A France 3-Evening 3 newscaster apologizing for the program’s broadcast of a video falsely attributing atrocities to Burundian security forces
The argument over atrocities committed in Bujumbura, the capital of the East African nation of Burundi continues. Who is responsible and why is it happening? Western policymakers, press, and some Burundian opposition figures accuse the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza, and call for an intervention by African Union troops that Burundi has said it will respond to as invaders. The government denies that it attacks civilians and accuses the opposition not only of terrorist attacks but also of attacking civilians so as to blame the attacks on the government and heighten pressure for military intervention.
On 01.15.2016, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) released a statement accusing Burundi’s security forces of gang raping Burundian women and arresting, torturing, and killing young men in a neighborhood known to be a stronghold of armed insurgents. The insurgents have thrown grenades into public places, assassinated top military and government officials, and even claimed to fire on President Pierre Nkurunziza’s residence, but the UNHCHR didn’t mention that. Former UN refugee camp official Jeff Drumtraand the independent NGO Refugees International have documented Rwandan recruitment of Burundian refugees in Rwanda’s Mahama Refugee Camp to fight in Burundi, but the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights didn’t mention that either and he hasn’t acknowledged that documentation.
Two days before the UNHCHR released his statement, a French public television program titled “The Evening 3,” on the Channel “France 3,” aired a video of several men being hideously murdered and mutilated with machetes and reported that the murderers were Burundian security forces in northwestern Burundi, on land owned by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s party. Yesterday, however, France-24’s The Observers team debunked that report in their own titled, “How a French TV channel aired fake footage of a ‘massacre in Burundi.” They reported that a Belgian lawyer who represents some of the opposition in Burundi, gave the footage to France 3, which France 3 confirmed.
France-24’s Observers Team also said that the France 3 report, titled “Proof of acts of violence in Burundi”, alleged that the footage had been filmed on January 11, 2016, but that they had found a longer version of the video posted on YouTube on December 22, 2015. France 24’s Observers also reported that the language heard in the video is neither Kirundi, the official and majority language of Burundi, nor that of Burundi’s neighbor DR Congo. It is instead Hausa, a language spoken in West African nations which are thousands of miles from Burundi.
Also on 01.15.2016, the France 3 channel’s Evening 3 news program removed the video from its website and broadcast this apology:
“Let’s go back to our Wednesday evening broadcast on Burundi during which we showed excerpts of a video depicting abuses which were said to have been shot at the beginning of the week in Burundi. Authentication of the images is in question and it appears that the video is older and that it was shot in a West African nation and not in Burundi. We of course hope that you will be willing to accept our apologies.”
This is more of the relentless propaganda that the West’s “think tanks,” pedantic pundits, and stenographic press have churned out for well over a year to manufacture consent for military intervention and force regime change in Burundi.
