| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
CRISIS IN BURUNDI DEMANDS INVOLVEMENT OF WORLD COMMUNITY
April, 1995
Burundi, gripped by a resurgence of ethnic fighting since the last week of March, may be on the brink of an explosion. Extremists pose a serious threat to the power-sharing agreement reached last September between the majority party, which is predominantly Hutu, and the opposition, which is predominantly Tutsi. Although the parallel with Rwanda is not exact, there is danger that the violence in Burundi could escalate into the kind of mass slaughter that claimed half a million lives in Rwanda last year.
Burundi has had ethnic violence in the past. As many as 50,000 to 100,000 people died in the last major outbreak, in 1993, with little effective reaction from the international community.
Now many outside parties are calling for preventive action to avert a new tragedy. The Organization of African Unity, the United Nations, and various other governments and nongovernmental organizations have been actively trying to encourage moderation and discourage extremist factions. This involvement must continue and receive strong support from major world leaders and public opinion if there is to be any hope of staving off a downward spiral of violence and retaliation.
Ethnic Polarization
Burundi is about the size of the state of Maryland. It is densely populated, although its population of an estimated 6 million is about one million less than Rwanda's (including refugees). It depends primarily on agricultural exports, mainly coffee.
For most of the country's history, ethnic stratification in Burundi was less rigid than in neighboring Rwanda. Before the colonial conquest Burundi had five ethnic groups: the Hutu, who were farmers; the Tutsi, a cattle-raising people; the Hima; the Baganwa; and the Twa.
The Tutsi and the Hutu speak the same language and share the same culture. Intermarriage has been common, and a family could move from one group to the other over generations as it acquired or lost cattle. But the Belgian colonial rulers made this caste-like division into a kind of apartheid, requiring ethnic identity cards and discriminating in favor of Tutsi. They regarded the Hima and Baganwa as subgroups of Tutsi, furthering the polarization of the society into two major groups. This set the scene for repeated ethnic conflict following independence in 1962. Today Burundi's ethnic composition is similar to that of Rwanda: Hutu make up 85% of the population, Tutsi are 14%, and the remaining 1% are Twa.
Unlike Rwanda, where predominantly Hutu governments ruled after independence while large numbers of Tutsi fled to exile, Burundi governments until recently were dominated by the Tutsi minority. Although some Hutu played a limited role in government immediately after independence, most were purged from power by subsequent regimes, both military and civilian.
Successive Hutu revolts, in 1965, 1972, 1988 and 1991, were accompanied by indiscriminate violence on both sides. But the greatest carnage came in 1972 in genocidal action by the Tutsi-dominated army against Hutus. As many as 100,000 were killed in the space of a few months.
Efforts Toward Power-Sharing
Until recently, the Tutsi-dominated Union for National Progress (UPRONA) was the only political party that had ever held power. President Pierre Buyoya, who took power in a coup in 1987, moved gradually to bring more Hutus into his government, as well as into the army. In 1992 he introduced a multi-party constitution, opening up political competition. This paved the way for the exiled Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), the major party supported by Hutus, to operate legally. Although Buyoya won respect for his political opening, he lost to the FRODEBU presidential candidate, Melchior Ndadaye, in elections held peacefully in June 1993. In the legislative elections, FRODEBU won 65 seats to UPRONA's 16.
President Buyoya accepted his defeat with good grace, and handed over the reins of government to his successor. But tension between the Tutsi-dominated army and political establishment and the incoming administration was high. Tutsi extremists opposed any concessions to the newcomers, while Hutu extremists pushed for a rapid purge of Tutsi from positions of power.
President Ndadaye, the first Hutu to become head of state in Burundi, adopted a gradualist position. He appointed Sylvie Kinigi, an ethnic Tutsi and member of UPRONA, as prime minister, and conceded 40% of ministerial posts to the opposition. But he had to confront extremists within his own party who opposed these concessions. And he had in practice to share power with the military establishment, which was set against reforms that would dilute their power by bringing in new officers and opening up the army to greater participation by Hutus.
Tension and unrest were serious but not uncontrollable until October 1993, when President Ndadaye and several of his ministers were killed in an abortive coup by younger officers. In circumstances which are still unclear, the coup was suppressed, with leading officers remaining loyal to the government. But the top military leadership apparently did not make a serious effort to protect the president. Other government officials only survived by taking refuge in foreign embassies.
