South African peace brokers saw last week that even when you are able to press a man hard enough to sign you cannot make him sing while he’s doing it.
The tuneless ceremony at the presidential guest house in Pretoria told the story. Three successive all-night negotiating sessions had brought Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza together to put ink to an agreement.
They took seven more hours to agree on the final wording before explaining the agreement to their delegtions, who had been kept out of the process.
Neither President Thabo Mbeki nor his deputy Jacob Zuma was making any apology for their high pressure tactics. Zuma has repeatedly defended his penchant for turning the screws early and keeping them locked tight by saying: “How do you think they got us to Codesa [Convention for a Democratic South Africa] and kept us there? It is all about pressure.”
The arm twisting did not stop, even as the ink was drying.
Nkurunziza issued an immediate ceasefire order to his rebels. “We will not kill another Burundian,” he said, asking for a similar undertaking from the Burundian government.”
Mbeki asked Ndayizeye to reply, but the Burundian president passed the buck to his clearly embarrassed Defence Minister, Vincent Niyungeko, prompting Mbeki to urge : “Say something!” Mbeki and Nkurunziza got the answer they wanted.
The Burundian president and the rebel leader made it plain that they did not have to like what was happening and declined Mbeki’s repeated exhortations to break into song.
Ndayizeye quipped ironically: “I only sing when I’m under pressure and who says I am under pressure now?”
Mbeki finally resorted to sporting jokes, apologising for Bafana Bafana kicking Burundi out of the Confederation of African Football cup and joking that he negotiated a role as national coach for Nkurunziza. The rebel leader did not even crack a smile.
There is no doubting that Wednesday’s implementation agreement was a breakthrough. It is in effect a “how to” agreement putting together the nuts and bolts of the principal (but unhonoured) ceasefire accord signed by Nkurunziza on December 7.
It is clear that Mbeki’s personal, hands-on commitment at this crucial stage in the negotiations swung things the right way.
Jan van Eck, a conflict anlayst specialist on Burundi, says Mbeki wrung vital concessions from Nkurunziza.
The rebel leader’s Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) has learned the age-old lesson that one cannot gain at the negotiating table what has not been won on the battlefield. The rebels cannot simply shove Ndayizeye out of office.
There is no denying the extent of the task that lies ahead. The National Liberation Front (FNL) of Agaton Rwasa is still divorced from the peace process. This group — smaller but more active than the FDD — could be impelled into the transitional arrangements by the criticial mass.
Mbeki described the absence as “a small problem” and said the FNL was making overtures about being included.
Much will also depend on the attitude of the regional players who have so far allowed the rebels to punch above their weight. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni sent what sounded like a genuine message of goodwill, but Tanzania’s President Benjamin Mkapa still has to make his feelings known. Bluntly put, there can be no peace for Burundi if Tanzania and Uganda do not butt out.
African Union peacekeepers, spearheaded by 1 700 South African soldiers, clearly have their work cut out. The failure of the December ceasefire is blamed on the inability to accommodate and feed the rebels during the demoblisation process. Resentful at seeing the rebels get better rations than themselves, the Burundi army previously blocked supplies to the camps.
The major task facing political players, however, will be to persuade their exhausted compatriots that the decade-long civil war that has cost more than 300 000 lives is over.