Burundi Rebel Attacks, Extremists in Ruling Elite Block Peace

By day, this bustling city on the sun-soaked shores of Lake Tanganyika displays a deceptive calm. Hutus and Tutsis politely walk, shop and intermingle along its wide tree-lined avenues. But as darkness falls, the superficial serenity of Burundi’s capital gives way to a pervasive tension.

Though a midnight curfew is in effect, residents on every block take turns keeping vigil in a neighborhood watch program encouraged by the government. The crackle of gunfire echoes throughout the surrounding forested hills. Many civilians say they have learned to use firearms to protect themselves.

“People are very afraid because they think that they might be attacked at any time,” said Didace Havyarimana, an army captain and longtime resident of Bujumbura. “The population must be cautious.”

The fear has intensified lately as Hutu rebels step up a campaign to topple President Pierre Buyoya, who seized power in a July 1996 coup, and wreck his army, whose members are mostly from the Tutsi ethnic group.

Few observers feel that the rebels are strong enough to succeed, and in many parts of this landlocked central African nation, security has actually improved. But the intensity of the recent gun battles is pushing Burundi further away from stability and a lasting peace.

Last week, at least 72 rebels and four soldiers were killed in fighting around Bujumbura, the military said. The confrontation came on the heels of an attack New Year’s Day near the capital’s airport--the most brazen rebel assault in several months--in which almost 300 people were reported killed and as many as 15,000 forced to flee their homes.

Burundi’s seemingly intractable conflict is being prolonged by extremist elements, both Tutsi and Hutu, in the country’s ruling elite. They are dragging their feet on putting aside their differences to forge an agreement on how power should be shared.

What’s more, neighboring countries charged with trying to end the war have seen their own relations with Burundi sour, and the international community’s diplomacy and hand-wringing have so far failed to break the deadlock. Meanwhile, a trade embargo is exacerbating economic hardships felt by thousands of Burundians, many of whom say they just want to get on with their lives.

“Most [Burundians] are fed up to the back teeth with all this and want to be left alone,” said one Western official. “The hard-liners just don’t want peace. There needs to be a way for both sides to move from this impasse without losing face.”

Urban dwellers who depend on imported items are particularly feeling the pinch of the embargo, imposed by six African nations after the 1996 coup with the goal of ending the violence and restoring democracy.

“Life has really changed,” said Bisekere Prime, an airplane technician and resident of the capital. “How we eat today is not how we used to eat. Prices are high. Clothes are expensive. Feeding our children is difficult.”

World Bank representatives in Bujumbura say health and education services have deteriorated as supplies have grown short, and the cost of fuel and basic consumer goods has skyrocketed amid annual inflation that has surpassed 200%.

There is a shortage of fertilizer and seeds for planting, and relief workers say malnutrition is on the rise among rural residents--a tragedy in a country blessed with abundant arable land and a normally crop-friendly climate.

Meanwhile, some business people and politicians in Burundi and neighboring countries are said to be profiting from the embargo by smuggling in goods and selling them at exorbitant prices. Weapons also continue to reach both sides in the war, according to a recent report by Human Rights Watch.

“The embargo is a red herring,” said another Western official. “It’s serving no purpose apart from making a bunch of Tanzanians rich. It’s certainly not working. It hasn’t brought the [Burundian] administration to its knees.”

Last month, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the United Nations human rights investigator for Burundi, urged a halt to the economic blockade. But many experts say sanctions are not solely to blame for Burundians’ hardships.

“The embargo is only one part of the problem,” said the Western diplomat, noting that Buyoya’s regime has chosen to invest in the military rather than in the country’s economy. Compulsory enlistment has increased the ranks of the military from 15,000 to at least 40,000 in little over a year.

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Meanwhile, the political stalemate and resurgence of fighting threaten to inflame Burundi’s ethnic tensions.

Like neighboring Rwanda, Burundi has a volatile population mix, with ethnic Hutus making up 85% and Tutsis about 14% of the country’s 6 million citizens. But unlike Rwanda--where an extremist Hutu regime orchestrated a genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, with at least 800,000 lives lost--Burundi’s Tutsis have traditionally dominated the military, the economy and politics.

Burundi, a former Belgian colony, has been crippled by periodic bouts of ethnic massacres since it attained independence in 1962. The latest round was sparked by the October 1993 assassination of Burundi’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu, by Tutsi paratroopers. Since then, more than 150,000 civilians have been killed in the conflict.

The National Council for the Defense of Democracy, the country’s main Hutu rebel group, says its forces do not attack civilians--especially not Hutus, who constituted most of the victims in the New Year’s Day slaughter. The rebels blame the massacre on the Burundian army, a charge that military officials deny.

“We see the Burundian situation as every bit as perilous as the Rwandan situation,” said a Western diplomat. “And although Rwanda still has a very long way to go . . . the authorities realize the need for reconciliation and power-sharing. In the case of Burundi, there seems to be very little evidence that the Tutsi establishment has any solid understanding that this is the long-term solution.”

Burundian officials beg to disagree. Ambroise Niyonsaba, the country’s minister for peace, said political, civic and religious leaders have already launched a nationwide series of seminars and discussions on reconciliation and constitutional rule. And he said externally brokered peace negotiations will restart in earnest once relations are improved between Burundi and neighboring Tanzania.

Tanzania was chosen to mediate the talks by regional leaders who decided that Burundi is an African problem, so Africans should solve it. This came as a relief to many Western nations, who were not keen on getting involved in the seemingly never-ending crisis of a country devoid of strategic and economic importance, according to diplomatic sources.

Relations between Burundi and Tanzania, once strong business partners, have been strained since the coup. Bujumbura has accused its neighbor of giving refuge to, and even arming, enemies of the Buyoya government--a charge the Tanzanians deny. In October, at least two Burundian soldiers and 10 civilians were killed in an exchange of fire during a cross-border incident.

But Burundi argues that lifting the regional economic embargo would give new impetus to the stalled peace talks. Niyonsaba said that Burundi has now met most of the conditions for ending the sanctions, including permitting activities by political parties previously banned and restoring the National Assembly.