Release of political prisoners sparks debate

Leaders in Burundi are divided over the definition of what constitutes a political prisoner, following the provisional release of 673 prisoners who had been incarcerated in connection with the violence that followed the 1993 assassination President Melchior Ndadaye. Reacting to Tuesday's prisoner release - which Justice Minister Clotilde Niragira said was based on report of a commission mandated to compile a list of prisoners convicted of political crimes - the leader of a human rights association said the commission must define clearly who qualified as a political detainee. The spokesman of the ruling Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces de defense pour la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Evariste Nsabiyumva, told a Bujumbura newspaper, Net Press, that his party considered only "detained master minders of the 1993 coup d'etat as political prisoners". The leader of the Puissance d'Auto Défense-PA Amasekanya, a Tutsi militia, said the prisoners' release was a return to the days of "impunity and the genocide of the Tutsis". The spokesman of the mainly Hutu Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi (FRODEBU), Pancrace Cimpaye, said those who avenged Ndadaye, that is, the "authors of the ethnic massacres should be included in the group of prisoners to be released". The new leader of the mainly Tutsi Union pour le Progrès National (UPRONA), Aloys Rubuka, said, "People should trust the judiciary and the commission mandated to inquire into political crimes." The 21-member commission, mandated by President Pierre Nkurunziza in November 2005 to identify political prisoners, was to submit a report every three months. It has not yet published its criteria defining a political prisoner. Justice Minister Niragira said Tuesday's release was in accordance with Nkurunziza's directive. "They will be granted provisional immunity as they have been freed temporarily," she said. She said the prisoners' cases would be taken before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that is yet to be formed. Those released constitute a first batch of political prisoners who are to be released progressively. She said selection for release was based on the penal code that spelt out political crimes. The decision to release the prisoners does not apply to those who committed common law offences such as rape. In his end-of-year message in December 2005, Nkurunziza announced the release, from January, of prisoners - not necessarily political ones - who have served a quarter of their sentences and those who have spent more than two years in prison without a file. "We wanted to prevent some prisoners' complaints that they remain in prison whereas those who committed that same crimes are free," Niragira said. The leader of the human rights association, Association pour la protection des Droits Humains et des Personnes Detenues, Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa, said political prisoners included several categories, notably ranging from those who formed Tutsi youth militias, those who assassinated Ndadaye to those who participated in the killing of Tutsis in 1993. He said 90 percent of those released had been accused of attempted massacre and that the remaining 10 percent included those who had been accused of participating in armed groups and assassinations. "I am, however, worried that some of the released might again commit the same crimes," Mbonimpa said on Wednesday.