UN genocide envoy warns on Burundi tensions

Arusha (Tanzania) (AFP) - The United Nations' top advisor on preventing genocide on Saturday appealed for dialogue and greater freedoms in Burundi, which he said needed to avert "the worst" ahead of elections next year.

Speaking at the seat of the UN-backed Rwandan genocide tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, Adama Dieng said Burundi had the right to vote "in complete peace".

"The forces of evil must not be allowed to push certain actors toward criminal violence," he told reporters, warning of a rise in political violence in the small central African nation.

"The best way to halt this violence is to bring all political players together to talk. If not, the worst could happen," said the Senegalese diplomat, when asked if Burundi was at risk of falling into the fate as its neighbour Rwanda, which collapsed into genocide 20 years ago.

Burundi, he said, needed to see "an enlargement of the space for freedom so that human rights are respected."

"Today no state can use its sovereignty in order to quietly commit murder," he added.

Burundi, a small nation in Africa's Great Lakes region, emerged in 2006 from a brutal 13-year civil war, but its political climate remains fractious ahead of presidential polls in eight months' time.

President Pierre Nkurunziza, in power since 2005, is expected to run for a third term in office despite opponents' claims that that would violate Burundi's constitution.

Burundi's last elections in 2010 were boycotted by most opposition parties, and Nkurunziza's opponents are again accusing the ruling CNDD-FDD party of eliminating any dissent ahead of the next polls.

Rights groups including Amnesty International have said the CNDD-FDD's youth wing, the Imbonerakure, also has strong links to Burundi's security service and is "perpetrating human rights abuses with impunity."

A UN official was expelled from the country in April after a confidential note reporting the distribution of weapons by the government to the Imbonerakure was leaked.