Burundi’s Hutu Rebels Remain a Force to Be Reckoned With

The violence that has rocked the tiny central African nation of Burundi this week is a harsh reminder that without the participation of key ethnic Hutu rebel groups in negotiations, there can never be a lasting peace.

By launching their biggest assault in recent years, the rebels wanted to demonstrate their strength and underscore the importance of their inclusion in any deal aimed at ending Burundi’s 7 1/2-year war, analysts in the region said.

A South African mediator announced Friday that the rebels will hold their first direct talks with the Tutsi-dominated army next week.

Also Friday, a rocket-propelled grenade fired by rebels hit a car in a funeral procession nine miles northwest of Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, killing two soldiers and a civilian, witnesses told the Associated Press.

Earlier in the week, the rebels launched mortar shells into several heavily populated districts of Bujumbura, including an area near the presidential palace. Burundian army officials estimated that at least 37 people, including eight civilians, had been killed since the assault began. Scores of residents have fled their homes amid the bombardment.

The upsurge in fighting coincided with a regional summit in the Tanzanian town of Arusha aimed at reviving Burundi’s flagging peace process.

The one-day meeting, chaired by former South African President Nelson Mandela, brought together half a dozen African heads of state. But with fighting raging, the talks were held under a cloud of pessimism, and negotiations to decide who should lead Burundi during an agreed-upon three-year transition to democracy ended without the desired breakthrough.

Political observers familiar with the sluggish progress of the 30-month-long peace negotiations said disagreement over choosing a leader was just one element hindering successful implementation of an accord reached last summer by Burundian political parties and the government. More important was the inclusion of the key rebel groups in peace talks. Without this, there would be little chance of reaching a tenable solution, and the killing would continue.

“I don’t think it’s going to die down,” said Laurie Nathan, executive director of the Center for Conflict Resolution in Cape Town and an advisor to the South African Defense Ministry. “The rebels are heightening levels of violence in order to signal their dissatisfaction with the peace agreement.”

The peace deal, known as the Arusha accord and brokered by Mandela, excluded Burundi’s main ethnic Hutu groups, which boycotted the talks. A power-sharing agreement was signed by 17 Burundian political parties, the government and the Tutsi-dominated army. But the deal made no provision for a cease-fire, so it has failed to halt the bloodshed.

The conflict has cost more than 200,000 lives since it began in 1993 after the assassination of Burundi’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu, by Tutsi paratroopers.

Hutus make up about 85% of Burundi’s population, but Tutsis have run the country for all but a few months since independence from Belgium in 1962. One of the aims of the agreement was to distribute power more equally among the ethnic groups.

Last August, the negotiating parties were given 90 days to select a transitional leader to head an envisioned ethnically balanced government and army. Mandela has put forward a proposal that would allow a Tutsi candidate to lead the country for the first half of the transition. The Hutus’ choice of president would then take over for the last 18 months.

But no names have been agreed on, and the proposals were rejected by six of the seven Hutu parties attending the Tanzania talks.

Aside from the failure to agree on a leader and the continued rebel attacks, analysts pointed to an overall lack of commitment to lasting peace. Many observers argue that the factions that signed the agreement did so under duress, without feeling a true obligation.

“The danger therefore is that the parties signed only out of fear of not wanting to be seen as uncooperative,” Nathan said.

Many Tutsis fear giving Hutus any kind of power that might leave Tutsis vulnerable. The continued rebel assaults gave Tutsi negotiators a convenient excuse to keep stalling implementation of the peace deal, observers said.

Rebel commanders told reporters in Bujumbura this week that they planned to widen the scope of their attacks.