On August 13 2004, 152 Congolese Tutsis were shot, hacked and burned to death, by members of the Hutu-extremist group Palipehutu-FNL at the Gatumba refugee camp in western Burundi. The attack was the largest of a series of FNL atrocities. In December 2000, my sister Charlotte Wilson was among 21 people killed in an attack on a bus close to the Burundi capital. When the FNL claimed responsibility for Gatumba, they boasted the international community was powerless to to stop them. A year on, it looks as if they were right.
The UN launched an investigation and passed two resolutions urging that the killers be brought to justice. The Burundi government produced an arrest warrant for the FNL leader Agathon Rwasa and declared its intention to refer the case to the international criminal court. Yet the UN investigation has now been suspended and the US has blocked efforts to refer the case to the ICC. When Rwasa appeared in Tanzania earlier this year, the Tanzanian president shook his hand, declaring that the FNL leader's emergence was a great step forward for peace. At the end of May, the FNL signed a ceasefire with the Burundi government. Days later, the FNL launched mortar attacks on the Burundi capital.
The FNL has repeatedly attacked civilians since my sister was killed. The UN's policy of quietly forgetting such crimes has not worked.
Richard Wilson
London
