Burundi threatens to pull out of UN Human Rights Council

Burundi has threatened to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council over a 272-page report that said the government and its supporters were responsible for crimes against humanity.

Burundian Ambassador Renovat Tabu told the Council that the report was “full of lies” and “politically motivated” and said it had “no regard for states, peoples and leaders”.

The Central African state has refused to cooperate with the three members of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry, set up in 2016, and last week declared them to be personae non gratae.

“We must… have a culture of truth rather than letting ourselves be poisoned, indoctrinated, and intoxicated by the culture of lies which only destroys the morality of the world,” Tabu said.

Burundi reserves the possibility of bringing to justice any person who engages in defamation, even a member of the Commission.”

Last week, Willy Nyamitwe, an adviser to President Pierre Nkurunziza, said Burundi’s human rights and justice ministers were in Geneva to meet U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet.

If Burundi was not treated better, it reserved the right to pull out of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Nyamitwe said.