Those killed in the coup attempt included the president and vice-president of the national assembly, who under the constitution would have succeeded the president. While the government continued in office, it was not until early 1994 that a new president and prime minister were chosen. FRODEBU leader Cyprien Ntaryamira, formerly minister of agriculture, became president, while an UPRONA figure, Anatole Kanyenkiko, became prime minister. As under Ndadaye, the opposition was given 40% of the ministerial seats.
1993 Massacres
In the aftermath of the coup, however, a series of massacres involving supporters of both sides took the lives of between 50,000 and 100,000 people. In many parts of the country, Hutus, fearing mass slaughter like that of 1972, took preemptive action against Tutsis. The army in turn massacred Hutus. An International Commission on Human Rights in Burundi, which carried out an investigation in mid-1994, concluded that "both Hutu and Tutsi used rumor and myth to incite the killings and to justify the slaughter."
In contrast to the situation in Rwanda in April-June 1994-- when the massacres were overwhelmingly the responsibility of centrally organized extremist Hutu forces--the killings in Burundi were relatively dispersed. Nor were they apparently the result of an organized plan, as they had been in Rwanda. But the military was clearly responsible for initiating violence as well as for failing to maintain order. As many as 700,000 Burundians fled to neighboring countries, and as many as 1.3 million were displaced from their homes inside the country.
Despite the tense situation and continued smaller clashes, Burundi was able to continue with a coalition government and to avoid a new general explosion of violence. But in April 1994 the new president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, died in the same plane crash as Rwandan President Habyarimana. Government and army officials reassured the country that the crash was related to Rwanda's conflict, not Burundi's, and the president of the national assembly, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, quickly took office as interim president. After considerable controversy he was elected president in September 1994. A convention signed by the two large parties and a number of smaller parties agreed on a continued coalition, with the opposition providing the prime minister, 45% of the ministers, and half of a new National Security Council.
The Current Situation
Extremists on both sides have continued trying to undermine the coalition government. Ethnic tensions are high, and killings have occurred in many areas of the country. In late March fighting broke out in the capital, Bujumbura, after the assassination of the energy minister by Tutsi extremists and the killings of three Belgians and two Burundian soldiers by Hutu gunmen a week later. In retaliation for the latter killings, Tutsi soldiers and militiamen attacked neighborhoods in the capital on March 25-26, prompting the flight of at least 25,000 people toward bordering countries. In addition, thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees fled from camps in northern Burundi, although that exodus appears to have since halted.
Moderate forces within Burundi have tried valiantly to avert a recurrence of the 1993 killings. They have had the help of a small Organization of African Unity peacekeeping force consisting of 46 military observers. The United Nations secretary general has sent a special representative, diplomat Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, who has won praise for his mediating role. The U.N. Security Council has repeatedly expressed its concern that extremist violence be discouraged, and has called for the coup and massacres of 1993 to be investigated by a joint international/Burundian judicial process.
A Security Council mission to Burundi in February included representatives of Nigeria, China, the Czech Republic, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia, and the United States. They reported that "the political and security situation remains precarious and is potentially explosive. Extremist elements, both Tutsi and Hutu, both within the coalition government and outside it, have for their own reasons not accepted the power-sharing arrangements contained in the Convention. These extremists have usurped the political initiative, at the expense of the moderate elements who constitute the majority of the population and have been silenced through threat and intimidation."
The mission added that "the culture of impunity constitutes a fundamental problem." An international inquiry into the events of 1993, already proposed by the government, is urgent, as is international aid for building an impartial judicial system and civilian police.
International agencies, key foreign governments, and nongovernmental organizations have all called for continuing international involvement to prevent a new tragedy in Burundi. Meeting in February in London, representatives of governments, NGOs and multilateral bodies adopted a common action plan for providing international support for moderation and dialogue inside Burundi.
But the failure of the international community to take timely preventive action to avert the genocide in Rwanda continues to haunt the Burundi situation. The chances that preventive diplomacy will succeed this time depend on continued strong support from national governments and international public opinion.
For more information contact: International Alert, 1 Glyn St., London SE11 5HT, United Kingdom. Tel: 44-71-793-8383. Fax: 44-71-793-7975. E-mail: intlalert@gn.apc.org.
ACTION ALERT
Contact key members of the Administration. Encourage them to continue to support coordinated high-level international involvement in preventive diplomacy in Burundi, through bilateral U.S. efforts and through the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity. Ask for continued visits and expressions of concern from high-level delegations, as well as increased international presence to serve as a deterrent to escalation of violence.
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