Background Briefing

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Rape

As the mother of one rape victim said, “Rape has become like an epidemic.”28 To protect themselves, women and girls avoid being alone, whether in their own homes or out on the road.29 Said by one young girl, “I want peace…so as to not have to always live hidden.”30 Both soldiers and FDD combatants have committed this crime. FNL rebels, bound by strict religious rules, are reportedly forbidden to rape and may be punished by death if they do so. As a result, rape by FNL combatants appear to be relatively infrequent.

On January 10, 2004 two FDD combatants raped a girl who was cultivating in a field at Mbare. According to her, they said, “We are going to take you all. There won’t be a virgin left among you.”31 On February 15, 2004 FDD combatants caught five girls on the hill Sagara, Isale commune. Three managed to escape, but the two others were raped.32

In January, a government soldier from the Musumba post raped a girl in Ruyaga.33 On March 10, 2004 government soldiers stopped a group of civilians on the road in Ruziba in Kanyosha commune and abducted a girl, threatening to kill the others if they did not flee immediately.34

Women and girls who have been raped suffer long after from the consequences of the crime. Those known to have been raped or thought to have been raped because they were publicly abducted, because they were away from home long enough for their absence to have been noticed, or because they became pregnant, are likely to be rejected by their communities and even by their husbands and their own families. An unmarried woman known to have been raped will have difficulty finding a spouse.

One young widow and her fifteen-year old sister-in-law from Mubimbi commune were abducted by four armed FDD combatants early one morning in June 2003 when they had just arrived at their fields to begin cultivating. According to one of the victims, the combatants forced them to walk for half a day until they reached a FDD post in the Kibira forest where there were many combatants. Both were gang raped nightly by various FDD combatants from Monday through Friday. “They kept saying, “Just do as you are told…,” said the victim. “They came one after the other. Then there was a pause and then another came. I couldn’t even count how many. It went on a long time, a very long time.” On Tuesday the fifteen-year old complained to the commanding officer. The next day he sent two of the rapists to another post, but the others continued to rape the young women. On Friday night two combatants took away the fifteen-year old and the other victim heard a gunshot nearby. The next morning she was told to run away as fast as she could without looking back. She refused to go without her sister-in-law until she was shown her dead body. She then fled.  The young widow had no choice but to return to the home of her mother-in-law. “I spent five months with her. We never spoke [about the rape] even though everyone knows that if a girl or woman is taken, it is for that. One day I couldn’t eat meat and she said that I was pregnant. I denied it. But when it became clear I was pregnant, she chased me away from her house.” Shaking her head and crying, the victim concluded, “We are rejected, insulted, mistreated. This crime must be punished to deter this in the future.”35

Rapes were rarely prosecuted and punished. In some cases this is because victims cannot identify their assailants and sometimes do not even know for which side they were fighting. On February 21, 2004, armed men in camouflage uniform and boots abducted two girls, one aged fifteen, the other aged seventeen, from a home at Kirombwe. They identified themselves as FNL combatants but the victims and their families believed them to be FDD combatants, trying to discredit their FNL opponents. Yet there appear to have been neither FDD nor FNL combatants in the immediate region and there were government soldiers at a nearby post.36 Parents of the girls overcame their own fear of possible reprisals for bringing a complaint and sought action from administrative authorities. But because neither the rapists nor their military units could be identified, the governor of Bujumbura rural concluded that he had insufficient evidence to raise the case with either the government army or with the FDD.37 The angry father of one of the girls said, “I came here because someone has really hurt my child. The principal person responsible is the one who sent these men there. And we can’t even know who it was.”38

Even where there was a possibility of finding the rapists, authorities rarely made the effort. In the case of the rape in Ruyaga mentioned above, police investigated the case but six weeks later still had not transmitted the file to the military justice department.39 At Gitaza, Muhuta hill, FDD combatants were in the act of abducting three girls when the shouts of local residents attracted the attention of the FDD commander. He intervened to free the girls, but he apparently did not punish the combatants.40 In one exceptional case, a FDD commander had one of his combatants publicly beaten after he was caught trying to rape a girl at Nyarukere, Isale commune.41

A young girl who had been raped said with eyes downcast, “It’s important to punish them [those who raped her] because they did me harm and they did not even know me.”42



[28] Human Rights Watch interview, Kayanza, March 9, 2004.

[29] Human Rights Watch interviews, Bujumbura, March 2 and 4, 2004; Mutambu, March 12, 2004; and Mutumba, March 17, 2004 .

[30] Human Rights Watch, Bujumbura, March 18, 2004.

[31] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 5, 2004.

[32] Human Rights Watch interview, Rushubi, March 19, 2004.

[33] Human Rights Watch interview, Ruyaga, February 26, 2004.

[34] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 18, 2004.

[35] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 13, 2004.

[36]Exaggerated reports of these rapes circulated rapidly and widely in the area, always charging the FDD with the crime. By two or three days later, Human Rights Watch researchers and representatives of other NGOS had been told repeatedly that FDD combatants had systematically raped at least twenty persons, including babies and the elderly in the vicinity of Kirombwe but HRW researchers only found the two cases described above. Human Rights Watch interviews, Ruyaga, February 26, 2004.

[37] Human Rights Watch interview with Ignace Ntawembarira, governor of Bujumbura rural, Bujumbura, March 22, 2004.

[38] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 5, 2004.

[39] Human Rights Watch interview, Ruyaga, February 26, 2004.

[40] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 18, 2004.

[41] Human Rights Watch interview, Rushubi, March 19, 2004.

[42] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 5, 2004.


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