Fear and intimidation and brandy opposition figures accuse the governing party of cracking down on its critics ahead of next years election so what are the chances of a free and fair vote and how can human rights be protected best is inside story. There and welcome to the program. Now burundi has long been criticized for silence and dissent Human Rights Watch has described the killing rape and intimidation of political opponents under the president ial election set for next year or indias again coming under scrutiny opposition groups say the governing party is attacking them and creating a climate of fear but the government rejects those allegations and insists a vote will be free and fair or bring in our guests in a moment but 1st this report from catherine sawyer. Protected by women a quarter you can to cross memories of what happened 4 years ago remain true for this man he tells us his young son was shot by police while on his way to buy bread. Riots started in 215 when president needs are gone through and one of the tom that hes opponent said was unconstitutional street protests a field cool vigilante like attacks and assassinations threatened to tear the country apart another election is due next year and the believed father says people are still being intimidated by Security Forces and members of the Ruling Party Youth we called him born in a. Numb way and talking to you is putting be at risk if the police know what im talking on my knee because find out until i can be arrested or was killed. People here have not forgotten blue does he streak of war at this ceremony they celebrate men and women who fought in another conflict in the 1990 s. The fighting stopped after an Armed Opposition Group brought president hus into to power he promised Civil Liberties ethnic cohesion and improving peoples livelihoods at the height of the conflict people could not use this word because of them and fighting president included and other revolutionaries craighead from bringing peace and keeping the country relatively stable but now some people accuse him of abusing the fame right here for almost 2 years ago. Was saying. All those things on the. I just have one word they just need to. Repent. Spreading false and im going to theyre not here to see why were in this is not and what evolution and what progress the people have made. Some opposition leaders say breaux indians have no freedom to express themselves many have been forced into exile and independent media organizations remain shut many people in the musician. Just trampling on the constitution and nothing. They are trying to to secure a space for only sin the day of the day and its allies. And. Priests are this father who lost his son so brutally hopes politics will not drive the country to the edge again cathy zoi aljazeera would you grow. To struggle for political stability goes back for decades and force a 12 year long civil war that began in 1903 in which nearly 300000 people were killed in 2015 president won a federal election despite allegations of corruption and that triggered a violent confrontations between protesters and Security Forces in which hundreds were killed and last year the results of a constitutional referendum allows unclear is easy to say for another 15 years Human Rights Watch says brandys governing Party Continues to commit abuses against its opponents and crazies its critics have been killed arrested or forced to flee. Well lets bring in our guests now as angela move on the sellstrom whos a peace and conflict researcher at hope Solo University and also an expert on the Great Lakes Region she joins us now on skype from uppsala in london we have jonathan of answer who is the founder and publisher of africa briefing a pan african news magazine and in barrington vermont via skype louis munch the director for Central Africa at Human Rights Watch welcome to you all i do want to start with the situation on the ground so there is the good will the United NationsHuman Rights Council has this commission of inquiry theyve been reporting on whats been happening in burundi for some time now and they describe this climate of fear arbitrary disappearances arrests executions as quite this is a list of horrors and i want to read you something that they said when they launched their latest report in september they said it is extremely dangerous to speak out critically in burundi today the stifling of such voices is what allows the country to present an illusion of calm but it is a. Come based on tara and to talk us through what life is like on the ground in burundi at the moment when i think that i. Mean i think that there is a shared or shared sense of. A really cold war and im certain i believe though those individuals who are really strongly in support of the ruling government. Live in considerably last year those are all families in communities that have either been. Left involved you know their marginally involved in politics and theyre trying to stay out of the way or they are real strong position opposition in the country or outside of the company but i think for young people in particular today live in you know sir. I can carry in terms of particularly in terms of their social economic. Situation but also of course in terms of whether or not they can speak out openly i despise the government. Challenge the government at all well it seems that this u. N. Commission of inquiry is really the only kind of external objective body thats actually reporting on human rights in the country at the moment that thats you know from the a large body that is then reporting to the International Community and im curious because even they struggle for access i believe that the un office has been shut down and theyve been declared persona non grata and all the requests that theyve put in for information from the the government in burundi have gone unanswered so lois let