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Burundi |
CIVIL WAR
Five months after the establishment of a government of national unity, on 1 November 2001, insecurity within the country has increased, whereas the new authorities made a return to peace their first priority
Acts of war, murders, robberies, arson, hostage-taking have continued, mainly in the eastern provinces, in the extreme south and to a lesser degree in the northern province bordering on Rwanda. The local authorities regularly accuse the rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) and the National Liberation Forces (FNL) as the source of the misfortunes which the people of these red zones have to put up with. However the rebels no longer have a monopoly on meaningless violence. Members of the government’s armed forces are also accused of reprisals against the people for hiding or helping the rebels.
A murderous month
The month of March was particularly bloody in Burundi. At a time when the eastern province of Ruyigi on the Tanzanian border was experiencing particular difficulties, war again arrived at the gates of Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi from the surrounding hills which overlook the city.
For ten minutes on 1 April, at 2.p.m. local time, the suburbs of Mutanga South, Mutanga North and Mugoboka to the east of Bujumbura were the target of 60 mortar bombs fired by attackers from the foothills which overlook the local town hall. Three people were injured and there was panic among the local people.
It was a long time since the inhabitants of Bujumbura had heard such loud bomb blasts. The most recent: automatic rifle fire, explosions of mortars and fierce fighting took place in the night of 14-15 March last. On that occasion, the FNL had launched an attack on the Kamege area to the north of the city, and according to official statistics left two dead. It appears that the rebels’ main aim was to get provisions and money. Since the beginning of the month of March, according to unofficial statistics, more than a hundred people have been killed in clashes between the FNL and government forces in rural Bujumbura.
This war, far from the TV cameras, has also caused more than five thousand families, nearly 15,000 persons, to move towards the Gihosha area of the town of Bujumbura. These rural people live in extremely precarious conditions; some find shelter in unfinished buildings, others shelter under mango trees or sleep in the open air. The more fortunate ones have found refuge with the Schoenstatt Fathers in the Marian sanctuary of Mount Sion, in the area of Gihosha, also called Mutanga North.
These people, dressed in rags, can still see from afar, the beautiful green hills that they have abandoned, now turned into a battle-ground between the government army and the FNL rebels. They are without food in their refuges: a family of six people receive only a meagre ration of 15 kilos of beans for a whole month. Their other needs (blankets, cooking utensils, salt, soap etc) are ignored.
Also in the North Bujumbura area, the night of 23-24 March was particularly long for the inhabitants of Kamenge, Kinama, Ngagara and Cibitoke. From eleven o’clock, long bursts of automatic firing was heard again, giving the impression of all-out war. The houses of the Kamenge area were riddled with bullet marks, shops were pillaged and many people killed. The leader of this zone, Deogratias Nibaze, declared that but for the rapid intervention of the army, the damage would have been greater.
And yet since December 2001, a month after the swearing in of the new government, the spokesman for the ministry of defence, Colonel Augustin Nzabampena, asserted that the FNL rebels had been driven out of their sanctuaries in Tenga, Nyabunyegeri, Rukoko in the neighbourhood of the capital.
He was not taking into account the capacity of a rebellion which has often the advantage of a better knowledge of the terrain, to withdraw and regroup. According to a recent statement by a FNL spokesman, Anicet Ntawuhiganayo, (who had a narrow escape in an ambush by the army in the second half of March), it is evident that the war is not nearly over. In fact, battles have raged during the whole month of March, in areas which the army regards as the headquarters of the FNL, namely Kirombwe Mbare, Gasarara, three hills near rural Bujumbura. The army has fired many artillery shells since the beginning of the month of March but apparently without much success.
Repatriation torpedoed
At the same time, another rebellion by the FDD has been very active in the eastern province of Ruyigi, According to the governor of this province, Isaac Bujaba, rebel fighters from Tanzania have been active in the region, particularly in the communes of Gisuru, Nyabitsinda and Kinyinya, with the obvious intention of occupying the national park of Ruvubu.
