RED-Tabara1, for those who are not aware, is an armed group, claiming to be a resistance movement, that came into being following the Burundi Unrest of 2015, when President of that time, Pierre Nkurunzizi pushed through an unconstitutional third term in office. Not long after their inception, this group fled west to the South Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an area which shares a 243 Km border with Burundi, and became involved in the long-running Kivu Conflict2, clashing with the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDAC).
The Tutsi aligned RED-Tabara, believed to be led by notable opposition figurehead Alexis Sinduhije are affiliated with the Movement for Solidarity and Democracy Party, one of the most high-profile opposition parties in Burundi. They cling to a notion of justice by fighting the noble fight against the oppressive rule of the illegal Hutu government, however, their actions since being established raise doubts as to whether this ‘resistance movement’ is indeed more akin to a ‘terrorist faction’.
In October 2019, RED-Tabara launched a cross-border raid into Burundi, an action followed a month later by an ambush on Burundian Army soldiers by unidentified militants at the Burundi-Rwanda border. President Evariste Ndayishimiye and his Burundian government reacted to this ambush by accusing Rwanda of lending its direct support to local rebel groups, and in doing so, raised the stakes with their unfriendly northern neighbor. This issue has subsequently kept tensions between these nations, leading to Burundi’s unilateral decision to close all joint land border crossing points in January this year, as well as repeated claims of Rwandan funding and training for the armed group.
RED-Tabara, estimated to still have 500-800 fighters, has been associated to a number of attacks on Burundian villages near the western border with DRC. Three more recent attacks resulted in the killing 14 people (12 children, two pregnant women, and one police officer) in the village of Vugizo in late December 2023, nine people in Buringa in February 2024, and at least 20 more people in Gatumba in April 2024. The shift from targeting Burundian security forces to indiscriminately targeting civilians lends credence to the argument that the group is more terrorist faction than political actor.
The history of this relatively small3 central African4 nation has been plagued by colonial rule and endemic conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities, best highlighted by the Burundian Civil War5, which raged from late-1993 to mid-2005. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that between 2015 and February 2018, “more than 400,000 refugees and asylum seekers had fled the country, escaping human rights abuses, continued political uncertainty, and the related humanitarian crisis.” These ethnic tensions remain very much a constant in the daily lives of the Burundian population.
It is unclear if the presiding government is the best option for Burundi in improving the lives of their people, however, it is clearer that the actions of RED-Tabara, whether resistance or terrorist motivated, are only adding to an already volatile situation.
1 Resistance pour un Etat de Droit au Burundi, or in English, Resistance for Rule of Law in Burundi.
2 For background on the conflict in the DRC see: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo
3 Burundi was ranked 146th largest country in the world in terms of land area (27,834 Km2) and 78th in terms of population (13.5 million): https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/countries_by_area.htm and https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/population-by-country.htm
4 Burundi is located directly south of Rwanda, east of Democratic Republic of Congo, and west of Tanzania, with Lake Tanganyika positioned along its western side to southern tip: https://cdn.britannica.com/00/7200-050-2A9C5734/Burundi-map-features-locator.jpg
5 https://africacenter.org/spotlight/burundi-the-forgotten-crisis-still-burns/