Word: burundi
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...think I say loudly what [others] think quietly," Alexis Sinduhije told an interviewer earlier this year. The activist and former journalist is one of Burundi's most prominent and controversial voices, the founder of his own political party with out-loud ambitions to run for the country's presidency in 2010. In the turbulent Great Lakes region of Africa, where chaotic Congo meets the former genocidal killing fields of Rwanda and Burundi, Sinduhije promised to be a proponent of ethnic reconciliation, a distinction recognized by TIME when it named him one of this year's 100 most influential people...
Sinduhije, who is in his early 40s, had been praised for his conciliatory work in Burundi, which like neighboring Rwanda was torn by ethnic strife between Tutsi and Hutu. The fighting resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Burundians over several decades. A Tutsi himself, Sinduhije adopted a Hutu war orphan. The independent Radio Publique Africaine, which he founded in 2001, hired both Hutu and Tutsi ex-combatants as part of its effort to foster peace...
...embassy in Burundi said Sinduhije's detention was "unacceptable" and called for his release. Russell Brooks, spokesperson for the U.S. State Department Bureau of African Affairs, reiterated the American position after Sinduhije was charged. "It remains our hope that the government of Burundi will work to advance the cause of political freedom and speech in Burundi, and allow all of its citizens to exercise universally recognized rights." The British government made similar comments in an official statement following the detention, saying it "raises concerns about the ability of Burundians to exercise their civil and political rights...
...United Nations could be very effective in preventing both military and humanitarian crises. The UN Peacekeeping forces are undermanned and underfunded, resulting in a frustration and helplessness that in the past has manifested itself in alleged rape, prostitution, and pedophilia in UN peacekeeping efforts in the Congo, Haiti, Burundi, Liberia, and elsewhere. While the allegations are typical of most military campaigns, better pay and a more promising military outcome could reduce their incidence...
...Darfur, you have a lackluster result, yes, but you had to have peacekeepers with a mandate that was accepted by the government. A full-bore invasion [would have had] catastrophic results." Evans is also keen to highlight "unheralded, unacclaimed" R2P successes like in Kenya this year and in Burundi in the early years of the decad - both cases in which strong diplomatic intervention prevented ethnic clashes from descending into wider ethnic wars...