me ask you this how difficult is it to know whats going on in burundi at the moment. Its incredibly difficult and its difficult for a variety of reasons number one as you just alluded to access for you know groups like Human Rights Watch of course but also for the United Nations as you just said the u. N. Human rights body was shut down access is incredibly difficult and so groups such as ourselves were forced to work outside of the room we were working in the refugee camps in its neighboring countries were talking to people who just fled and were doing interviews with people inside the country but very discreetly which alludes to the 2nd point which is in no unclear terms has it been made to us that if the authorities in burundi know that someone is speaking to the u. N. Commission of inquiry for example or a group like Human Rights Watch their lives are in immediate danger Even International journalists you know if someone denounces what is happening outside burundi to an outside source that can then project that message their lives are very much in danger and weve documented numerous cases in which people have been accused of leaking information outside the country so the abuse that were happening thats happening that youre talking about now your guest angela just spoke to this is very much trying to be done in this abuse is trying to be perpetrated in the shadows and so its very important programs such as these 2 to really try to amplify whats happening in advance of these upcoming president ial elections that are talking about all of these things happening in the shadows and jonathan i want to bring you in here because there have been i guess some confusion about who is really in charge and crazies that has a council of generals i believe there are a number of different shadowy organizations here so who is really calling the shots at the stage yes what is going on in the country now he says remnants and all of the. Conflicts in 2015 when the president could have just decided to unilaterally extend you know his mind. I said the previous speaker said only good people are the final say. Human rights you know ive been trampled upon you know with impunity and there were reports recently of about 4 journalists you know who are detained who have been detained in on on the grounds of not been a threat to National Security and so much of it so that situation. As a u. N. Report said the situation hasnt actually improved the only the only. Silver lining is a includes as i say decision not to run for elections next year but a puff on thats the situation has not improved at all i mean refugees more than 1800000. 00 refugees outside the country and others so for everything to be. To be to be done properly and measure put in place you know we had the regional Economy Group in d. C. And then the. The another group we did the review to who need to step in all. And make sure that the message there look that has been proposed but most of the outlook express so all this needs to be done to make for a very credible free of Fair Elections next year so some very Big Questions there which i do want to come back to but i do want to touch on this and this group in the im going to the im born sorry let me say that again the im boehner a core a the youth wing of the ruling party right and ultimately its quite informal but it is a large amount of young men operating seemingly with impunity and jonathan im im going to come back to you in a 2nd but lewis they seem to be operating without oversight but now were starting to see reports of these these militias essentially taking the place of more formal military groups what kinds of trends have you been seeing. Yeah and just to be clear you say malicious essentially that is absolutely right we consider the inborn or a curry to be a youth militia of the ruling party not the government so they are extra governmental they are not tied to the government they work for the party in of themselves and they are effectively enforcers they enforce party line and they enforce felony to the party this is something that we been seeing the embalmer of korea myself was documented in the abuses by the employer a korean can you know show sort of war in 2011 in 2012 weve been seeing the embalmer a curry used to as repressive body but what were seeing now is New Territory now outside the capital were seeing the embalmer a koori being considered stronger than the police being considered stronger than the hill administrators in the in the in the countryside were seeing the im on a curry arbitrarily detained people they have absolutely no mandate to do that were seeing the im on record beat people in public and weve documented numerous instances of killings perpetrated by the employer of corrie so the fact that you know this is not a new trend this is been happening for about you know at least 10 years and actually a few more our 1st report on the employer agree was exactly 10 years ago 2009 but what were seeing which is incredibly worrying is is this is amplifying this is becoming more and more of an open overt trend a few years ago there was always some middle ground between the government administrators and the employer of cory and now thats that line seems to have been crossed in which the owner of career really calling the shots and so its a very very worrying trend that the party feels it necessary to fall back on this youth militia which are the enforcers which enforce fidelity instead of working through normal state structures such as the police to ensure security and i say i am noting that and to that and i do want to bring you in here because one of the things that i didnt mention that these widespread allegations also of Sexual Violence and. Done quite a lot of work on that im sure what kinds of i guess allegations that we saying well whats happening on which im laura so this was the allegations are