In an interview with Main Switch 27 published on August 17, 2026, Bizimana said Burundi maintains good relations with most countries, except Rwanda.

According to Bizimana, the strained relations stem from Rwanda’s refusal to hand over people accused of involvement in the attempted coup against former Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza in May 2015.

“The only slight problem is with Rwanda. You know that it is the country hosting those who attempted to overthrow the government in Burundi in 2015. We continued talking to them, but sometimes we found that what they said was not being implemented because they had agreed to return those people to Burundi so that they could face justice, but they did not.

They kept misleading us and then used them on opposing sides in Congo to attack us and create chaos in the country. But God helped us, and we are vigilant. They will not find a way through,” he stated.

Rwanda has repeatedly said it cannot extradite the individuals because it received them as refugees and that refugee matters are governed by international law.

Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Olivier Nduhungirehe, recently said Kigali had never agreed to send the individuals accused of involvement in the coup attempt back to Burundi.

He said discussions on the matter took place in 2023 but failed to reach a conclusion because some conditions requested from the Burundian side were not fulfilled.

Bizimana said dialogue on the issue was still ongoing, arguing that improved relations between the two countries were necessary for security and economic development.

“We are talking. There are institutions that are communicating to see whether things can return to normal because we know, and they also know, that without security in our countries and without proper trade relations, we will not achieve development.”

Bizimana and ethnic rhetoric

One of the most controversial parts of the interview came when Bizimana compared the paths Burundi and Rwanda have taken after their troubled histories.

He said Burundi had chosen to accommodate Hutu, Tutsi and Twa communities, while suggesting that Rwanda had taken a different path and excluded part of its population.

“They took another path. They continued saying, ‘You have no place here,’ while ignoring that God gave the country to all its people. We saw this clearly: Hutu, Tutsi, Twa and others have nowhere else to go. We have one country, which is the country God gave us, and we are all expected to live in it, share what it has, help one another and build it together.”

He added: “Others took that path too, and I believe that path is not right because we saw it in Burundi’s history. You saw how it ended, and I believe they will realise that the path they have taken offers no solution.”

Bizimana did not specify which section of Rwanda’s population he claimed had been excluded. However, the remarks bring ethnic framing back into discussions about Rwanda, more than three decades after the country’s devastating history of divisionism.

Pacifique Nininahazwe, head of the Burundian civil society organisation FOCODE and a prominent commentator on Burundian politics, has previously criticised Bizimana’s rhetoric.

Nininahazwe said one of the decisions the government of President Evariste Ndayishimiye could come to regret was appointing Bizimana as foreign affairs minister, arguing that his language could undermine Burundi’s diplomacy.

He has described Bizimana as a minister whose rhetoric is often harsh and confrontational, potentially creating diplomatic problems rather than resolving them.

Bizimana downplays FDLR threat

Bizimana’s comments on the FDLR were another major focus of the interview.

The minister was asked about allegations that Burundi cooperates with the FDLR. He rejected the suggestion that the armed group poses a significant threat to Rwanda and spoke about it in terms that downplayed the group’s history and activities.

“The FDLR has never attacked Rwanda. For more than 30 years, they have been talking about it, but the group has never launched an attack against Rwanda. Since 1996, there have been attacks, and they have worked with the Congolese government to fight them […] We cannot support the FDLR because we know it has no benefit.”

Bizimana has previously expressed similar views. In early July 2025, after President Paul Kagame said Rwanda expected the Democratic Republic of Congo to dismantle the FDLR, Bizimana wrote on X that “the FDLR card no longer works.”

He has also previously argued that the FDLR is no longer a threat to Rwanda and that Kigali uses the group as a pretext.

The FDLR, however, remains a central issue in regional security discussions. Its dismantling is among the commitments contained in the Washington peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, while international actors have repeatedly called for the armed group to be dismantled.

Claims about hunger in Rwanda

Bizimana also moved beyond diplomacy and security during the interview, making false claims about the socio-economic situation in Rwanda.

He alleged that some Rwandans cross into Burundi to steal crops because of hunger in Rwanda.

“I think they see the problems they have. We have heard that Rwandans often come to Burundi to steal, with some entering farms to steal crops because of the hunger they are experiencing.”

Bizimana did not provide figures or other evidence to support the claim. The remarks add another layer to the increasingly confrontational rhetoric. Bizimana has previously attracted controversy over statements on regional affairs.

A regional affairs analyst who spoke to IGIHE described Bizimana as one of Burundi’s worst diplomats, citing the harsh language he frequently uses when speaking about Rwanda.

“Minister Bizimana lacks diplomatic decorum. Whenever Rwanda is concerned, he uses inflammatory language and appears to support anyone who is against Rwanda. You have seen how he downplays the threat posed by the FDLR and how he attacked Qatar, which has been facilitating talks between the DRC government and AFC/M23 in Doha,” he noted.

On January 3, 2026, he accused Qatar of using its financial influence in the Democratic Republic of Congo conflict to prevent the United States from imposing sanctions on Rwanda.

The comments triggered significant debate and pressure on Burundi, with President Ndayishimiye later apologising on social media. Bizimana subsequently stayed away from social media platforms for some time.

Diplomacy depends not only on keeping channels of communication alive; it also requires language that creates room for trust and compromise. Bizimana’s latest remarks risk doing the opposite, reinforcing tensions at a time when both countries need to rebuild confidence and find common ground.

His statements raise a broader question over whether Burundi’s diplomatic messaging is helping to repair relations with Rwanda or making reconciliation more difficult.