Burundi appoints controversial truth commission members
Burundi's parliament on Wednesday appointed the members of a much-delayed Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to probe decades of ethnic killings.
The vote, however, was boycotted by opposition politicians from the central African nation's ethnic Tutsi minority.
The opposition say the commission will only hand out pardons, and therefore protect the Hutu-dominated ruling CNDD-FDD party of President Pierre Nkurunziza.
A group of Hutus flee into the hills of Gishingano just outside Bujumbura, Burundi on March 30, 1995 ©Alexander Joe (AFP/File)
Parliament speaker Pie Ntavyohanyuma nevertheless hailed the vote as "historic".
"The National Assembly has approved the names of the eleven members of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission)," he announced.
The Commission appointed is made up of six Hutus, whose ethnic group makes up roughly 86 percent of the population, four Tutsis and one Twa, and will be headed by Hutu Catholic Monseigneur Jean-Louis Nahimana with a Tutsi Anglican archbishop as his deputy.
Burundi gained independence from Belgium in 1962 but a bloody cycle of coups and ethnic killings began ten years later.
A 1993-2006 civil war pitting Hutu rebels -- who went on to form the CNDD-FDD -- against the Tutsi-dominated army left more than 300,000 people dead, according to the United Nations.
The setting up of the TRC and a tribunal was due to have taken place in 2003, as stipulated by the 2000 Arusha peace accords. A 2005 UN Security Council resolution also backs their creation.
Peace was elusive after the 2000 accords and while a fresh ceasefire in 2006 offered some hope that Burundi was out of the woods, political tensions have again been mounting.
Human rights groups have condemned what they say is the widespread intimidation of opposition groups, while fears have been raised that the ruling party could be arming a militia ahead of elections next year.
Wednesday's vote was boycotted by Uprona, Burundi's main Tutsi party.
"We wanted to protest against the setting up of this TRC, which only reflects the wishes of the ruling CNDD-FDD and ignores the element of justice contained in the Arusha peace accord," Uprona MP Charles Nditije told AFP.
"Normally it takes two to have reconciliation. One side cannot force the other to hand out a pardon," he said, adding that "truth and reconciliation cannot happen without justice."
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