The controversial Imbonerakure have a national calendar day set aside to celebrate them usually on August 26.
Imbonerakure is the youth wing of the ruling party CNDD-FDD, the Conseil national pour la défense de la democratie (CNDD)/Forces pour la défense de la democratie (FDD). The word Imbonerakure means “those who see far” in the Kurundi language.
According to Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa, Burundi’s most prominent human rights activist, the Imbonerakure has some 50,000 members across Burundi.
The highly radicalised Imbonerakure can be descibed as Armed, murderous, militarised, partisan, powerful, unaccountable, uneducated.
Human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns that the youth wing does the ruling party’s dirty work and has become virtually a law unto itself.
The group arose in 2010 out of disarmed fighters from the ruling party. The previous regime of slain former President Pierre Nkurunziza had strongly armed the Imbonerakure as he sought to extend his rule in 2015 against the constitutional two-term limit.
In early April 2014, the United Nations mission in Burundi cabled headquarters in New York, citing credible reports that both weapons and uniforms were being distributed to Imbonerakure.
Imbonerakure in rural areas acts “in collusion with local authorities and with total impunity,” behaving as a “militia over and above the police, the army, and the judiciary,” the cable said.
It described the group as “one of the major threats to peace in Burundi and they are responsible for most politically motivated violence against opposition.”
In a 2015 report, the Observatory of Government Action, a group of civil society organisations, said the Imbonerakure “detain people with different political opinions, tie them up, beat them, make them pay fines and so on.
According to other critics, the Imbonerakure are accused of waging a campaign of intimidation and violence that helped late President Pierre Nkurunziza win a controversial third term.
Many Burundians who fled to Rwanda after the elections said they were forced to leave their homes and country because of actions of Imbonerakure.
However, President Evariste Ndayishimiye formerly serving as General Secretary of the ruling party CNDD-FDD, noted, “the enemies of Burundi began to tarnish the image of the Imbonerakure accusing them of being armed militia since they failed to overthrow the institutions…”
“Imbonerakure, are a “dynamic and polite” youth group. They are unfairly represented as killers in order to justify killing them,” according to Ndayishimiye.
