For a meeting in which adversaries agreed on nothing more than to meet again, the talks between Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and the last rebel group under arms has been getting rave reviews.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the Security Council at the world organisation and the United States government have all warmly welcomed the discussions that took place in The Netherlands last week between Ndayizeye and the representatives of the Palipehutu-Forces of National Liberation (FNL).
South African conflict analyst Jan van Eck, who attended the talks in Osterwijk, says substantial progress was made.
The willingness of the FNL to talk to fellow Hutus rather than Tutsis, whom they blamed for decades of oppression, is in itself a breakthrough.
The FNL’s insistence on dealing with its perceived oppressors rather than the Hutus it regards as their collaborators, have kept the original Hutu liberation movement fighting even after the larger Hutu rebel movement, Pierre Nkurunziza’s Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), signed a peace deal.
The FNL and the FDD were excluded from the negotiations that led to the Arusha power-sharing agreement.
FNL spokesperson Pasteur Habimana told reporters in The Netherlands: “For us the Burundi problem is an ethnic one. The people who went to Arusha have negotiated the sharing of posts. The FNL wants this problem of ethnicity, which has caused so many deaths, to be finally solved. That is the reason why we suggest a mutual forgiveness between Hutus and Tutsis and agree on a social pact, so that both ethnic groups live in peace forever.”
Habimana said the FNL would always be available for talks with Ndayizeye. “He proved to us his goodwill to listen to FNL claims. There is no way we can refuse other invitations from him,” he said.
Habimana insisted that the FNL still needed to see former Burundian presidents Pierre Buyoya and Jean Baptiste Bagaza involved in negotiations between the FNL and representatives of the Tutsi community.
“We always say that the Tutsi regime oppressed the Hutu population, so Buyoya and Bagaza are somehow responsible for this oppression, this is why we want them present when these talks will be held,” Habimana said.
Ndayizeye and the rebels agreed on four points. The first was to establish an international commission of inquiry into the death on December 29 of the Roman Catholic apostolic nuncio, Michael Courtney. An internal commission is already under way and the FNL is eager to clear itself of allegations that it was behind the murder.
The second point of agreement was on the need to end violence between the army and rebels before negotiations could take place and before any hope of building trust was destroyed.
Third, it was agreed to stop clashes between the FNL and the FDD. Most importantly the two sides agreed to have a further round of talks. This would take several weeks at least to allow the FNL to consult more widely.
Habimana dispelled any notion that the FNL would be drawn into the transitional government at this early juncture.
“Our delegation rejected Ndayizeye’s proposal for the FNL to joint the government,” he said.
“We repeated several times that the FNL does not recognise the government set up by the Arusha process.”
Van Eck maintains, nevertheless, that both sides showed a real determination to make progress and to advance negotiations.
“There is an acceptance that there is no military solution to this conflict,” said the analyst of the decade-long fighting that has cost more than 300 000 lives.
Ndayizeye now finds himself in the precarious position of having to shore up his position with the Tutsis in the transitional government and in the military.
“Tutsis will see the progress he is making with the Hutu rebels as a major threat and potentially very dangerous,” says Van Eck.
So far Ndayizeye has managed to maintain a very delicate balance. He has played a clever political game, keeping the trust of his Tutsi colleagues in government while bringing the two Hutu rebel groups in.
Now he faces pressure from the FDD, whose demobilisation is proving both slow and uncomfortable.
Unhygienic conditions in the cantonment areas are costing about three lives a week.
Nkurunziza for his part is keeping open his options open by delaying full disarmament. He doesn’t want to lose disaffected fighters to the rebels still in the bush.
There remains some dispute over the definition of a fighter.
Nkurunziza wants this to encompass all active cadres while Ndayizeye is holding out for the more conventional “one man, one gun” approach in order to save government demobilisation and resettlement costs.
Nkurunziza’s secretary general Radjabu Hussein is complaining that his leader is not being accorded proper respect.