The hardliners in the Burundian regime dominate the first government of the new president Évariste Ndayishimiye, announced Sunday evening, doubting the timid hopes of a possible opening of the country.
The choice of Évariste Ndayishimiye by the ruling party to succeed outgoing president Pierre Nkurunziza had hinted at a possible easing of the regime. Elected in May, Mr. Ndayishimiye was perceived as more open than his predecessor, who died suddenly on June 8 officially of “cardiac arrest”.
But the appointment on June 23 of the highest ranking Burundian police, Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni, to the post of Prime Minister had already suggested that there would be no inflection and that it was continuity that prevailed.
Bunyoni was already considered the real number two of the regime since the political crisis of 2015 and the leader of the hardliners among the group of generals who control Burundian power.
This was confirmed by the entry of another hawk into government on Sunday: the chief police commissioner (CPC), Gervais Ndirakobuca, who has so far led the much-feared National Intelligence Service (SNR), accused of being at the heart of the Burundian repressive system since the start of the crisis.
Appointed Minister of the Interior, Community Development and Public Security, Gervais Ndirakobuca is a member of the first circle of generals from the rebellion who now control the country.
It was during the Burundian civil war (300,000 dead between 1993 and 2006) that he acquired his nickname, Ndakugarika, literally “I will extend you stiff dead” in Kirundi, the national language.
General Ndirakobuca has been subject to sanctions from the United States, the European Union and the main European countries for five years.
In addition, Ambassador Albert Shingiro, permanent representative of Burundi to the United Nations for five years and considered as the main “diplomatic face” of Burundian power, becomes the new Minister of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation.
The candidacy in April 2015 for a controversial third term of President Pierre Nkurunziza had plunged the country into a major political crisis, which has left at least 1,200 dead and forced some 400,000 Burundians into exile.
The country has since been held in an iron grip by the regime, thanks to the Imbonerakure, the youth league of the ruling party, the CNDD-FDD, and the National Intelligence Service, which spread terror among the population.
– “The repression continues” –
The government has undergone a major overhaul with only five ministers keeping or changing their positions. Among them, that of Finance and Budget, Domitien Ndihokubwayo, and that of Public Health and the fight against AIDS, Dr Thaddée Ndikumana, accused of having minimized the Covid-19 pandemic in Burundi.
“Even if there are new faces, the presence of Generals Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni and Gervais Ndirakobuca and that of Shingiro in Foreign Affairs means that the arrival of a new head of state changes nothing and that it is the hard line that prevails more than ever “, analyzed for the AFP a diplomat, on condition of anonymity.
“It is our detractors who speak of a hard government (…) It is a tight government, whose mission is to develop the country and which respects the ethnic and gender balances provided for in the Constitution,” replied AFP a member of the presidency, on condition of anonymity.
Pacifique Nininahazwe, one of the figures of civil society in exile who had already described the appointment of Mr. Bunyoni as “a very bad signal”, estimated on Twitter that that of Gervais Ndirakobuca means that “the repression continues”.
He also notes the appointment to the post of Minister of East African Community Affairs, Youth, Sports and Culture of a former leader of the Imbonerakure Ezéchiel Nibigira, seeing in it “the importance of the militia in politics of the new government. “
In addition, for the first time in the history of Burundi, a member of the Twa minority, Ms. Imelde Sabushimike, entered the government as Minister of National Solidarity, Social Affairs, Human Rights and Gender.
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