A/HRC/36/54 66. The Rome Statute requires the existence of a State or organizational policy to commit the attack. However, in the case law of the International Criminal Court and other international criminal tribunals, that policy need not be of an official nature. In the Blaškić case, the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ruled that the intent to commit an attack need not necessarily be declared expressly or even stated clearly and precisely. It may be surmised from the occurrence of a series of events, including “the overall political background against which the criminal acts are set; […] the general content of a political programme, as it appears in the writings and speeches of its authors; […] the mobilization of armed forces; […] [and] the scale of the acts of violence perpetrated”.30 In the case of Burundi, the violations and abuses documented by the Commission are set against the background of a political crisis which began in April 2015, with the demonstrations against Pierre Nkurunziza’s candidature in the presidential election, and intensified after the failed coup d’état in May 2015 and the use of violence by armed groups and unidentified persons against agents of the State and, in particular, against military camps on 11 December 2015. These acts led to a mobilization of the defence and security forces in order to repress any form of real or presumed opposition to the Government, and this continued into 2017. The hate speech aimed at opponents by authorities and representatives of CNDD-FDD at all levels is indicative of a general political will to suppress any dissenting opinion. Moreover, the International Criminal Court has ruled that, in exceptional circumstances, a State’s policy may “be implemented by a deliberate failure to take action, which is consciously aimed at encouraging such attack”.31 The fact that, generally, the alleged perpetrators of violations have not been prosecuted, or pressure has been brought to bear to prevent any prosecution, can be interpreted as a deliberate failure by the Burundian State to take action and, therefore, as encouragement on its part. 67. The Rome Statute stipulates that the attack must be “widespread or systematic”, these two conditions not being cumulative. In the case of Burundi, the number of violations, their commission in several provinces and the multiplicity of victims, perpetrators and institutions involved point to the widespread nature of the attack. Its systematic nature can be inferred either from “an organized plan in furtherance of a common policy”, which the Commission has reasonable grounds to believe in view of its observations in the preceding paragraph, or from “patterns of crimes” such that the latter constitute a “non-accidental repetition of similar criminal conduct on a regular basis”, 32 the existence of which the Commission has documented. 68. Finally, the Rome Statute requires that the attack must have been carried out “with knowledge”. In this regard, it is not necessary to prove that the perpetrator knew the details of the attack, since such knowledge may be deduced from “indirect evidence” such as the circumstances in which the attack occurred.33 The Commission therefore believes, in the light of the information at its disposal, that the alleged perpetrators whom it was able to identify, most being members of the National Intelligence Service, the police, the army and the Imbonerakure, could not have been unaware of the background against which their acts were set, given their functions in the State’s security apparatus or their indoctrination within CNDD-FDD. 30 31 32 33 14 The Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaškić, judgment of 3 March 2000. International Criminal Court, Elements of crimes, p. 5, footnote 6. International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Prosecutor v. Zoran Kupreškić et al., judgment of 14 January 2000. International Criminal Court, The Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, decision of 30 September 2008. International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Prosecutor v. Duško Tadić a/k/a “Dule”, judgment of 7 May 1997, The Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaškić and Prosecutor v. Kunarac et al., judgment of 22 February 2001; International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, The Prosecutor v. Clément Kayishema and Obed Ruzindana, judgment of 21 May 1999; and International Criminal Court, The Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui and The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, decision of 15 June 2009. See also A/CN.4/680. GE.17-13865