Gregory Mthembu-Salter
South African National Defence Force (SANDF) troops may be heading for Burundi, despite the absence of a ceasefire in the long-running and bloody civil war. The SANDF troops are likely to form part of a special protection unit (SPU) for Hutu politicians returning from exile to join a new transitional government, scheduled to begin on November 1. The South African soldiers are to be complemented by troops from Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria.
The returning politicians, like Jean Minani, the president of Burundi’s main Hutu party, the Front pour la Dmocratie au Burundi (Frodebu), do not trust the predominantly Tutsi Burundian army and are supposed to receive protection instead from a special ethnically mixed unit. However, a summit of regional heads of state in Arusha, Tanzania, on Monday reached a deadlock over who should be in this unit. A new summit was hastily arranged in Arusha for October 11 in Pretoria, but even if agreement is reached at this meeting on the composition of the SPU, there will not be enough time to constitute the force by November 1.
The failure of the Arusha summit to agree on the SPU occurred despite a near-resolution of the issue in mid-September during talks in South Africa hosted by Nelson Mandela between Minani, Burundian President Pierre Buyoya and Domitien Ndayizeye of Frodebu, who will become Buyoya’s vice-president on November 1.
According to Burundi government sources, Buyoya, Ndayizeye and Minani agreed that the SPU be 1 000 strong, half from the Burundian army and half from Hutu militia. However, Frodebu’s former Burundian president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya is demanding that the SPU be 10 000 strong, which the Burundian government insists is too high.
There is greater consensus between the Burundi government and Frodebu on the SPU’s composition. Both accept that since the two main Hutu militia, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) and the Forces for National Liberation (FNL) did not sign a peace agreement brokered by Mandela in August 2000, they cannot be considered for the SPU. However, the estranged political wings of the FDD and FNL did sign the peace agreement and still command the loyalty of some militia fighters, and the Burundi government and Frodebu agree that the militia component of the SPU be drawn from them instead.
No communiqu was issued after Monday’s Arusha summit. Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who helped organise the summit, declined to say why it had failed. His spokesperson, Lakela Kaunda, said negotiations were too “delicate” to reply to questions.
Sources close to the talks claimed the reason the summit failed was owing to a proposal by the Tanzanian government to deploy a regional force, including Tanzanian troops, as an interim SPU. Burundi and Tanzania have been close to war at times in recent years. The Burundi government apparently refused to countenance having Tanzanian troops stationed on its soil.
If agreement is reached on the SPU on October 11, implementation will be tricky, particularly since Buyoya’s overriding concern is not to antagonise the Burundian military, which is nervous about armed forces not under its direct control being accorded legitimacy, and from whose ranks two coups have already been attempted this year.
However, Mandela’s insistence that the November 1 deadline be kept has forced contingency planning for the SPU, and the only practicable alternative is a force of troops from South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.
The defence ministers of the four countries agreed in Pretoria in July that they would only send troops to Burundi if there was a ceasefire, but there is no sign of this yet. The leaders of the FDD and FNL were supposed to come to Arusha on Monday but never arrived. Their non-appearance was variously blamed on the rebels’ bad faith, poor management by the summit organisers and underhand attempts by Tanzania to keep them away.
Whatever the reason was, Zuma is hoping that the militia leaders will make it to Pretoria and arrive ready to talk peace. So far, Zuma has nothing visible to show for months of talks with the FDD and FNL, while the civil war has dragged on in Burundi, claiming a steady stream of casualties and internal refugees, often in appalling circumstances.
In early September, across Burundi’s border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the FDD, Rwandan Hutu militia and, allegedly, members of the Congolese armed forces (FAC), captured Fizi in South Kivu on Lake Tanganyika from the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), which controls the province. Fizi is an ideal launch pad for the FDD to attack Burundi. The RCD has vowed to win the town back. The RCD also claims to have repulsed a joint FDD-FAC attack on the strategic town of Kindu.
Mandela said after the Arusha summit that there was still solid ground for optimism about the Burundi peace process, and it is indeed virtually certain that the transitional government will take office on November 1. It is also probable that this government will be better able to negotiate with the FDD and FNL to stop the war than with the current regime.
Yet the fall of Fizi shows that however much Burundi’s politicians manage to work together in the coming months, Burundi’s neighbouring states will play a major role in determining whether the peace process will ultimately succeed.