Burundi is very near collapsing, conflict analyst Jan van Eck said on Wednesday, but added: ”There is no doubt the problem can be solved.”
There was no consensus among the parties in Burundi as to what the problem was, Van Eck said at an Institute for Security Studies (ISS) seminar in Pretoria.
”Unless there is some consensus that Burundi is in deep trouble, there will be no solution.”
Van Eck, of the University of Pretoria, has spent about 40% of his time during the past eight years in Burundi, where over 300 000 people have been killed in a civil war between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi since 1993.
In December 2000, a peace deal was signed in Arusha, Tanzania, but this excluded two main rebel groups — the Palipethu-Forces for National Liberation (FNL) and the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD).
Despite being regarded as a small movement, FNL attacked the capital city of Bujumbura on July 7 this year for more than a week. The official death toll exceeded 400, said ISS military analyst Henri Boshoff.
The FNL, Van Eck said, blamed the government for attacking people in its area even while the two parties were conducting informal talks in Switzerland. In these attacks, preceding the July 7 assault, 300 civilians reportedly died, thousands of homes were burnt down and people were cut off from water sources.
The attack on Bujumbura changed the whole situation, he said.
”The population has lost a lot of faith in the process.”
Although the peace process has been continuing for several years, it had not benefited the people, who were living in grinding poverty.
”The government is bankrupt… The situation is desperate.”
Despite what Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, convenor of the peace process, believed, there was no military solution.
The war option had again become dominant in Burundi, but there was a school of thought favouring a reconsideration of the process thus far and changing what was necessary.
A complicating factor was the tug of war between different Hutu parties over power, Van Eck said.
He believed the Arusha accord should be made more flexible, or it would be destroyed.
”The political process has to open up slightly… so those who were excluded feel the document is also theirs.”
Unless that happened, those excluded would continue to sabotage the process. Arusha did not represent consensus between all the Burundian factions, he said.
Far more should be done to involve the Burundians themselves in the process, Van Eck said.
”Burundians can easily reach consensus. The question is if the region will allow them.”
The countries in the region had their own agendas, and were on the side of either the Hutu or the Tutsi. Some regarded the Tutsi, who originated from the north of Africa, as non-Bantu and thus as foreigners.
The conflict would not be resolved if both groups were not recognised as legitimate Africans, Van Eck said.
”If the region’s leaders do not declare both to be legitimate Africans, the conflict will continue in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo.”
South Africa — who has played a key role in the peace process — had no agenda or vested interest in the region. However, the FDD had now turned its back on the South African-led process and would only use Tanzania as facilitator.
”The region is taking back the process… The region, and no longer South Africa, is now determining what happens in Burundi.”
”Nobody knows who has a formal mandate to do what.”
Van Eck said if the region helped South Africa to make peace, and not enforced its own agendas, there would be a solution.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who acts as mediator, should talk to Tanzania about this, he said.
What was happening in Burundi was not just a civil war, but had deep historical, ideological and ethnic dimensions, Van Eck said.
”One can’t just force people to make peace. We must help the people to develop trust and to de-demonise one another.” – Sapa