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Strategies for
Building long-term peace
This is the first of what the IPT's Research Department
plans as occasional background briefings. The idea is simple: whenever
the IPT can contribute to research and analysis on the issue of conflict
resolution, we will share our findings in a number of different ways.
These background briefings are oral presentations whereby interested parties
can hear about our ongoing research, ask questions, and collect papers
and materials that we hope will lead to a deepened understanding and analysis
of contemporary conflicts as evidenced in news reporting and policy-making.
We also hope to network with people who think that such background briefings
are worth developing so we can stay in touch. Under certain circumstances
we might use such a venue to also facilitate an urgent response to conflicts
requiring immediate attention. This year our research programme is focusing
on four areas--one international, one national, and two provincial.
These are the Great Lakes Conflict, developments following
from the construction of new political boundaries in South Africa, cooperative
forms of governance between local authorities and traditional leaders
in KwaZulu-Natal, and the impact of peace education in KwaZulu-Natal schools.
In all cases our research is positive and focuses in a non-aligned way
on how to build peace and manage conflict through skills training and
research. Today I want to examine the significance of Burundi and to a
lesser degree Rwanda in connection with the Great Lakes Conflict. Since
Burundi and Rwanda are landlocked, resource-poor and geostrategically
unimportant relative to the countries surrounding them they are often
neglected in terms of in-depth analyses and news reports. Furthermore,
the newsworthiness of the rebel advance in Zaire has overshadowed the
civil wars that are raging in these countries. Through this briefing I
hope to encourage some media coverage and more thinking and writing about
Burundi and Rwanda.
There are many reasons why South Africans and other
extra-regional actors should not lose sight of these two small states
and what is occurring there. For purely selfish reasons South Africans
have an interest in maintaining stability there. A peaceful Great Lakes
Region offers enormous economic opportunities. It is one of the wealthiest
regions in the world in terms of natural resources. There are huge deposits
of strategically important minerals such as cobalt. There is also copper,
diamonds, gold, timber, and much water for which all of Southern Africa
is desperate. In terms of hydro-electricity, one set of falls on the Zaire
River--the stretch known as Inga Falls--could power all of sub-Saharan
Africa with potential left over for export. South Africa also has a tremendous
amount to gain in terms of trade, transport agreements and shipping from
a healthy and stable Central African Region. Bujumbura for instance is
an ideal port that could serve a broad region including three landlocked
states. The route across Lake Tanganyika could deliver goods directly
to the South African rail network in Zamibia and hence South.
Aside from selfish interests, there are humanitarian
reasons for our involvement. Today, the situation for people in Burundi
is quite severe and it is receiving minimal media attention and insufficient
humanitarian aid. First, in the rural areas much of the population now
live in government ‘regroupment camps' of five to fifteen thousand people,
some of which rely entirely on humanitarian aid. The extent of this is
unknown but based on recent interviews that I conducted I would say at
the very minimum one-half million people live in this manner. They are
unable to reach their farms and those that do are sometimes shot by the
army because in certain areas, anyone found outside a regroupment camp
is assumed to be a rebel. In these camps people are malnourished and eating
--with luck--one meal a day. They do not have enough water to drink let
alone to maintain sanitary conditions. They need clothes, blankets, mats
to sleep on, food.
The Burundian people also desperately need some monitoring
because no one is focusing on these conditions. The UN does some monitoring
in areas close to the capital and I can put you in touch with the UN representative
there who, by the way, endorsed my effort to come back and alert South
Africans to a humanitarian crisis. The OAU representative also endorses
these efforts but the OAU quit monitoring some months ago when an embargo
was placed on Burundi.
The few people who can get to the interior areas--there
are roadblocks and clearances are required-- report appalling conditions
in which people are subjected to massacres by both rebels and the army.
Hundreds of women and children are dying every month but outside of a
few reports usually picked up on the wire services, we do not have sustained
investigative reporting to let us know who is doing the killing. The rebels
blame the government soldiers and the government blames the rebels. Tutsi
and Hutu journalists follow suit distorting stories in terms of their
own particular political and ethnic persuasions.
Cameras and good teams of international journalists
in Burundi could really help focus attention and monitor what is a desperate
situation and facilitate needed humanitarian relief. Albania may be much
less of a humanitarian catastrophe but CNN is there and the world is responding.
After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 many analysts suggested that the
lack of media attention in the months prior to the killings contributed
to international indifference and inaction. For months, vitriolic hate
messages were pumped out over the state-owned radio and through print
media but very few journalists chose to cover that story. Later when journalists
covered the refugee camps in Goma, it refocused international attention
and the world community responded to the refugee plight.
