05.05.08 - BURUNDI/JUSTICE - BURUNDI SEMINARY COMMEMORATES STUDENTS KILLINGS

Bujumbura, 5 May 2008 (FH) - Buta seminary , southern Burundi, commemorated on Sunday eleventh anniversary since the massacres of 41 students, who had defied to be separated along lines of ethnicity at the school.

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On 30 April 1997, some rebels from the CNDD-FDD, now in power in Bujumbura, stormed into the seminary and killed the students on the spot, who were resting in dormitories.

The rebels had asked the seminarians to separate their fellow students along ethnicity, wanting to kill only ethnic Tutsis; but confronted the students' defiance.

The bodies of these "martyrs of brotherhood" were buried on the school grounds and since then, seminarians, friends and families of the victims remember the day by assembling in front of the tombs of the deceased and offer prayers.

The former rector of the small seminary, himself a survivor, Abbot Zacharie Bukuru, expressed regret for the indifference of Burundian justice in spite of the complaint of the school to take to task all those who are implicated in the attack.

"We filed a complaint a long time go, but the justice system has not done anything", he lamented.

He further said: "It is important that authors of the crime are tried and punished...If there is no justice, there will be no peace", he emphasized.

EM/PB/MM/SC

© Hirondelle News Agency