civil war’
Chris McGreal in Dar es Salaam
THE former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere has said that East African troops will, if necessary, invade Burundi in an attempt to pacify the escalating civil war and halt ethnic massacres.
Nyerere, the elder statesman mediator between the Tutsi-controlled government and Hutu rebels, said Burundi’s leaders will not be allowed to back out of their agreement to intervention made at a regional summit in Arusha, Tanzania, last month.
And he advised Burundi’s overwhelmingly Tutsi army, which is divided over the issue with some elements threatening to fight foreign troops, that to secure its future it must co-operate.
“We can’t allow another Rwanda. We will have to go in whether Burundi wants it or not. The army may say no, so they can do what? Fight and win? I think the leadership knows it cannot win,” he said.
At the summit Burundi’s prime minister Antoine Nduwayo, a Tutsi, and its largely powerless president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, were pressured into “requesting security assistance” from neighbouring states concerned that the conflict — which has claimed about 150 000 mostly civilian lives in under three years — will spill over Burundi’s borders.
But within hours of returning home Nduwayo was accused of high treason by his own party. Under a barrage of threats from extremists, most notably from within parts of the army which fear that intervention will break the Tutsi minority’s dominance of the military, the prime minister retreated.
He rejected the idea of intervention by foreign troops and tried to shift responsibility for the Arusha agreement to the president. But Nyerere said leaders at the summit had been specific in pinning both men down.
“We know Burundi. We know that in the past the president and prime minister have not spoken with one voice and we wanted to make sure this request was made with the agreement of both of them. The president cannot be accused of exceeding his mandate,” said Nyerere.
Although the Organisation of African Unity endorsed the plan at its annual summit in Cameroon two weeks ago, the forced intervention raises the possibility of East African soldiers being shot at by both Burundi’s army and rebels. Nyerere said that leaders in the region have told him they remain united in their determination to ensure that troops go in.
The mandate of an intervention force is still to be finalised. Even those elements of Burundi’s army willing to countenance foreign troops argue that they should be confined to border areas to combat rebel incursions.
Nyerere said that would defeat the purpose. “That force has a clear mandate to provide protection for everybody, and everybody is not on the border. It was specific that they will shoot at anybody who disturbs the peace, including the army. Burundi has to be serious about this.”
Crucial to a settlement, he said, is allaying the army’s fears that it will be dismantled. “No external forces will go in to destroy the army unless it decides to fight. The politics of Burundi being what they are, a political solution needs the existence of that army.”
While foreign troops may provide a breathing space for negotiations, Nyerere sees little progress towards a final settlement. “I’d be lying to myself if I said these talks have shown movement. The ethnic cleansing suits the politics. You have this lack of leadership there now. This is the problem of Burundi.”