A third reason to pay attention to Burundi and Rwanda
is that there is still a potential conflagration in this area that could
involve a large number of states. Kabila's drive toward Kinshasa could
be the beginning of troubles rather than the end because of the political
alignments in the region. If Kabila fails to stabilise Zaire within the
region and should it collapse into secessionist movements, the reverberations
would be felt all across Africa in the form of refugee movements, large
scale war, and perhaps newly inspired movements for self-determination
that would make the impact of the democratic transition in South Africa
pale into political insignificance. New international alignments, a reconsideration
of African boundaries, massive refugee movements, destabilisation in ten
neighbouring countries, and neo-colonialist forms of economic occupation
are all potential parts of a new African portrait that could follow on
the heels of Zaire's present unstable position at the heart of the continent.
Part of understanding either the stability or instability of Zaire depends
on understanding Rwanda and Burundi.
The current war in Zaire is clearly linked to
instability
there. The crisis of Ex-Rwandan and ex-Burundian soldiers using refugees
as human shields and launching cross-border raids into Rwanda and Burundi
was compounded by terrible policy error on the part of Zaire. In late
September 1996 the governor of Zaire's Kivu Province asked that the Banyamulenge
or ethnic Tutsis of the Mulenge Mountains in Eastern Zaire "return to
Rwanda" despite at least two centuries of ancestry in Zaire. The Zairean
governor's order of ethnic expulsion was ill-timed, poorly-informed and
deplorably bad strategy. It led to the immediate military mobilisation
of the Banyamulenge, provided Rwanda and Uganda with allied forces that
could stop cross-border incursions from opposition militias with limited
direct involvement, and it allowed Laurent Kabila and other anti-Mobutu
forces an opportunity to piggy-back this into a revolution. In just eight
months this group of allied militias that included many Tutsis occupied
one-third of this huge central African country.
A geopolitical understanding that is fundamental to
any effort to bring long-term stability to this region is to understand
that the ethnic distribution of Hutus and Tutsis is not confined within
political boundaries. Of some thirteen million people within the two states,
approximately 85% are Hutu and 14% Tutsi. However, two million of an estimated
fifteen million Hutus and Tutsis are located across the boundaries of
Rwanda and Burundi in neighbouring states. Some 400,000 Tutsis [and some
Hutus] trace their ancestry to either eastern Zaïre's North Kivu province
[the ‘Banyarwanda'] or its South Kivu province [the ‘Banyamulenge']. Between
750,000 and one million Hutus are located on the Tanzanian boundary with
Rwanda and Burundi. Tens of thousands of both Tutsis and Hutus reside
along the Rwanda/Uganda boundary in the Kisoro sub-district.
These ethnic ties have created alliances such as the
particularly strong one between President Museveni of Uganda whose revolutionary
movement included many Tutsis, the minority Tutsi regimes in Rwanda and
Burundi, and Kabila's forces. The Hutus have the sympathies of other neighbouring
states such as Tanzania, Kenya, and even Sudan. In fact most of the region
is aligned in the Hutu/Tutsi conflict and such that there is a delicate
yet explosive web of alliances. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Kabila are
in one camp allied with the Tutsis. Tanzania, Kenya, Mobutu's Zaire, and
Sudan form a camp more aligned with the Hutus. The possibility exists
that the fighting in Sudan could become interlinked with fighting in the
Great Lakes region and to a degree that process has begun. Sudan already
supports rebel movements inside Zaire that launch attacks into Uganda
[Lord's Resistance Army, West Nile Liberation Army]. Consider another
scenario. The minority Tutsi regimes in Rwanda and Burundi, both of which
are unstable, are Kabila's chief allies. Imagine a shift to democratic
rule in Burundi and the Hutus come to power, pushing Kabila's chief allies
aside. There would be a mutually deep hostility between these countries
that would manifest in covert military aid to warring militias in a new
civil war or even direct military action. A third scenario is that Tanzania
invades Burundi in order to restore a Hutu democracy. Tanzania currently
offers direct support for Hutu rebels in terms of training bases and a
location from which to offer cross-border raids. It has deep ties with
Hutu leaders many of whom serve and have influence in Tanzania's army.
That could also see this region explode into conflagration because of
existing alliances.
