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Life After Violence

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by Uvin, Peter,Social Science Research Council (U. S. ),International African Institute. ,Royal African Society.


  • Public enterprises shall have 60% Hutu and 40% Tutsi.

  One of the most important stipulations of the Arusha agreement was the creation of a transitional government, with ministers from both the G7 (seven Hutu parties, including some big ones such as FRODEBU and CNDD3) and the G10 (ten Tutsi parties, all of them very small), and a Tutsi president (Buyoya) and Hutu vice-president (Ndayizeye) – with the former to leave his post after eighteen months to be replaced by the latter. President Buyoya kept his word and stepped down on 1 May 2003, which was a milestone in the transition and paved the way for the agreement with the CNDD/FDD.

  But in the meantime the fighting continued unabated – indeed, most observers agree that there was more violence afterwards than before, for the main Hutu rebel movements had not been included in the Arusha negotiations. It took years more of fighting and negotiating until the largest Hutu rebel movement, the CNDD/FDD, agreed to the Pretoria Protocol on Political, Defense, and Security Power-sharing in Burundi (October 2003). This paved the way for their integration into the institutions of the state and the army. And it was only in September 2006 that a similar agreement was signed (this time by the CNDD/FDD-dominated elected government) with the FNL. As of this writing, however, this agreement has still not been implemented.

  From the transition period to the elections

  Even after the signing of the agreements, the remaining military, political, economic, and socio-psychological challenges were enormous. Many feared the peace process would not hold.

  The security situation needed to be stabilized. Soldiers and rebels had to lay down their arms, some to be integrated into the national army and others demobilized and reintegrated into their communities. Rebels who had not signed the agreements had to be brought into the fold; police and army structures needed to be reformed and personnel trained, their leadership and ‘rank and file’ to become more multi-ethnic.

  A viable system of guarantees had to be created to ensure that ethnic exclusion and destruction would not reoccur. While the initial conflict was clearly rooted in the competition for political power, ethnicity had in the last thirty years – and especially the last decade – taken on a life of its own. The social and physical separation between people had grown, and a sense of victimization prevailed (the charge of genocide being the trump card on both sides). The power-sharing arrangements in the Arusha accord were responses to that but would not work without popular support.

  The old clique controlling power had to be persuaded to withdraw from control of the state, army, and economy. New arrivals had to be included in these spheres of power. In the immediate post-Arusha phase, this process was managed in part by a temporary expansion of the number of elite positions available, especially in the realm of the state: a large number of well-paid ministers and parliamentarians allowed most of the competitors for state power to find a safe haven for a few years. In Burundi, as in so many extremely poor African countries with almost no private sector, ceasing to be a general, a parliamentarian, or a minister is not simply a move to another interesting and well-paid job, but risks a complete loss of economic security and a fall from social grace. For at least some of Burundi’s leaders, justice would lead them to face prosecution; elections would make them lose their positions of influence; security-sector reform and demobilization would make them lose jobs; good governance would reduce their income, etc.

  Institutional transformation had to be achieved against a backdrop of unimaginable poverty and the social exclusion of most Burundians. The rural and urban poor, whether Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa, were the ones being killed and abused by all sides. They were the ones whose land was stolen, whose food, credit, and aid were being skimmed off, whose children were dying from preventable diseases at a rate that is one of the world’s three highest. Few of those in power or vying for it, regardless of their party affiliation, were deeply connected to the poor or seemed to have their interests at heart. Apart from being unethical, this is a potentially risky situation in the longer term, as any political entrepreneur will find in Burundi’s massive underclass an explosive reservoir of anger, cynicism, and potential violence.

  There also existed, however, a number of contextual factors pushing in the direction of peace and institutional change. By 2003, most people were sick of an unwinnable war. A mutually hurting stalemate had prevailed for years by then – Reyntjens (1995: 21) already describes the situation in these terms in 1995 – and both sides knew that military victory was impossible. Grudgingly, but unavoidably, the politics of compromise took over.

  At the same time, ordinary people of all ethnicities faced such hardship that they came to realize that ethnic division did not serve them. The size of the cake available has become much smaller for almost all Burundians: the economy is worse off than it was a decade ago – when it was already one of the world’s poorest. This negatively affects both those in rural areas who live on the brink of starvation, and those in power, whose jobs are more precarious, their salaries lower, and the costs of living higher.

  The Arusha agreement, warts and all, created incentives for collaboration and compromise, and provided a road map for the way ahead. The fact that ethnicity was becoming more openly addressed in society was real and positive. The media, stronger by the day, played a similar progressive role. The extremists on all sides were losing their capacity to derail the process. The constant engagement of the international community ensured that the process moved forward.

