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afrol News, 5 February - As the African Union (AU) prepares to send an international force to Burundi to monitor implementation of the cease-fire agreement signed in December 2002 between the government of Burundi and various rebel groups, human rights activists fear the AU will ignore monitoring the country's fragile human rights situation. Amnesty International today called on signatories to the cease-fire agreement to take immediate steps to prevent human rights abuses by their forces, in particular the killing of unarmed civilians. "The cease-fire agreement will mean virtually nothing to ordinary Burundians if the pattern of human rights abuses persists or even escalates," the group said in a statement today. Amnesty said it believed that it was "essential" for the mandate of the AU force to explicitly include human rights protection and prevention of abuses. "The force must be given adequate resources, appropriate training and the political support to exercise this mandate, including comprehensive public reporting on human rights abuses," the group demanded. Thirty-five observers are due imminently in Burundi to be followed by a larger monitoring force. The deployment of the international observation force is a key component of the cease-fire agreement. It is a step eagerly awaited by some; feared, or resisted by others - and not least because of the immediacy it gives to the ultra-sensitive question of reform of the government armed forces. - Such emotions can only be heightened by ongoing conflict and human rights abuses, creating an environment where the continued escalation of the human rights crisis is easily foreseeable, Amnesty said. Following an initial lull in fighting between the government armed forces and the main rebel troops, the CNDD-FDD, in December 2002, hostilities have resumed in various parts of the country, particularly the central area around Gitega and the south eastern border area around Ruyigi. The fighting has brought new reports of reprisal killings of unarmed civilians by the armed forces, unlawful killings and looting by the CNDD-FDD, and heightened an already critical humanitarian situation. Tens of thousands of people in these areas are reported to be recently displaced and to be without access to humanitarian aid. Between 20 and 30 unarmed civilians were extrajudicially executed by members of the government armed forces in Muvumu sector, Gisuru commune on 20 January. The killings appear to have been in reprisal for the killing of 10 soldiers in an ambush, carried out by the CNDD-FDD, two days earlier. Other such killings by government soldiers are reported to have taken place recently including those of seven civilians in Kamenge district, Bujumbura on 2 February, shot indiscriminately in response to an ambush on a military vehicle close to Kamenge. Several people, including at least one local government official (chef de secteur) have been deliberately and unlawfully killed by CNDD-FDD combatants in the same period. Several others are reported to have been abducted, and scores of homes have been looted. The other main armed political group, PALIPEHUTU-FNL, led by Agathon Rwasa, which has not signed a cease-fire agreement, remains active around the capital, regularly attacking and looting outlying districts. It commits numerous human rights abuses including the unlawful killing of local government officials and civilians deemed to have collaborated in some way with government or military personnel in the area in which it operates. Amnesty was appealing the AU to "ensure that the cease-fire monitoring force has the mandate and the resources to protect human rights and prevent human rights abuses, as well as to report publicly on any such abuses which occur." All parties to the conflict should further "ensure that humanitarian and human rights organisations are not hindered in their work and to ensure that the civilian population is not only protected from human rights abuses in areas of conflict, but that they are allowed access to humanitarian aid," the group said.
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