Long Term Policy Responses
Now I would like to consider some proposals that
may or may not lead to the long-term resolution of this conflict. About
ten ideas of how to respond to the crisis in Burundi and Rwanda are being
discussed in the media, through academic publications, and in debate. The
proposals include negotiations, sanctions, peace-keeping forces, peace-building
forces, a return to indigenous forms of democracy, a coalition government,
a UN sanctioned transitional protectorate, partition into Hutuland and Tutsiland,
a redrawing of political boundaries, and the creation of a Central African
Confederation. By reviewing these I hope to show that some ideas are based
on a poor analysis of the region while others offer hope. I believe that
such an exploration can help us to locate a role that South Africans and
other extra-regional actors can play in building peace. Negotiations
The first step in any solution is obviously a ceasefire
and negotiations. The UN five point peace plan has these merits and I have
little to criticise with regard to international diplomatic efforts.
However, I do have some warning about the evolution
of these negotiations. At some point negotiations must be regional or
they will fail because of the complex alliances already described in addition
to a vast number of other issues owing to cross-boundary social, political,
economic, and physical linkages requiring regional consideration.
I also think that the negotiations should not only
be between factions with militias but should be transparent and appeal
directly to affected populations in terms of a referendum or the lack
of legitimacy will sabotage any final agreements. In other words, secret
negotiations among elite actors are unlikely to eliminate the structural
factors and the philosophies that foment genocide and massacres. For example,
delegations to the Arusha negotiations in 1992 and 1993 to restore democracy
in Burundi and Rwanda included only the political elite representing groups
with a militia and a history in exploiting ethnicity. The final outcome
was not entirely surprising: more genocide, ethnic massacres, and coups.
Thus, there must be open negotiations that recognise
all concerned actors including Hutu and Tutsi intellectuals, civil servants,
businessmen, members of civil society, and eventually the public at large,
the vast majority of which are consistently united against violence but
consistently ignored because they lack a militia.
Economic Pressure for Democratisation
Another idea is to apply economic pressure that
will force undemocratic nations to become democratic and hence more stable.
This plan is already in effect in Burundi and its impacts can be observed.
A total embargo followed quickly on the heels of the July 1996 coup that
brought the minority Tutsi regime of Pierre Buyoya to power. The full embargo
was imposed on July 31, 1996 by Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Zaire, Ethiopia,
and Zambia and with the support of the OAU and UN.
Unfortunately, the sanctions fail in terms of consistency, clear objectives,
and monitoring. There is no monitoring nor any reward for meeting any
objectives, and the objectives change like moving goal posts. In Burundi
it has failed to win local support, has hampered humanitarian efforts
in the region and ground monitoring to a standstill because of the withdrawal
of key aid agencies like the Red Cross, petrol shortages and a general
lack of supplies.
Destabilisation does appear to be occurring but rather
than moving Burundi toward democracy, extremist Tutsi forces are on the
rise. During my visit between the 15th and 30th of March there was an
attempted coup and three landmines that were laid under cars exploded
in the streets killing seven people with such force that body parts were
widely scattered. Since my departure four more landmines have exploded
killing more people. These explosions are widely attributed to Tutsi extremists
seeking to undermine the more moderate elements within the ruling Uprona
party.
It is my opinion that IF sanctions are used they must
be carefully targeted, timetabled, monitored, and with a capacity to meet
the need for exemptions with immediacy. We must also ask if they address
any of the structural factors underlying the conflict or if they are simply
punishment. The present sanctions are punitive and therefore foggy in
their intent. They do not build a healthy economy as most citizens have
been deeply hurt by inflated prices and shortages such as fuel, medicine
fertilisers, spare parts, papers, and many retail items. A huge black
market has developed but factories have shut down, food production declined
and unemployment risen. In the urban area of Bujumbura, the port has closed
and the surrounding area of Lake Tanganyika has become a security zone
which prevents local fishermen from using this resource for food.
Peacekeeping Forces
This is an extra-regional solution initially promoted
by the United Nations, Canada, the United States, France and some members
of Frodebu, the mainly Hutu political party. It involves the use of international
armed forces to protect civilian populations, secure transport routes, protect
aid workers, and create havens or corridors for refugees. The idea of peacekeeping
forces has four main problems. First, those who would provide peacekeeping
forces are reluctant to take such a step because intervention has a poor
record in Africa. Second, it cannot achieve consensus within the targeted
countries because Rwanda, Burundi, and the AFDL reject the plan. Third,
increased destabilisation might result as local armies split into factions
or contact with ethnic Tutsi militias results in a three-sided war. Fourth,
the plan fails to address most of the structural causes of conflict except,
perhaps, to counter-balance the mono-ethnic army ... but then that places
the neutral army on the side of the Hutus. Speculation that the former Hutu
president wanted to bring in peacekeeping troops to neutralise the Tutsi
Army was a key factor leading to the coup staged by President Pierre Buyoya.
