While King Kagame and his Rwandan elite are drowning in cash from the West, Burundi has been sanctioned into poverty….go figure.
Source: Great Lakes Post
Burundi vs Rwanda: Will Kagame’s Proxy Wars Spark a Regional Firestorm?
25 March 2025
Imagine a quiet night in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, suddenly shattered by gunfire. Not from within, but from across the border—Rwanda, led by Paul Kagame, staging an attack disguised as Red Tabara rebels through the Congolese city of Uvira. Sounds like a conspiracy theory? Not according to Burundi’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye, who claims he has solid evidence: Kagame has his sights set on Burundi next. And he’s not wrong to be paranoid. Rwanda’s been flexing its muscles in the region for years, and the pattern is clear. Why does Kagame keep pushing? Because he’ll only stop when his neighbors hit back—hard.
Today, we’re diving into a brewing storm in East Africa that could spark a regional war. In a BBC interview, Burundi’s president dropped a bombshell: Rwanda is planning an invasion, using tactics straight out of its playbook in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Proxy wars, rebel groups, and denials from Kigali—it’s all there. But here’s the big question: what happens when Burundi decides it’s had enough? Stick around, because by the end, you’ll see why the only way to stop Kagame might be for his neighbors to take the fight to his doorstep.
Rwanda and Burundi, two small neighboring countries, share a border that’s been more of a battleground than a bridge. Tensions stretch back decades—ethnic rivalries, colonial scars, coups, and conflicts. As of March 25, 2025, Ndayishimiye is sounding the alarm. He tells the BBC he has credible intelligence that Kagame is plotting an attack through Red Tabara, a Burundian rebel group armed and trained by Rwanda. The plan? Sneak through Uvira, near the Congo border, and frame it as an internal uprising. It’s classic Kagame—plausible deniability is his specialty.
Rwanda’s government was quick to respond, calling Ndayishimiye’s accusations “surprising” and insisting the border is secure. But it’s not. That border has been sealed tight for over a year, ever since Red Tabara started launching attacks inside Burundi. Kigali claims everything’s fine, but Ndayishimiye isn’t buying it. He accuses Rwanda of trying to overthrow him in a 2015 coup and says they’re at it again. He’s got a point—history has some dark echoes here.
Flash back to 2015: Burundi was a tinderbox, rocked by a failed coup attempt. Ndayishimiye says Rwanda was behind it, recruiting Burundian youth from refugee camps like Mahama, arming them, and sending them in to topple his government. When it failed, the coup plotters fled to Rwanda, where Ndayishimiye claims they’re still sheltered under Kagame’s wing. He’s pleading for their extradition to close the chapter, but Kagame won’t budge. Why? Ndayishimiye believes it’s because Rwanda has bigger plans, and Burundi is just a stepping stone.
The parallels with the DRC are striking. There, the M23 rebel group—backed by Rwanda despite Kigali’s denials—has been tearing through eastern Congo. Cities like Goma and Bukavu have fallen, millions are displaced, and the evidence is overwhelming: satellite imagery, eyewitness accounts, and defectors all point to Rwandan involvement. Ndayishimiye sees Red Tabara as a mirror of M23—a Rwandan proxy designed to destabilize Burundi. “They’ll call it our internal issue when Rwanda’s the real problem,” he told the BBC. And he’s drawing a line: Burundians won’t go down like the Congolese—they’ll fight back.