very much related to the involvement of the him. But also the police and other authorities. The n. T. S. B. As a as a political actor both. As the ruling party but also creating the previous civil war between 90 in the 1990 s. And early 2000. Also have some Sexual Violence a car takes place by its members and really what we saw in the past was was in the city didnt try to take great pains to prevent Sexual Violence to discipline a fire. That kind of this is and was really. A very you know and there were times where the party was the root of the group and why straight and other times where it was not. Good at holding a numbers accountable and now we see that its almost like a valve is a term that is in 2015 which is when i was really following what the clear have been doing im very interested to hear that theyve been actively involved in committing violence wealthy for clearly 50. In the last 2 or years or so there been a incidences of reports where the invalid are searching an area or trying to intimidate a community trying to the really. Kind of informally police the community and make sure the People Living there are loyal and remain faithful to see the f. T. C. Did not hire. So. You know i support the opposition. And then you hear incidents where women and girls are taking. And its very difficult to follow this obviously theres very little of how theyre really on the ground. Im im im utterly. The victims or the survivors of those are really firing or henris because obviously you know now enjoy the protection of the police and the state of the terror structures which are under you know relatively under the control of our all look all 3 of you have also mentioned this very big issue of refugees and theres a huge amount of them in tanzania particularly and a large number of them are now slowly starting to come back i want to take a look at some of these numbers so tens of thousands of people who fled Political Violence have now been slowly returning to burundi and most of them are coming back from camps in tanzania rwanda uganda democratic republic of congo and the u. N. Is helping with the repair tradition of more than 300000 people whove fled since 2015 but there are concerns that bring these neighbors may be forcing the refugees to go back home before its safe to do so especially now with this election coming up next year jonathan how voluntary are these repatriations of. Such a whole. Bunch. I would also add that no must acquit such as at all every. Return of forever if your return true or really should be voluntary there should be no and forced reply christians into the country to also question do not know what this will reply to force or voluntary or forced by the new we are marshall so the government come. Come forced it bridged refrigerate also the country to return to the country against your will so it returned with refrig it return it to the ruby i believe its literary well obviously all of this is taking place with the backdrop of the election thats coming up which is set to take place now and may 2020 and as youve alluded to and crazies are has said that he wont run in the next election despite the fact that he has now potentially extended but the possibility of us turn off to a constitutional referendum last year so let us let me ask you this whats going on herr why isnt crazy as a saying that he isnt going to run despite having gone to the trouble of having a constitutional referendum does this mean that theres some kind of dissent within the ruling party and that we could see more conflict even within the ranks of the c. N. D. D. F. T. Sure happy to answer that but i just i do want to jump on that last subject for just a moment we are documenting refugees who are being forced out pressured by the 10s of the in government so i want to be very clear on that point last month there were between 2. 30 returning is that we documented who told us that the tanzanian authorities came to the camp and said leave you will be withheld benefits we wont were not going to feed you you wont be allowed to leave the camp and were going to close down the markets so were documenting the real pressure and just on this issue again just this month weve spoken with 7 refugees whove returned to. And theyre given very meager kits by u. N. H. C. R. The Refugee Agency of United Nation a cash equivalent of 37. 00 and some basic provisions all of those were taken by the employer a quarry and the 7 individuals were threatened to the point where they fled again so this at this this this aspect of refugees especially with tanzania which is an ally of burundi the medically government has declared they dont want any more brilliant refugees on their territory this issue is not going to go in a time soon i think and i do think we need to be cognizant of the fact that there is a real pressure to force these per people to return who really dont want to but theyre given no Viable Options in tanzania to your point about in currencies im a bit more pessimistic about him not running i acknowledge that he did say he was not going to run but this is a standard playbook from the region weve seen the 70 use the same type of language in the past in uganda could be recently in rwanda said he certainly wasnt going to run and then they did the exact same thing they had a constitutional referendum and he ran for president again i wouldnt be surprised in the slightest if in the next few months we start to see spontaneous manifestations buntay meus protest of the of the people demanding that encourages hes running again this is something thats been done in the past weve seen it before and i wouldnt be surprised now if failing that there is his wife has been rumored to step up next to him or perhaps the current head of the c. D. F. To be the current head of the party but i do not think for a moment these elections will be free and fair even if you