Their second objective would be to stop the repatriation of Burundi refugees living in Tanzania. The FNL spokesman has also declared on local radio, that it is not yet the opportune moment to repatriate Burundi refugees, because the insecurity they have fled from in Burundi, still persists more than ever.
A strong official delegation visited different Burundi refugee camps in Western Tanzania at the beginning of March, to invite them to return to their motherland. The same appeal has been made by the head of state, Pierre Bugoya, on 30 March, asserting that the refugees would be well received in their country. The Burundi government hopes that by calling on the refugees to return, it will cut the grass under the feet of the FDD rebels. The latter have made the camps a breeding ground for recruiting and the spread of subversive ideas.
At the same time, the spokesman for the government army, Colonel Augustin Nzabampema, has confirmed that the FDD rebels are trying again to bring out their fighters from Tanzania, to make a show of force during negotiations for a cease fire. In the month of March, the Tanzanian army, in the Kibondo district (not far from the Burundi border) has cooperated with the Burundi army in capturing and killing about forty FDD rebels who were trying to withdraw to Tanzania. It confirms that it has recovered 56 guns during a confrontation in Tanzanian villages.
Tanzania which has for a long time been accused by Burundi of being a sanctuary for attackers, tries from now on to show its good faith and cooperation with the official authorities of Burundi. During the first fortnight of March, Dar-es-Salaam brought together leaders of all the Burundian rebel movements, to inform them that it is in their own interest to participate in the peace process and come to the negotiation-table with the Burundi government. This was a veiled message that Tanzania would not for long remain their traditional fall-back zone.
Nevertheless, security remains very precarious in areas where there is strong infiltration of rebels, especially in the southern province of Makamba. According to recent accounts by inhabitants of the area, some people spend the day in Burundi, but cross the border before nightfall, to pass the night in Tanzania. Another paradox: at a time when the exiles -– voluntarily or forcibly -– leave the refugee camps in Western Tanzania, many others, at Kibago in the extreme south of the country, flee to Tanzania to escape the battles between the Burundi Army and the FDD rebels. This indicates to observers that security in Burundi «makes one step forward and two steps back«.
Unsolved crimes
Because of the murderous ambushes on the arterial roads, the security services of the United Nations in Burundi have classified some areas as «Red Zones». For that reason, United Nations vehicles are not permitted to leave the capital to go up country before nine in the morning, and they are obliged to leave their work on the ground before four in the afternoon. These measures are understandable in a country which has witnessed two assassinations of expatriates in six months.
Indeed the shadow of Dr Kassi Manlan still hangs over Burundi skies. The assassination of this WHO representative in Burundi on 20 November 2001, less than three weeks after the establishment of the new government, still remains a mystery. Kassi Manlan (53) from Côte d’Ivoire was assassinated by persons unknown, and his body was found several days later on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.
Thus he met the same fate as Mr Louis Zuniga, a former UNICEF representative who was also killed in the east of the country on 12 October 1999 while distributing aid to war victims. These two crimes show clearly the difficult conditions under which United Nations personnel have to fulfil their mission in Burundi. The perpetrators of these crimes have not yet been apprehended.
Another assassination not yet explained: on 4 January, that of Mr Makhadu, a member of a South African military contingent based in Burundi. The soldier died by strangulation. But as in Burundi investigations of murders never produce results, it is not sure that the assassins of Makhadu or Dr Manlan will eventually be known, in spite of the assurances of a spokesman for the government calling on the police to speed up their investigations with all necessary professionalism.
Faced with acts of war, violent crimes, assassinations and attacks by rebels, the authorities can do nothing better than call on the people to exercise vigilance and form civilian defence groups.
Thus in several regions, groups of young peace guardians have been formed, which human rights defenders have called «vigilante groups». These young paramilitaries, without either a code of conduct or a salary, hold the people to ransom and often commit horrible crimes. The same authorities have outlawed public demonstrations and political meetings in the capital as well as in the principal towns in the interior. History thus repeats itself in Burundi, as elsewhere: periods of civil strife often go had in hand with the restriction of civil liberties!
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