National Intelligence Service (Burundi)

The National Intelligence Service (, or SNR) is the state intelligence agency of Burundi. The SNR is headed by a general administrator who reports directly to the President of Burundi, while its individual agents report both to the SNR hierarchy and the public prosecutor. It runs its own detention facilities and is separate from the National Police of Burundi (PNB) and the National Defence Force (FDN).

The SNR superseded the National Security Service (Surêté nationale) founded in 1984 which was widely known as the "National Documentation" (la documentation nationale). It was reorganised in 2006 under the regime of Pierre Nkurunziza with a mission of "research, centralization, and exploitation of all information of a political, security, economic and social nature necessary for the government to act to guarantee the security of the state". Its members wear plain clothes and are often recruited from among former members of the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) militia who fought for Nkurunziza in the Burundian Civil War. It is one of the few Burundian government institutions not subject to the system of ethnic quotas imposed by the Arusha Accords.

According to a 2006 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), SNR agents "are known to be particularly brutal in carrying out their missions and to often act outside the law". It attributed 38 extrajudicial killings to SNR members in that year alone. The SNR has been accused of numerous human rights abuses in connection to the political unrest in Burundi since 2015. HRW subsequently documented numerous allegations of torture perpetrated by the SNR, sometimes in collaboration with the National Police during this period. In 2018 BBC News investigated allegations that the SNR had been running a "secret killing house" in Bujumbura where anti-government activists had been detained illegally, tortured, and killed.

General Administrators
Adolphe Nshimirimana (2004–2014)
Godefroid Niyombare (2014–2015)
Etienne Ntakirutimana (2015– )

See also
Guardians of the Peace, a pro-government militia active in 1997–2005

References

Bibliography

Category:Intelligence agencies
Category:1984 establishments in Burundi
Category:Law enforcement in Burundi
Category:Military units and formations established in 1984