Pierre Buyoya’s heart was heavy when he announced to his Burundian compatriots last week that he would be quitting the presidency on May 1.
At the same time, Domitien Ndayizeye, who will succeed him, penned an unhappy signature to an agreement necessitated only by the degree of mistrust in that country where 10 years of civil war has cost 250 000 lives.
Very little has gone right for the Tutsi leader since he took office, for the second time, 18 months ago. The Arusha agreement that put him there envisaged a relatively quick ceasefire and the establishment of a transformation government in which he would share power with the Hutu majority for three years.
Not even the ceasefire has been achieved. The largest rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, came aboard in December, but in the absence of an African peacekeeping force the fighters have not been contained. They have wandered the countryside foraging for food and have been involved in clashes with government forces that have cost more than 100 lives.
The smaller but most active National Liberation Front has shunned the whole process and continues regularly shelling the capital, Bujumbura.
Buyoya understandably wanted more time to make his presidency work. President Thabo Mbeki and his deputy, Jacob Zuma — who is the facilitator in this Burundi peace process —were adamant that the Arusha agreement would be obeyed to the letter. It was, after all, South African manoeuvring that got the Burundians to put pen to paper in that picturesque Tanzanian city in August 2000.
The agreement signed by the Hutu leader Ndayizeye virtually rehashes the terms and conditions of the original agreement that sought to reassure the Tutsi minority. It is rather like a couple signing a second antenuptial contract because they did not quite believe the first one.
It underlines the mistrust that hamstrings Burundians’ progress to peace and stability. The defence ministers of South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia agreed in Addis Ababa in the first week of April to send 3 500 peacekeepers to Burundi. Mbeki has said the South Africans, who will comprise more than half of these, will start deploying in the second week of April.
South Africa already has more than 700 soldiers in Bujumbura providing security for the political players in the transitional government. The debate in Bujumbura now is who will be vice-president, since Buyoya has no obvious successor. The Tutsi vice-president will have to find someone who can stand up to the Hutus and to the military.
The current favourite is Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi, who, ironically, tried unsuccessfully to remove Buyoya from power after he signed at Arusha. He was stopped by the army, which was persuaded by former president Nelson Mandela that Buyoya should be given 18 months. Bayaganakandi has a military background but is only an adequate politician.
If Bayaganakandi becomes vice-president, his strongest support will be from people who believe the peace process is moving far too fast.
Unless he can manage this, Burundi faces another paralysis of the kind that gripped the country in the mid-Nineties and ended only with Buyoya’s 1996 coup d’état.
Whatever impression of movement might emerge from public announcements, the creation of institutions and signed agreements, the Burundi problem burns on.
Such formal Western measures have never amounted to much in Africa when the parties do not trust each other.
For the first time in years, the Tutsis are openly expressing misgivings about their security under a Hutu president. It is doubtful that the written commitment forced from Ndayizeye will reassure them. With the best will in the world, people are declaring the Burundian patient to be healed, when actually he should still be in the intensive care unit.