Even if they no longer hold the whip hand in Burundi, the armed rebels showed this week that they still have a lethal grip on it.
Whatever Burundi’s political players achieve at their negotiations in a game reserve outside Sun City this week, the fighters still determine the progress, or lack there of, of the peace process.
Even as the government and the largest rebel movement fine-tuned their proposals to recharge the transitional process, renewed fighting flared around Bujumbura.
Humanitarian organisations reported that another 15 000 people had been displaced.
Those responsible are the National Liberation Front (FNL) of Agaton Rwasa and renegade elements of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD).
Pierre Nkurunziza, the FDD leader who was in South Africa, acknowledged that there were some of his followers over whom he had no control.
Nkurunziza was frankly nervous about the second meeting he was having with President Domitien Ndayizeye.
Under the mediation of Deputy President Jacob Zuma, Ndayizeye and the rebel leaders were bent on ”fleshing out” the details of the FDD’s participation in the transitional government that has performed poorly for two-thirds of its three-year lifespan.
The lack of progress has been blamed on the late arrival of the FDD and the continued non-participation of the FNL. Both these organisations were excluded from initial negotiations and have refused to enter the process without substantial renegotiations.
The FDD signed a peace treaty last December but kept on fighting until last month.
Nkurunziza’s meeting with Ndayizeye is undoubtedly a positive development. If an agreement is reached on FDD participation in Burundi’s transitional Cabinet, Parliament, administration and army, it will be a breakthrough.
The outcome will be hailed by the regional summit on Burundi in Dar es Salaam at the weekend.
The glittering prize, however, remains the FNL, which showed in a sustained attack on Bujumbura last month that although it is smaller than the FDD it is at least twice as large as analysts had estimated.
Zuma has tended to downplay the frozen mitt that the FNL has thus far presented to him, saying they will come round to talking later.
Nkurunziza does not share this confidence. FDD sources acknowledge that there cannot be a peace without the FNL. Their fear is that by getting locked into the transitional process Nkurunziza risks losing hardline Hutu support.
The longer it takes to achieve a comprehensive peace, the greater are Nkurunziza’s chances of being hoist on his own petard of dismissing Hutu participants in a partial and inconclusive peace as sell-outs. Zuma’s tactic has been to press the outsiders to join the critical mass in the transitional process.
He will urge regional leaders to use whatever influence they have on the FNL to persuade them that they now appear to be fighting for fighting’s sake.
This has not worked before with the FNL, which insists on talking to the Tutsi minority that still effectively holds the administrative and military reins rather than the Hutus who have been herded into the fold.