BURUNDI-POLITICS: Embargo Relaxed for Humanitarian Aid

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Aug 13 1996 (IPS) - When East and Central African leaders decided to impose economic sanctions on Burundi, they ignored the need for humanitarian aid among the estimated 300,000 displaced people and Rwandan refugees in that country.

By last weekend, around 9,500 tonnes of goods, including 2,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid, were blocked at Kigoma on the Tanzanian shore of Lake Tanganyika. An additional 3,000 tonnes of World Food Programme (WFP) relief supplies were delayed in Dar es Salaam and Isaka, also in Tanzania.

The United Nations and aid agencies expressed concern about the impact of sanctions on Burundi’s vulnerable groups and appealed for a special dispensation for humanitarian cargo.

It worked. In a statement, faxed to IPS on Tuesday, Tanzania’s government said it had decided to exempt humanitarian goods from the blockade against Burundi.

“Permission is hereby granted in principle to ferry the aid to their intended destination,” ran the statement, issued late Monday. “These goods would however be subjected to inspection and escort to the border.”

Tanzania urged the U.N. to use distinct identifying marks on its trucks and said it would put in place monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the goods reach their beneficiaries.

Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP) welcomed Tanzania’s decision. “We hope the same spirit of cooperation will prevail among other countries of the region to ensure that humanitarian relief operations are not derailed as a result of sanctions,” she said.

Kenyan port authorities said on Friday that they were holding 19 containers and nine other cases of cargo destined for Bujumbura.

While more than 45,000 tonnes of Burundian imports and 3,000 tonnes of exports were handled at the Kenyan port of Mombasa last year, most of Burundi’s trade goes through Tanzania.

Burundi’s authorities had said earlier that the sanctions would have a telling effect on the country’s people.

“I think economically it will be very hard because there are displaced people who are in refugee camps,” new Prime Minister Pascal Firmin Ndirima had said, while Foreign Minister Luc Rukingama warned that the sanctions spelt economic disaster and would hurt the vulnerable.

“Sanctions work against the children, women, old people and all the men of the country,” he told journalists in Brussels, Belgium, on Aug. 11.

According to Bertini, about one month of food supplies remained inside Burundi. However, the fuel situation appears to be even more critical.

“We are writing to regional authorities to allow fuel for humanitarian relief operations as well as other humanitarian goods like soaps and salt to reach the displaced in Burundi,” said Ben Parker of the Nairobi-based Regional Information Network (IRIN) of the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs.

The UN is also negotiating with regional governments to resume humanitarian relief flights to Burundi. “Once agreed,” said Parker, “the planes will fly into Burundi from Kenya and Tanzania.”

Tanzania’s decision means that some WFP relief can begin moving almost immediately. As part of its contingency plans, the U.N. agency had prepositioned six trucks loaded with supplies at Isaka, about 350 kilometres from the border with Burundi.

A major concern for the WFP had been that once transport operations were shut down it would require a long time to restart them. Trucks and drivers would have to be found again and contracts renegotiated. Now, the “WFP is moving quickly to restore operations,” according to Bertini.

Tanzania was the first country in the sub-region to implement the sanctions agreement, reached at a July 31 summit in the Tanzanian town of Arusha. It announced in early August that all trade and other economic links with Burundi had been cut.

Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda followed suit. Then, on Friday, Zaire announced that air, land and water links with Burundi had been suspended.

The regional leaders imposed the sanctions to get the government of Major Pierre Buyoya to reinstate the national assembly, which Buyoya dissolved, and lift a ban on political parties which he imposed immediately after seizing power in a bloodless coup on Jul. 25.

Other countries applying sanctions include Ethiopia, Malawi, Cameroon and South Africa.

South Africa also agreed on 7 August to send a special envoy to help coordinate multilateral efforts to end the crisis in Burundi. Two days before, the OAU had announced that it was withdrawing its contingent of 40 military observers from the country.