EMMANUEL GIROUD, Bujumbura | Saturday
BURUNDI’S new government, aimed at giving ethnic Hutus a greater share of power, faces a mammoth task in ending fighting, easing mistrust and creating a more balanced army currently dominated by minority Tutsis.
A three-year interim administration was set up on Thursday in a major step toward stopping eight years of strife that has killed 250 000 people and further inflamed ethnic tensions in a volatile region.
The country’s two main rebel groups have still not agreed to a ceasefire, after rejecting a peace accord signed last year by political parties.
“They must absolutely reach a ceasefire within 18 months, it’s the only chance,” said Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, who was toppled in July 1996.
But a senior government member said there was “little optimism that a ceasefire would be reached in the near future.”
President Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi who has run the country since ousting Ntibantunganya, was named interim head of state for the first 18 months, and Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, was named vice-president.
Ndayizeye will become president for the second half of the three-year government, and a Tutsi will be appointed deputy as Buyoya steps down.
Hutus, who make up 83% of the population, have been given 14 out of 26 cabinet posts and will take up 60% of parliamentary seats.
But the army, for now, is still dominated by Tutsis — despite provisions in the Arusha accord for an equal ethnic mix of soldiers.
No time frame has been given for the recruitment of Hutus into the army.
In theory, Hutu rebels are expected to be integrated into army ranks once they sign the peace deal.
The military balance of power is key to peace in Burundi, especially for rebels who say without their presence in the army, the government is doomed to fail.
“If we do not integrate rebels into the army, peace is impossible,” said Pierre, a young trader who lives in the Hutu district of Kinama, the scene of recent violent clashes between rebels and the army.
“The army is the state,” said rebel representative Anicet Ntawuhiganayo.
Burundi’s ousted president agrees.
“The army is a state within a state,” Ntibantunganya said.
“If the political change-over happens in 18 months and there is still no sharing of power in the ranks of the army, the tragic episode of 1993 may repeat itself,” Ntibantunganya said, referring to the beginning of the civil war.
The spark of the war was the killing by Tutsi paratroopers of Burundi’s first democratically elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, in October 1993, five months after he was sworn in.
“If he is not assassinated himself, the future Hutu president will not be able to exercise his powers,” with an army still dominated by Tutsis, Ntibantunganya said.
“If there are trials, I will be delighted to testify against certain people responsible for genocide who are ministers today,” a senior officer said.
Meanwhile, mistrust and hatred are omnipresent and exploited daily by radicals on both sides. – AFP