BURUNDI-POLITICS: Determined to Survive

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

BUJUMBURA, Oct 7 1996 (IPS) - Almost everywhere in this Central African capital — in cafes, taxis, shops and offices — conversation topic number one is survival.

The general idea, expressed in a variety of ways, is that life has to go on even though the sanctions imposed on Burundi by regional leaders have been taking their toll on Bujumbura.

“We have to survive at all cost,” businessman Jean Leonidas told IPS. “We have to find a way to defeat this blockade.”

The sanctions or “blockade” as they are called here, were imposed by Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Zaire, Zambia and Rwanda on July 31 to force former major Major Pierre Buyoya to return Burundi to civilian rule.

Buyoya, a Tutsi, came to power on July 25 after a military junta deposed Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, who took refuge in the residence of the U.S. Ambassador in Bujumbura and is said to be still living there.

The regional leaders say they will lift the embargo only if Buyoya fulfils the one condition he has not yet complied with: unconditional talks with Burundi’s rebels. Buyoya has already scrapped a ban on political parties and restored parliament as his neighbours had demanded.

He has said he is ready to hold talks but that he cannot force the rebels to negotiate. “Nobody can negotiate by force,” he told trade union representatives here on Saturday.

Hutu rebel leader Leonard Nyangoma has said he would talk only with the army, not with Buyoya’s military-civilian government since the real power in Burundi lies with the armed forces. However, the army has rejected Nyangoma’s demand. “He is a terrorist. We will not talk with him,” army spokesman Lt-Col Longin Minani said last week.

Nyangoma, a former interior minister, backs the sanctions, which he feels will eventually force the Tutsi-dominated army to talk. But presidential spokesman Jean Luc Ndizeye has warned that Burundi would disintegrate if its neighbours refuse to lift the embargo within three months.

“The situation is very, very bad,” he told IPS over the weekend. “So far 20 000 people have lost their jobs in Bujumbura alone. They were laid off following the blockade.”

In Bujumbura, the most evident effects of the sanctions are a fuel shortage that has shut down many factories, the closure of travel agencies, brought about by the regional ban on travel to Burundi, and the erratic supply of electricity.

To conserve oil stocks, the government introduced rationing. Private cars are limited to five litres a week, tractors to 50 litres and taxis to 10, although most people, especially taxi owners, buy petrol from the black market to stay in business.

“They (taxis) charge 1,000 francs (3.18 U.S. dollars) for a distance of three kilometres,” Eugene Barasukana, a journalist with Radio Burundi Radio told IPS. “Before the blockade, we used to pay half the fare for the same distance.”

Burundi imports all its fuel. It relies on coffee and tea exports for 90 percent of its revenue, but since it is landlocked, it has always depended on the ports of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mombasa in Kenya to get its goods to foreign markets. Now that these ports are closed to it, its tea and coffee remain in warehouses.

It is not only oil and other imports that are affected by the embargo. Even local goods are in short supply since the scarcity of fuel and insecurity along rural roads have made it difficult for transporters to bring merchandise to the capital. As a result, the prices of basic foodstuffs have increased by up to 40 percent.

Before the sanctions, a 10-kg bunch of bananas used to cost 600 francs (1.90 dollars) in the main market here, sources told IPS. The price is now 800 francs (2.54 dollars). Potatoes have gone up from the equivalent of 18.50 to 27 U.S. cents per kg. The cost of salt has doubled to 64 U.S. cents.

But Burundi’s government is defiant. On Saturday, Buyoya urged trade unionists to brace themselves for hard times. “We must show the international community that the blockade in not the answer to Burundi’s problems,” he said.

“Cuba has lived under embargo for 50 years and the Iraqis have been living under an international embargo since 1991,” he added. “They are managing. They have not died.”

Burundi began slipping into chaos following the murder of then president Melchior Ndadaye by renegade soldiers in October 1993. Since then, more than 150,000 people, mainly non-combatants, are believed to have been killed in ethnic violence there.