An exiled Burundian laureate has attacked several African leaders and the Africa Union Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, saying their corrupt tendencies and lackluster attitude have helped destroy her country.
Speaking in the Armenian capital Yerevan, where on Sunday she became the inaugural laureate of the Aurora Prize, Ms Marguerite Barankitse said the African Union’s efforts were hobbled by corrupt presidents seeking to cling to power themselves.
According to Ms Barankitse, who won a $1.1m humanitarian Aurora Prize on Sunday, South African President President Jacob Zuma, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Brazzaville and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among those who have failed to ensure that peace returns to Burundi, a country embroiled in civil war over the last one year when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third presidential term.
“How can you expect the African Union to help Burundi when it has so many corrupt presidents?” she asked. “Do you want Sassou Nguesso in Brazzaville, or the president of DRC who wants to run again?
“They give us a mediator like Museveni. He’s now spent 30 years in power. They’re making a mockery of us and I’m convinced they’re going to come when it’s too late, like in Rwanda, and they’re going to cry crocodile tears.”
And, taking swipe at Jacob Zuma, Ms Barankitse, who is at times referred to as Burundi’s Mandela, said the South African president had destroyed Nelson Mandela’s legacy of peace-building in Burundi.
“Thanks to Mandela, we completed a peace and reconciliation deal,” she said in an interview. “And now today, it’s a South African president, Jacob Zuma, who has brought shame and destroyed what our hero Mandela had built,” Ms Barankitse, who is currently exiled in Rwanda, said.
She added: “South Africans themselves want to tell him no, and he resists… [African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma] decided to send 5 000 soldiers to protect the Burundian people. And it’s African presidents, including her ex-husband, who refused to do that. This is serious. “Zuma, he’s corrupt. And that makes a mockery of us. Quite frankly, it’s a mockery.”
Peace prize
The Aurora Prize was created in memory of the Armenian genocide with the aim of honouring individuals who have risked their own lives to save the lives of others.
A Tutsi who sheltered her Hutu neighbours when the civil war in her country, Ms Barankitse on Sunday received $100 000 to support her own work and a further $1m to donate to other charities who support her causes.
She cared for orphans and refugees, eventually caring for 30 000 children through her Maison Shalom and opening a hospital that has treated 80 000 patients.
The violence last year forced her to close Maison Shalom but she is now working with Burundian refugees in neighbouring Rwanda.
Reports indicate Mandela’s efforts at peace in Burundi helped ended a civil war that left 300 000 dead and forced one million people from their homes in genocidal violence between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis, but Barankitse said her country has returned to a ‘situation of total fear’ with 250 000 people again fleeing the country.
