By AFP
A government commission which has exhumed the remains of more than 6,000 Burundians slaughtered in pogroms in 1972 is being accused of exploiting the sombre task for political gain and stoking ethnic tensions ahead of elections.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), set up in 2014 to deliver justice and closure to victims of Burundi’s darkest chapters, has been excavating the mass grave since the start of the year — and believes there are many more similar sites.
Hundreds of thousands of Burundians died in waves of ethnic violence and civil war that have scarred the country since independence in 1962, with massacres between the Hutu ethnic majority and the minority Tutsi.
Two major slaughters were the 1972 killings of mainly Hutu by Tutsi and the 1993 killings of mainly Tutsi by Hutu.
The TRC was established in 2014 to deliver justice and closure to victims of Burundi’s darkest chapters.
On Monday, Commission chairman Pierre-Claver Ndayicariye said graves discovered along Ruvubu, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Burundi’s new administrative capital Gitega, could be just the beginning.
“Witnesses speak of other mass graves further away in cornfields,” he told AFP, indicating a dozen other sites had been flagged for investigation.
But opponents of Burundi’s ruling party say the commission has abused its mandate by preferencing excavation work at sites where Hutus were buried, while ignoring pits containing Tutsi victims.