currencies as outside and we see that because of the repression on the few remaining individuals who dare to consider themselves political opponents in the country now and i dont think i dont think were going to see any real opening of the political space i think this space is going to continue to be completely controlled by sienna d. F. D. And its in its Close Congress well within this climate affair that weve had about talked discussed a piece of me by various people both inside and outside burundi and they. Has been this ongoing crackdown and seemingly an intensification of this crackdown weve seen several different offices of the new he registered Opposition Party the been down and the government investigated i believe it was several members of the opposition who were then imprisoned blamed for attacking themselves essentially and angela talk us through how that works for the opposition theyve said that they wont be intimidated that they will continue to operate is that realistic but i think they all position has. Made it in a very difficult is in disarray to some extent i think the tactics of the government or the ruling party. Are incredibly destabilizing when we see an opposition improving which is both inside the country and outside the country we see the multiethnic coalitions or the which could have had a more constructive role in to have a more bipartisan approach to the marta station and face new hurdles as a result of the constitution all. The reforms we see that you know the parties 5 or 10 have been fragmented and i think that in general i think that rather leaders the inability to really a sample and to maintain Political Organization is out in the open really weak and you know opposition it is doesnt make it really possible for opposition leaders to campaigning to mobilize the core to question Government Policies it really it really calls into question what kind of election really will take place in class. Jonathan im going to ask you because you are you alluded to potential action. Needing to be taken by the Regional Community on the International Community and im going to ask you very briefly here because the into burundi a dialogue that was being led by the East African Community basically has failed the African Union has had human rights observers in country but they havent released a public report pretty much ever and youve talked about this culture of impunity right so this isnt just about abuses taking place its about the the atmosphere within which that happens so what what room is there now fast action to take place the u. N. Security council also has done very little why the silence and where do we go from here well you know theyre just called just where the discourse of african countries voted to fear in. It that on the face of other. Of other countries are sort of unless the situation becomes very very critical before any like a you or any other country award was tipping to traverse or just wish it right and as the other michael expression times it a mug a fully its not on ally of. Inclusion is a right and there was a video who are appointed to spearhead that dialogue house. Done next to nothing ok so it appears the weld is good to sit by and watch you know this impunity kochie view and what this one rights abuses have to continue and until it gets to a crisp cust change before they step in what i believe should be done is say that the e. U. And they dont really know economic and political ping show took preventive. Measures right to forestall any. Recurrence of what cup and in 2015 or even with. And well have to leave it there but it is something that will continue to watch very very closely indeed thank you to all our guests and. Jonathan often answer and lois knowledge and thank you too for watching and you can see this program again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com and for further discussion do go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a. J. Inside story for meanest and the whole team here and i hope i find a. New topic and alaskan village rapidly losing ground to roshan following permafrost its inhabitants forced to move to safer ground below the western pacific for steven garments when it roots planets as their wits finds people struggling to cope with the ways in syria and asked whether those who have the power to stop it appreciate the true cost of failing to act on aljazeera. Youre watching i was there arms the whole robin and these are all top news stories prodemocracy candidates in hong kong have won an overwhelming majority in Council Elections chief executive kerry lam has promised to listen humbly chinas foreign minister reiterated that whole goal is part of china no matter what happens in elections sarah clarke has more from whole goal. As dawn broke hong kong to a new Political Landscape more than 70 percent of voters cast their ballots in sundays district Council Elections the prodemocracy party secured a Record Number of seats a lot of people actually sacrificed a lot of stuff that they suffered a lot in the last 6 months to actually get this result and i think people are very. Theyre so united and they are so together to actually try to win something joshua one was disqualified for running but his party claim victory in his electorate unseating the incumbent post councilor remarkable achievement in that this election is the efforts of hong kong especially. Protester a hotline from lying theres a prey to prize spend the time or even sacrifice in the protest movement until now the probation parties held the majority in the District Councils but anger against the government eroded their support theyve apologized to the public for misreading the vote those aligned to the post camp say its a nightmarish result and the citys government will need to reassess the peoples demands have spoken quite loudly and clearly havent they so i believe