BURUNDI: U.N. Moves Ahead While Politicians Bicker

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations is moving ahead with plans for a range of activities — from sending U.N. guards to imposing an arms embargo — to keep the peace in Burundi.

Burundi’s coalition government, however, is badly divided about what needs to be done to prevent further political and ethnic killings that threaten to plunge the country into Rwanda-type genocide.

Talking from the capital, Bujumbura, by conference call Tuesday, several leading members of Burundi’s parliament openly differed on several U.N. proposals — from sending a standby peacekeeping force to the imposition of a range of sanctions against all parties in the Central African nation.

Victoire Ndikumana, a minority Tutsi lawmaker of the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), strongly opposed a standby force such as one which U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali suggested could be placed in neighbouring Zaire.

“Such a force, which will contribute to the divisions between Burundians, should not be tried,” she argued. “We don’t know what this force will do, (but) in Central Africa and Somalia, we have never seen what this (U.N.) force could achieve.”

But Nephtali Ndikumana, a Hutu parliamentarian of the majority Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), approved of the standby forces.

“Burundians cannot stop the killings of innocent civilians and cannot protect non-governmental organisations,” he said. “If this force comes to stop the killings, it will be well received by Burundians.”

The two main coalition partners — the Hutu majority-based FRODEBU and the minority Tutsi-based UPRONA — are also divided over who is responsible for the violence or even if the United Nations should be involved at all. That, in turn, leaves the world body uncertain as to its next move.

The U.N. Security Council Monday unanimously approved a resolution to consider certain steps if Burundi’s current ethnic tensions and killings, which are currently confined largely to the capital’s suburbs and rural areas, escalate.

The Council gave Boutros-Ghali a green light to decide whether to send U.N. guards — who are less controversial among Burundians than full-fledged peacekeepers — to protect aid workers in the country. More than 100 aid workers have been killed in fighting in Burundi since 1992, and a U.N. team is in Burundi this week to report back to the Secretary-General on this question.

The Council also said it will consider imposing “a ban on the supply of all arms and related materiel to Burundi and travel restrictions and other measures against those leaders in Burundi who continue to encourage violence.”

While the coalition government broadly approves of that step, Hutus and Tutsis can’t agree on which leaders should be sanctioned.

“It would be a good thing if the international community would stop (politicians who incite violence) from moving from country to country,” said Victoire Ndikumana of UPRONA.

“But before sanctions can be taken, there should be a good identification of these people, so as not to punish innocent people. Sanctions can also be a source of tension,” the Tutsi politician added.

Her FRODEBU counterpart, Nephtali Ndikumana, agreed. The Hutu lawmaker said that any U.N. travel restrictions should strike at leaders “who took part in massive force against the people in 1993.”

Burundi’s U.N. ambassador, Nsanze Terence, a leader of a smaller Tutsi coalition partner, opposed the sanctions effort outright, delivering a lengthy attack on U.N. intervention before the Security Council Monday — days after his government had agreed to the text.

Hutu leaders blame the Tutsi-dominated Army for sparking massacres in October 1993 during an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government. Burundi’s first elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, was killed in the coup. Tutsi politicians, in turn, blame some Hutu leaders for inciting mob violence against the Tutsi minority after the assassination.

More than 50,000 people were killed in the bloodshed, although the fragile coalition government led by President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya has largely kept the peace since then.

Both the army and Hutu rebel groups have been blamed for inciting recent ethnic massacres which have brought the country to the edge of civil war. U.N. officials have blamed radio broadcasts and Hutu refugees from Rwanda for exacerbating the situation.

The United Nations had taken a cautious approach to the dispute until recent days, when a surge in killings led diplomats here conclude that the threat of a repeat of last year’s violence in Rwanda was very real. As many as one million people — mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus — were killed in that violence which the United Nations appeared powerless to stop.

Monday’s Council approval of Boutros-Ghali’s proposal to send a few dozen U.N. guards to Burundi fails to make the U.N.’s course much clearer, however, given the divisions inside the Bujumbura government.

“We don’t have any numbers (of troops or guards); we don’t have any mandate; and we don’t have any idea yet of whom we are to protect,” said one British diplomat, who asked not to be identified.

Leonce Ngedakumana, the speaker of Burundi’s National Assembly, is similarly perplexed. All options must be discussed among the ruling parties before they can be applied, Ngedakumana, of FRODEBU, said. But he added a U.N. force could be helpful if it could disarm the parties.

“Ultimately, it is the people of Burundi who have it in their hands to prevent their country from falling into the abyss,” said U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, who visited Burundi this month. “It is up to Burundians to ensure that Burundi does not commit national suicide.”