By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, May 14, with video -- Amid the protests and crackdown after Pierre Nkurunziza was nominated to run for a third term as President in seeming violation of the Arusha Peace Accord, on May 13 General Godefroid Niyombare announced the ouster of Nkurunziza while the latter was, like UN envoy Said Djinnit, in Tanzania for the East African Community meeting.
Nkurunziza's failure to yet return to Burundi is due not only to control of the airport -- sources tell Inner City Press that the pilots of the plane he used were unwilling to fly to a closed airport. The sources say Nkurunziza sold the country's airplane and now rents.
Likewise the sources tell Inner City Press that Team Nkurunziza withdrew $9 million from the country's "Contingent Owned Equipment" fund for serving as peacekeepers in Somalia: where are those funds now, they ask?
Inner City Press has asked the International Monetary Fund, for its biweekly embargoed briefing on May 14:
"On Burundi, after the IMF's announcement of $6.9 million in the run up to elections, now with General Godefroid Niyombare saying Pierre Nkurunziza is no longer in power, what is the status of the IMF's funds and program, when will it be reviewed?"
Watch this site. With the UN Security Council set to hear from Said Djinnit around noon in New York, at 9:30 am in front of the Security Council UK deputy ambassador Peter Wilson said he wouldn't speak on Burundi until after Djinnit's briefing.
Throughout May 13 Inner City Press asked the Presidency of the UN Security Council for May, Lithuania, when Burundi might be addressed. At the luncheon with the Secretary General was the first response.
Then after five p.m. Inner City Press asked Lithuania's Permanent Representative to the UN, who replied there will be an emergency meeting on Burundi on May 14 after the Council's previously scheduled meeting on Iraq; Said Djinnit will brief.
But what will he say?
On May 15, the UN Peacebuilding Configuration on Burundi is set to hear from UN DPA chief Jeff Feltman. On Monday they heard from Minister Nduwimana - where is he now?
The UN Security Council was late in meeting on events in Burundi - the penholder was less than vocal against the proposed third term - and one wonders how slow they will be on this coup.
Inner City Press sources have told it that France's Ambassador to Burundi had been telling the opposition they should just accept the third term, allegedly in exchange for other "reforms." Now this.
On May 12, Inner City Press had asked UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric
Inner City Press: I wanted to ask one follow-up on Burundi. There's been a decision or announcement by a number of European countries to not actually pay funds they were going to pay for the upcoming elections. Since there's a UN electoral mission there, is that… what does the mission think?
Spokesman Dujarric: I'll get a… I have not gotten anything from them.
Spokesman Dujarric: I'll get a… I have not gotten anything from them.
That's today's UN.
On May 11, the UN Peacebuilding Configuration for Burundi met and sought answers from Burundi's minister by video.
Asking questions were Swiss Permanent Representative Paul Seger and his counterparts from Belgium and Tanzania, Ambassador Manongi, as well as the UK's Deputy Permanent Representative Peter Wilson. France, the penholder on Burundi in the UN Security Council, did not send its Permanent Representative Francois Delattre nor his Deputy Alexis Lamec.
Questions were raised about the armed youth wing, the crackdown on media, the outward flows of refugees. The responses were generally dismissive -- Wilson wondered aloud at the disparity between the Minister's denials on the youth wing and all other available information -- and on press freedom, troubling. Media is political, the minister said, justifying the crackdown.
But what will come next? Later on May 11, the US issued a travel warning on Burundi saying among other things that "Armed groups operate in Burundi... Exchanges of gunfire and grenade attacks have increased but are usually not directed at foreigners." It's that kind of thinking that the ruling party seems to be counting on. Watch this site.
