Less than 48 hours after recommitting themselves to the peace treaty they signed last year, Burundian rebels from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) struck again.
The rebels hit a bus in the northern province of Kayanza, killing eight passengers and wounding eight others. They robbed their victims of cash and cellphones into the bargain.
Local governor Eduoard Nkurunziza said the perpetrators were members of the movement led by Pierre Nkurunziza, who had made renewed promises of peace at a regional meeting in Dar es Salaam on Sunday.
In the confusion of a decade-long war that has cost more than 300 000 lives, the rebel leaders have pinned responsibility on disparate groups outside their control.
This cannot be of any comfort to the regional leaders preparing for a summit on Burundi in two weeks’ time. They have been buoyed by Nkurunziza’s undertaking finally to abide by the ceasefire he signed on December 2.
More importantly the attack will fuel the disenchantment and cynicism among the suffering Burundians who have yet to receive any dividend from a peace process that it nominally halfway through.
According to South African conflict analyst Jan van Eck, who has lived in Burundi for four years, the locals are demanding greater involvement in ending the war.
”More and more they are saying that if Burundians are left to negotiate the end to their conflict they would have more success than regional initiatives.
”They believe that if the relationship between South Africa and Tanzania were better, the chances for peace would improve.”
Relations between these two countries have plainly been bruised by Tanzania’s determination to recover control of the Burundi peace process that was passed from former president Julius Nyerere to Nelson Mandela.
Both men made the mistake of originally excluding the real rebel groups from the process on the grounds that they were breakaway factions of groups already invited in.
Nevertheless both had the status, credibility and presence to make things happen. Mandela, for example, sidestepped Parliament to commit South African troops to Burundi.
These remain the backbone of the African Union force in Burundi as Ethiopia and Mozambique await finance from the United States and Britain respectively to send reinforcements.
Mandela believed his work was done with the signing of the Arusha Accord in 2001.
The baton was handed to Deputy President Jacob Zuma who was mandated effectively to facilitate the ceasefire details.
Zuma’s burden, however, has become a predominantly political one. He has had to accommodate a full-time peacekeeping job in his normal duties.
Domestically this has attracted fire from critics of his unapologetically high-pressure negotiating tactics and from the ”why bother” brigade who believe South African money and energy would be better spent dealing with problems domestically.
He also has to watch his back in African forums where regional insiders take every opportunity to undercut or exclude him.
The meeting in Dar es Salaam on Sunday, attended by President Benjamin Mkapa, reaffirmed Zuma’s position as facilitator.
In reality, though, his greatest difficulty lies with the rebels who simply do not recognise him.
The FDD relies totally on the support and protection of Tanzania. If Zuma wants to exert any pressure on them — as the Kayanza incident illustrates he has to — he has to work through Mkapa.
The FDD relies on Mkapa to underpin their long-term demands for a majority of seats in the transitional government and in the military command still held by minority Tutsis.
With limitations on his time and resources, Zuma is in danger of calling the game incorrectly.
Returning from his two visits to the Great Lakes region this week, he dismissed the National Liberation Front (FNL) as a spent force. ”The FNL is not a deciding factor in whether or not this peace process goes forward,” he told the Mail & Guardian.
Zuma has bought the regional line that the FNL, as the largest rebel group, is key to the process.
Military analyst Henri Boshoff of the Institute for Security Studies told a seminar this week that the FNL was very much in the picture.
During the seven days of attacks on the capital this month it deployed three battalions of troops, used rockets and mortars and attacked from previously secure areas.
Zuma believes the FNL used up everything they had in that attack. Both Boshoff and Van Eck maintain, however, that until the sources of that hardware are ascertained the possibility of the FNL being resupplied cannot be discounted.
”The FNL has to be accommodated in the Arusha Accord,” said Van Eck.
”It has the capacity to sabotage the peace process. It cannot be wished away.
”Together the FDD and the FNL have more supporters inside Burundi than the parties to the Arusha Accord. This is a reality that has to be recognised.”