Therefore this is probably an idea that should follow from regional negotiations
and not be imposed before then unless all sides agree to the need for a
neutral force. Peace-Building Forces
In both Rwanda and Burundi, institutional capacity
has been shattered by war and polarised by ethnic selectivity in key positions
of government and civil society. The justice system, the police, the media,
human rights organisations, NGOs, the educational system and every conceivable
aspect of a civil society is seemingly ethnicised. An intervention of international
NGOs, judges, lawyers, clergymen, conflict resolution practitioners and
professionals of all kinds could greatly assist these war-ravaged countries.
Media experts could assist radio stations, television, newspapers to find
ways of deconstructing genocidal philosophies. Church leaders could also
play a similar role. However, as Bryan Rich from Search for Common Ground,
a Washington-based organisation working for peace in Burundi told me "college
students with good hearts" cannot help. What is required are relatively
few community-based professionals with good logistical backing who can "build
well-targeted programmes with local people." South Africans are in a particularly
good position to help because they are perceived as Africans who will not
impose value-laden theories of democracy or civil society that might be
unacceptable to Burundians. South Africa is also widely perceived as having
the interest, neutrality, and the organisations to carry out the task. This
was the only intervention that I found that was supported by all sides in
the conflict. Council of Elders
This proposal is based on a traditional form of
democracy- bashingantahe. Over the centuries, mixed groups of mature, respected
Hutus and Tutsis adjudicated disputes in the hill areas where people live.
Although it seems that the Tutsis were advantaged within this system in
the past, Hutus clearly had some representation. Once the Europeans introduced
party politics within a centralised state bureaucracy the tradition system
faded away and ethnic relations were formalised into political party opposition
groups competing for power. This idea is local
to the area and enjoys significant popularity among the Tutsi in Burundi.
There are divided feelings on the part of the Hutu. Therefore it would
be difficult to obtain or maintain consensus on reviving such a political
structure at a regional scale but it is already being implemented within
Burundi at both local and national scales to reduce conflict between the
two major ethnic groups. Since it enjoys some popularity and is perceived
as a form of indigenous democracy, it can certainly be part of any equation
for peace. Those with an interest in working out forms of cooperative
governance between traditional societies and contemporary government structures
might take an interest in analysing and understanding this aspect of Burundian
society.
Power Sharing Formula
Coalition governments in Rwanda and Burundi do not
have a good record. They seem to be tried and failed plans that have ended
in coups, massacres, and destabilisation. Rwanda and Burundi both introduced
forms of multiparty democracy in the early 1990s owing to internationally-sponsored
negotiations [Arusha 1992-1993] and because ‘democratisation' was one of
the key terms of international aid. Within months, Burundi's attempt at
democracy unravelled with the assassinations of its First Hutu President,
members of cabinet and parliament and an ensuing series of violent reprisals
against the Tutsis. All attempts at power-sharing ended in a July 1996 coup
that brought a Tutsi president to power and suspended ‘democracy' to restore
order. Rwanda's attempt at democracy ended similarly: a genocide of the
Tutsis in 1994 followed by a military coup.
Part of the reason for these failures is that there is so little power
and resources to share. There must be something to distribute and an ability
to create a viable middle class and this is missing in Rwanda and Burundi.
These two countries have the highest percentage of disturbed, overpopulated
land in Africa. Discounting uninhabitable areas like parks and lakes,
the population density within Rwanda and Burundi exceeds 400 persons per
square kilometre. In recent times, these two countries have numbered among
the poorest ten countries in the world. Today some two million Rwandese
and Burundians rely on international aid for sustenance and their per
capita income averages less than eight-hundred rand a year. This situation
leads to competition for limited resources. Of course, demagogues find
this quite convenient as an escalator to power. Demagogues have consistently
mobilised masses in one ethnic group against the other through the promise
of gaining land. For instance, in early 1996 Hutus at Masisi in North
Kivu massacred ethnic Tutsis in an attempt to reclaim land in Zaire. In
1994 Tutsis claimed the houses, plots, and property of nearly two million
Hutus expelled by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Army in 1994.
