BUJUMBURA,
Burundi — When Faustin Kobagaya fled his northern Burundi home in
March, sneaking through the night to the Rwandan border, he was running
from what could soon become another violent chapter in his country’s
fratricidal history.
As
a 10-year-old in 1993, Mr. Kobagaya, a member of Burundi’s Tutsi
minority, lost most of his extended family in a wave of ethnic violence
that followed the assassination of the country’s first democratically
elected president, Melchior Ndadaye. The murder of Ndadaye, a Hutu,
unleashed a 12-year civil war in which an estimated 300,000 Burundians
were killed. It also helped embolden anti-Tutsi extremists in Rwanda,
who, only six months later, would begin to carry out Rwanda’s genocide
in 1994.
Today,
Mr. Kobagaya is one of thousands who’ve fled the country in advance of
its June presidential election — a contest that has brought about
Burundi’s greatest threat to peace since the end of its civil war in
2005.
Several
people have died in political violence here in the capital since
Sunday, as protests mounted after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s party
officially nominated him for a third term, a move his opponents say
violates the 2005 Constitution as well as the 2000 Arusha peace
agreement upon which the Constitution was largely based. The situation
threatens to boil over, yet Burundi’s international partners have said
very little. If the United Nations, Western donors and the African Union
don’t act quickly, and prepare to intervene if necessary, the tension
could explode into a full-scale civil war, threatening the stability of
Africa’s entire Great Lakes region.
Like
many of his compatriots now seeking refuge in Rwanda and the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Mr. Kobagaya is on the run from the Imbonerakure,
the youth wing of Burundi’s ruling party, the National Council for the
Defense of Democracy — Forces for the Defense of Democracy. In recent
months, he and others say, Imbonerakure youths armed with guns and
nail-studded clubs have mobilized across the country, threatening anyone
opposed to plans by Mr. Nkurunziza, a member of the Hutu majority, to
seek another term.
On
the night Mr. Kobagaya fled with his wife and two children, an
Imbonerakure mob had broken down the door to his house. “They told me I
was lucky to survive in 1993,” he said. “But that I’d soon be following
my parents to the grave.”
On
Sunday, the most prominent opposition group, the National Liberation
Forces reported that its party speaker had been kidnapped. On Monday,
the police arrested Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, one of Burundi’s most
prominent human rights activists, and the authorities suspended
broadcasts of Burundi’s leading private radio station to much of the
countryside. In Bujumbura, Imbonerakure stood ready to strike at
supporters of the opposition.
The
crisis — though only now making global headlines — was actually several
years in the making. Although Mr. Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader,
has overseen a period of impressive stability since his election in
2005, his party has worked to tighten its grip on power through
violence. While the Imbonerakure, a group comprised in part of former
combatants, has been linked to the killing of Mr. Nkurunziza’s
opponents, its role expanded as his campaign for a third term began to
mobilize.
In
the spring of 2014, local human rights groups disclosed evidence that
the authorities were arming Imbonerakure members and sending them for
paramilitary training in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Last
April, a confidential United Nations cable accused high-ranking
generals of distributing arms and military uniforms to the group, which
it noted had begun to act as “a militia over and above the police, the
army and the judiciary” in many rural areas.
At
the time, some observers likened the cable to the infamous “genocide
fax” sent in January 1994 by Brig. Gen. Roméo Dalliare, commander of the
United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, to U.N. headquarters in
New York warning that plans were afoot to exterminate Rwanda’s Tutsis.
A
year later, as Burundi edges toward a precipice, parallels with 1994
Rwanda are not unfounded. Like the Rwandan Interahamwe, the civilian
group responsible for much of the killing in Rwanda’s genocide, the
Imbonerakure — or at least its more radical elements — appear ready to
target civilians en masse. Although Burundi’s crisis is primarily one of
politics, with antagonisms crossing ethnic boundaries, there is also an
ethnic dimension. Many people who’ve fled the country are Tutsis who
say they’ve been targeted in an effort by Nkurunziza loyalists to give
the Imbonerakure a clear-cut common enemy.
Critically,
as in Rwanda 21 years ago, the international response to Burundi’s
plight has been clearly insufficient. Although the United Nations
deployed an electoral observation mission to the country in January, it
is not designed to assist in countering election-related violence. The
U.N. Security Council on April 17 called on both the government and
political opposition to refrain from voter intimidation and acts of
violence, yet the Council has given no indication that it is prepared to
engage more robustly.
We
believe that much stronger action is required — from both international
actors as well as the vast majority of Burundians that remain committed
to peace. Within the country, religious leaders, including officials of
the widely respected Catholic Church, should discourage the use of
violence and promote the disposal of arms in mosques and churches.
Although
the army is thought to be divided between pro- and anti-Nkurunziza
elements, it remains a trusted institution and must play a constructive
role in disarming the Imbonerakure and defending the right of peaceful
protest. Should the army fracture, the United Nations, in concert with
the African Union, must prepare to intervene if necessary. In this
scenario, an intervention of foreign troops could be the only means to
protect civilians from the Imbonerakure, which may collude with factions
of Burundi’s armed forces that back the president.
The
prospect of a wider regional crisis is also grave. Due to their
proximity, shared colonial history and similar social and ethnic
structures, Burundi and Rwanda have historically been destabilized by
cross-border unrest. Should Burundi erupt into full-scale war, chances
are high that Rwanda would intervene — particularly if the response from
the international community is muted. That could mobilize anti-Rwanda
elements in the region, including the Congo-based Democratic Forces for
the Liberation of Rwanda, a militia formed by perpetrators of the
Rwandan genocide that is believed to maintain links with some
Imbonerakure members. Eventually, other regional forces could be dragged
into a conflict.
Twenty-one
years after the Rwandan genocide, as the United States, the United
Nations and other international actors still try to come to terms with
their failure to act in the face of horrific violence, they must not
underestimate the severity of the crisis that once again is brewing in
the region.
Jean Claude Nkundwa is a peace activist in Bujumbura. Jonathan W. Rosen is a journalist based in Rwanda.
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