{"id":7853,"date":"2014-03-18T06:35:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T10:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=7853"},"modified":"2014-03-18T06:35:09","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T10:35:09","slug":"burundian-authorities-suspend-opposition-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/7853","title":{"rendered":"Burundian Authorities suspend Opposition Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Burundian officials have confirmed that the Movement for Solidarity and Development (MSD) – a member of the opposition Alliance of Democrats for Change (ADC) – has been officially suspended following a violent conflict between members of the party and the police on March 8th.<\/p>\n

According to the statement by Interior Minister, Edouard Nduwimana, the suspension will last for about four months, during which the party’s offices across the country are to remain closed.<\/p>\n

This announcement confirms the interior minister’s warning last week that the MSD could be suspended for up to six months and possibly declared defunct.<\/p>\n

Nduwimana described the March 8th incident, which saw the temporary detention of two police officers at the MSD headquarters, as “barbaric.”<\/p>\n

He further accused the chairman of the MSD, Alexis Sinduhije – who is reportedly currently on the run – of inciting his supporters to commit violent acts of revolt.<\/p>\n

The Secretary General of the MSD, Francois Nyamoya, in response, has noted that the temporary suspension is unfair, but that it will be adhered to.<\/p>\n

“We had already effectively been suspended because for months now, the government has prevented us from demonstrating or even from holding meetings,” he said.<\/p>\n

Nyamoya went on to relate that members of the MSD were holding a “calm demonstration” on Saturday, March 8th, before the police intervened.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that Sinduhije and other MSD officials and supporters had set out to jog to the party’s headquarters in Bujumbura on the fateful day.<\/p>\n

In the resulting confrontation with the security forces – who have accused the group of plotting a violent riot – about seventy-one MSD supporters were arrested.<\/p>\n

The spokeswoman for the public general prosecutor, Agnes Bangiricenge, has told Reuters that all the MSD sympathizers in custody will be charged – along with Sinduhije when\/if he is apprehended – for participating in an insurrection.<\/p>\n

She, however, noted that the trial date is yet to be set.<\/p>\n

Reports indicate that the group could be handed life imprisonment sentences if they are found guilty.<\/p>\n

Burundi has struggled to rebuild from over a decade of wars between its two main ethnic groups – the Hutus and the Tutsis.<\/p>\n

The country’s first direct elections since 1993, in 2010, was marred by widespread accusations of manipulation and fraud – which eventually led all the opposition parties to pull out, leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) to win by over 90%.<\/p>\n

In the build up to the nation’s elections in 2015, opposition groups are once again accusing the ruling CNDD-FDD of conniving to undermine their power before the polls.<\/p>\n

Leonce Ngendakumana, Chairman of the ADC, is quoted saying “We know for sure that this is an existing plan by the ruling CNDD-FDD party to exclude from competition any opponent who can pose a threat in the 2015 elections.”<\/p>\n

Photo: Supporters of the suspended Movement for Solidarity and Development (MSD) with the party’s flag during the 2010 elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burundian officials have confirmed that the Movement for Solidarity and Development (MSD) – a member of the opposition Alliance of Democrats for Change (ADC) – has been officially suspended following a violent conflict between members of the party and the…<\/span> Read more ›<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[1974,1972,4974,1904,1973,1971,1975,1372,1976,1278],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7853"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}