Since the Tutsis and Hutus compete for control of the
state and scarce resources there exists a dangerous win/lose situation
where the loser always seeks retribution. Since independence this cycle
of violence has escalated to the degree that many Hutus accept a philosophy
of genocide. The Tutsis are represented as ‘immigrants' or ‘Ethiopians'
who enslaved Hutus, took their land and killed them without justification.
The basic tenet of this philosophy is that by killing every member of
every Tutsi generation, the Hutus will regain the land they lost in the
Sixteenth Century Tutsi invasion. This is why there is no distinction
between civilians and soldiers in war and a ‘strike first' policy.
Tutsis engage more often in selective assassinations
and massacres than genocide. Perhaps this owes to the hopelessness of
eliminating eighty-five percent of the population and the Tutsi social
need for Hutus to serve them. In Burundi in both 1972 and 1988, Hutu uprisings
were ruthlessly put down by the Tutsi-dominated government. In each case
tens of thousands of Hutus were selectively exterminated--the leaders,
the better educated, and the elite.
This history of violence has led to a great fear of
the opposite ethnic group. The Tutsis refuse to give up their control
of the army because they see it as a form of security against genocide.
The Hutus cannot imagine a stable democracy as long as the Tutsis control
the army. In Burundi today the Tutsis occupy the urban areas, own most
business, and dominate the government, justice system, security forces,
and army. The Hutu have had few economic alternatives other than subsistence
farming, labouring on plantations run by the Tutsis, or fighting their
way back to power. For some this means genocide.
Under these conditions there is little or no hope of
fostering a western-style democracy or of maintaining coalition governments
for long. Any power-sharing must be coupled with strong commitments from
outside countries like South Africa to help assist in both economic development
and to help restore balance within civil society, government, and the
armed forces. Otherwise, I believe power sharing arrangements are a false
hope.
UN-sanctioned Transitional Protectorate
A U.N. or OAU-sanctioned protectorate has been suggested
by a number of academics and researchers. It aims for international administration
of Rwanda and Burundi through trusteeship authority. Variations on the theme
include issuing a mandate for a U.N. body, a group of African countries,
the SADC, an African Security Council, or even a Franco-African joint management
team to manage these two countries if not a substantial number of African
states in the Mazrui plan. Since the plan is largely a form of benevolent
colonialism, it lacks transparency and is not a product of consensus. It
might help foster some degree of regional problem-solving but it stands
to address very few of the underlying structural problems. It is also quite
an unwelcome idea within Rwanda and Burundi. Partition
into Tutsiland and Hutuland
The idea of partitioning Rwanda and Burundi into
Hutu and Tutsi zones was once suggested by former President Bagaza in Burundi
but he soon retracted the idea under public pressure. Today it is hard to
find a Hutu or Tutsi who supports this idea. Among extra-regional actors
it has more appeal. For example Herman J. Cohen, Senior Associate at the
Centre for Strategic and International Studies and a former U.S.
ambassador
suggested this idea last year in an interview on the Cable News Network
[CNN]. Its chief problem is that it would be nearly impossible to operationalise.
First, segregation within Rwanda and Burundi is a very local matter: either
by rural hillside community or rural/urban [more Tutsis in the cities].
Second, there is widespread intermarriage [usually Hutu men who marry Tutsi
women] and an overwhelming 85% Hutu majority. Thus, who would move where
would be as deep a political crisis as the current one. Third, the mass
movement of people could be destabilising [e.g. India/Pakistan 1948]. The
result might be continued violence in the form of state to state war.
New Political Boundaries
The Berlin Conference delimitations of 1884 and
subsequent boundary adjustments left the traditional Kingdoms of Rwanda
and ‘Urundi'as tiny landlocked countries without sufficient resources for
healthy economic development. Lucrative mineral deposits were left on the
Zaïrean side of the border. The prime wealth of both states rests in their
fertile soil but this resource is not distributed evenly. There is also
too much land in subsistence farming to build up a viable economy.
A number of international scholars and African intellectuals
suggests a conference to re-negotiate Central--and some say all--African
boundaries. An effort could be made to rationalise the size of states,
distribute resources more intelligibly, further align cultural and political
boundaries, and eliminate the landlocked status of states like Rwanda
and Burundi. Adjacent to the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, there is plentiful
undeveloped low-density land.
However good or bad this idea may be, changing the
political boundaries of states enjoys so little official support on the
African continent that it is quite unlikely to happen except by force
as in Eritrea or by internal collapse such as in Somalia, Liberia, or
Zaire where a de-facto kind of independence operates in certain regions.
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