Burundi on Tuesday enters its 11th year of civil war that has claimed more than 300 000 mostly civilian lives and ravaged this tiny French-speaking central African country that nevertheless clings today to hopes for peace.
The civil war was sparked 10 years ago by the assassination of Burundi’s first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye in an attempted military coup. A decade of inter-ethnic violence has followed.
To mark the anniversary, a ceremony is planned for Tuesday in the capital, Bujumbura, to commemorate his death on October 21, 1993.
The civil war has pitted fighters of the two main ethnic groupings in Burundi against each other — Hutus representing 85% of the country’s 6,9-million inhabitants against Tutsis, estimated at 14%.
Of the four Hutu rebel organisations, two are today represented in transitional institutions set up in 2001 to try to steer Burundi away from bloodshed.
And the main one, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), signed an accord on the sharing of military and political power with the Burundian government in Pretoria last week. Only the second biggest Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL) has refused to enter into negotiations.
”The hope of peace exists today in Burundi since there is the experience of the sacrifice made by President Melchior Ndadaye and since there is the experience of war,” FDD spokesperson Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe said.
”Ndadaye’s death was a necessary passage for Burundi in order for this country to arrive at true democracy,” he added.
Before Ndadaye, Burundi had been ruled since it became a republic in 1966 by Tutsi military leaders who took power in a military coup.
Following his assassination, tens of thousands of Tutsis were massacred, followed by the fierce repression by the army of the Hutu population.
”The Hutus understood at the time that they would not be able to lead Burundi while the country has an army that is outrageously dominated by the Tutsi minority,” said an official from the main Hutu party, the Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu), founded by Ndadaye.
”Ndadaye’s death opened the people of Burundi’s eyes, led them to fight for democracy. Ndadaye is a hero of democracy,” he added.
For the Tutsi minority, meanwhile, haunted by the fear of being exterminated by the Hutu majority, ”President Ndadaye’s death served as an excuse to Hutus to launch into the genocide of Tutsis”, Charles Mukasi, president of the hardline wing of the main Tutsi party, the Union for National Progress (Uprona).
Uprona, together with Frodebu are the main driving forces behind the transition government which has been striving for a more balanced share of power between Hutus and Tutsis since November 2001.
The transition was a key provision of a power-sharing accord signed by politicians — but not rebels — in Arusha, Tanzania in 2000.
One western diplomat here said he believed ”there is hope more than ever, but the dangers have never been so big”.
”The country is on the verge of explosion because of poverty, the billeting of rebels cannot take place because of lack of money, soldiers who think they are losing their living are nervy, the FDD does not respect totally the accord” for peace, he added.
”And to top it all, the government is supposed to organise elections in 12 months while nothing is ready and the war is continuing. We are walking on a razor edge,” he added. – Sapa-AFP