Burundi protests: Hundreds rally against president for third day

Burundi President Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term has triggered the worst political crisis in the east African country since it emerged from civil war a decade ago.

Police fired tear gas and shot in the air to disperse hundreds of people protesting in the outskirts of Burundi's capital on Tuesday against President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term.

Crowds gathered from early in the morning waving placards and chanting slogans accusing the president of breaking the constitution. Some blocked one road with burning tires on the third day of sometimes violent demonstrations in Bujumbura.

One protester told Reuters two people suffered gunshot wounds in the northern Cibitoke suburb, though there was no immediate confirmation, or comment on the wider protests, from the police, army or government.

Nkurunziza's announcement on Saturday that he would run in June 26 elections has triggered the worst political crisis in the east African country since it emerged from civil war a decade ago.

Activists say Nkurunziza and his ruling CNDD-FDD party are breaking two-term limits set out in constitution and the Arusha peace agreement that ended the civil war and has been credited with containing Burundi's ethnic rifts.

The president's supporters say his first term does not count as he was picked by lawmakers, not elected. Nkurunziza's spokesman has called the protests an "insurrection."

"I am calling upon President Nkurunziza to abandon seeking for another third term to prevent the country from massive violence and killings," opposition leader Agathon Rwasa told a news conference on Tuesday.

Crowds on the streets waved placards marked with the message: "No to third term."

The presidency was unavailable for comment.

Burundi's civil war pitted the army, then dominated by the ethnic Tutsi minority, against rebel groups mostly made up of majority Hutus, one of them led by Nkurunziza. The army now includes both ethnic groups.

The prospect of a fresh build-up of ethnic strife will sound alarm bells across a region still scarred by the 1994 genocide in Burundi's neighbor Rwanda, where more than 800,000 people were killed, most of them Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Authorities say about 21,000 people have fled from Burundi to Rwanda, and about 4,000 more over the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The government shut down or imposed restrictions on several radio stations on Monday and many people reported being unable to use the popular WhatsApp messaging service on Tuesday.

(Writing by Edith Honan, Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Burundi protests: Hundreds rally against president for third day
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0428/Burundi-protests-Hundreds-rally-against-president-for-third-day
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe