The United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council agreed last Thursday to send experts to work with Burundi’s government in solving the political crisis and also bringing perpetrators who fuel this conflict to order.
The resolution however, as always stirred debate between European Union and United States.
The move supported by delegation from Bujumbura was adopted by a vote of 23 states in favor, 14 against, with nine abstentions at the 47-member Geneva forum in Switzerland.
This follows a unanimous decision by U.N. Security Council rejecting ICC calls to intervene in Burundi saying its involvement wouldn’t add value but rather degenerate the conflict.
What has however shocked officials in Bujumbura is how Western Media shunned to report about the positive news from Geneva but always quick to publish negativities about the country.
“If it were negative report all headlines would be about Burundi. Why are the media houses silent on this development,” an official in Burundi government wondered.
He further said that only one international media house reported about this resolution but carried much of negative comments.
President Pierre Nkurunziza’s administration has several times expressed distress on how international media particularly the West collaborates with State opponents to portray a bad image of Burundi.
Nkurunziza exhibited willingness to dialogue with rivals to end the political impase with the help of fellow African leaders.
Burundi government has already received thousands of refugees who had fled the country in 2015 to return home.
Many of these imposed themselves into exile having committed crimes at the epitome of the 2015 crisis to dent the regime’s image
Whereas the government insisted that these perpetrators must face the law, it later scrapped the directive to enable sanity prevail.
But Western Media continues to report otherwise on these facts.
Burundi’s ambassador Renovat Tabu in Geneva told UN Council that some officials of EU and other characters had “a hidden agenda” against Burundi.
“The (Burundi) government has already achieved substantial progress in improving the human rights situation as well as building the rule of law, and in the fight against impunity” he said.