacekeeping.

The report shows: 

  • The armed forces of the government of Burundi have been credibly accused of rape as a crime against humanity by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Burundi (COI) and a three-judge panel of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Both the COI and ICC are continuing their investigations.  

  • Soldiers from the forces under investigation are deployed as UN peacekeepers in the UN mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA). As of December 31, 2019, 745 contingent troops, eight staff officers, and two Experts on Mission from Burundi are serving in MINUSCA. 

  • The government of Burundi, responsible under international agreement for investigating and prosecuting allegations against its own soldiers, has never lodged charges against soldiers accused of crimes of sexual violence. As a result, none of those soldiers has ever faced criminal punishment.

  • In exchange for the deployment of its personnel, the UN pays Burundi’s government more than $13 million a year from funds paid out of the mandatory dues for peacekeeping operations contributed to the UN by Member States.

Since 2015—excluding all allegations of non-criminal sexual offenses—the UN has determined that reports of rape or sexual assault lodged against 43 military peacekeepers from Burundi have met the credibility threshold for inclusion in the organization’s Conduct in UN Field Missions database. The alleged victims of those 43 soldiers include 49 children, 27 adults, and five persons of unknown age. 

A much larger number of victims of Burundian peacekeepers never report the incidents to the UN, according to Code Blue's analysis.

THE UN’S DEAL WITH A DICTATOR calls for UN Secretary-General António Guterres to act promptly to remove Burundian troops from the Central African Republic consistent with Security Council Resolution 2272 (2016), which endorses the repatriation of a peacekeeping unit when “there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic exploitation and abuse.”

The report includes a chronological listing of major events in Burundi over the course of 2019, with a focus on the UN’s engagement with the country. The timeline makes clear that the situation in the country is deteriorating in the lead-up to the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for May 20, 2020.

Paula Donovan and Stephen Lewis, Co-Directors of AIDS-Free World and its Code Blue Campaign, write in the report:

"The United Nations pays the Government of Burundi $13 million a year for the use of its military personnel. That money, in turn, finances the government’s campaigns of terror, including rape, both in Burundi and in the Central African Republic. The question—logical, moral, ethical, and legal—is unavoidable: why is the UN financing sexual violence against women and girls?"

THE UN’S DEAL WITH A DICTATOR is being sent to each Member State Permanent Representative to the United Nations; leading figures in the UN Secretariat; journalists; NGOs; prominent academics; and Burundians in exile and at home.

A French version of the report is currently in production.

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For more information on Burundi’s role in UN peacekeeping, see Code Blue’s Spotlight on Burundi.

See the full list of sources used in Code Blue’s report here.

MEDIA CONTACT: 
Peter Duffy
TEL: +1-646-924-1710
Email: media@aidsfreeworld.org

(Photo credit / Adrienne Surprenant)