  Probably the most crucial element of the transition was military integration and demobilization. The Pretoria agreement stipulated that at the level of the état-major, the FAB would have 60 percent and the CNDD-FDD 40 percent of the officers, while ethnic parity would prevail for the other commanding positions. But the detail was left to be resolved, including the timetable, harmonization of ranks, and even the definition of a combatant. After much wrangling, all this has been achieved in the newly integrated Forces de Défense Nationale (FDN). This integration is the cornerstone of the new Burundi: both sides control half the army and the police, and feel that they cannot be victimized by the other side. In the meantime, a real esprit de corps is developing in the army. Without this cooperation between military elites, supported by the international community, the transition would have failed (Vandeginste 2006); FAST (2005: 7) observes that there is a ‘growing loyalty of the army to the new Hutu-dominated government. Even though the NDF appear to have committed serious human rights abuses in dealing with the NFL rebels, there is no evidence of ethnic prejudice, as was so obviously the case during the 1993 crisis.’ This, precisely, is the basis of the new Burundi. Besides these negotiations on integration there was the issue of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, which started late but made remarkable progress. To date, approximately 3,000 child soldiers, 21,000 FAB soldiers, 17,000 Gardiens de la Paix (youth defending their towns, supported by the former FAB), 26,041 rebel soldiers, and almost 9,000 Militants-Combattants (supporters of the rebels) have been demobilized.

  The elections and after

  A new constitution, based on the Arusha agreement, was approved by referendum on 28 February 2005. In June 2005, a four-phase electoral process began, all phases of which were won by CNDD/CFDD. Peter Nkurunziza was overwhelmingly elected president on 19 August 2005. The population massively voted against the parties that had been in power during the war (FRODEBU got 22 percent, against 71 percent in the previous elections; UPRONA, de facto in power for most of the last four decades, had 7 percent of the vote, half of its 1993 score) and in favor of the de facto winner, which had already established a strong network of local control throughout most of the country. There was also an element of regionalism, as some politicians, most notably Nyangoma in Bururi, scored significant victories in their home regions. The elections themselves took place in a period of relative calm. Some Tutsi politicians, looking to retain lucrative positions, defected to other parties – particularly to the CNDD/FDD. At the local level, human rights violations and s
ignificant intimidation took place as parties sought to control the vote.

  UPRONA and MRC are the two predominantly Tutsi parties in parliament. Their seventeen deputies in the National Assembly are all Tutsi. The main Hutu parties are the CNDD/FDD, FRODEBU and the CNDD (Nyangoma). Approximately a quarter of the CNDD and FRODEBU deputies are Tutsi, as are a third of CNDD/FDD.

  TABLE 1.1 Election results, 2005

  Commune National Assembly2 Senate

  CNDD/FDD 1,781 59 64 32

  FRODEBU 822 25 30 5

  UPRONA 260 10 15 2

  CNDD-Nyangoma 135 4 4 3

  MRC-Rurenzangemero1 88 2 2 0

  PARENA 75 0 0 0

  Others 64 0 0 0

  Ethnic Twa 3 3

  Former presidents 4

  Notes: 1. National Resistance Movement for the Rehabilitation of the Citizen. 2. The first figure under the National Assembly results represents the seats after the elections, and the second the final composition of the National Assembly after eighteen additional members were coopted in line with the Arusha agreement.

  President Nkurunziza has adhered scrupulously to the constitutional requirements for ethnic and gender balance (Van-deginste 2006), and the appointment of General Niyoyankana as minister of defense was of major symbolical importance in appeasing Tutsi fears (FAST 2006).

  The government clearly sees itself as a fresh break in Burundi’s history: a government representing the majority of the people, inclusive and negotiated, and connected to the ordinary people in ways in which no previous government was. This is attested by the extremely high degree of outreach conducted by senior government people, foremost among them the president, who as an individual is connected to the rural masses the way no Burundian president has ever been. His first decision – free elementary schooling for all Burundians – exemplified this perfectly: in a country where social exclusion took place through highly unequal access to education, and in which the war had further destroyed the educational system, the decision constituted a radical and visible break with the past; our interviews showed this decision is deeply appreciated by ordinary people everywhere. The decision to provide free healthcare to pregnant women and children under five follows a similar pattern.

  At the same time, there are other political dynamics at work. The core of the government comes out of a former military movement. In many other African countries (Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia), this has led to a tendency toward authoritarian, top-down, non-consensual politics. This tendency clearly exists in Burundi as well: during my stay there, journalists, civil society leaders, and opposition politicians were frequently imprisoned under trumped-up charges. Much of the government is also rather inexperienced in managing a major bureaucracy, with all this implies in terms of contradictory messages, unclear policies, problems with the donor community, etc. They are not helped in this respect by the fact that the experienced senior civil servants in the bureaucracy belong to the two losing political parties and hence often do nothing to help the new government, rather enjoying seeing it fail. Finally, there are major divisions within the governing party, consuming much of its leadership’s time, and leading to constant jockeying and protecting one’s back. This came to a climax in late 2006 and early 2007, with the ouster of party president Husain Rajabu.

  Synthesizing and looking ahead

  The transition in Burundi can rightly be seen as a major success story for the international community – and one that is not known by anyone. Burundi is a country totally devoid of any importance: it has no economic or geo-strategic value to speak of. And yet, the international community has invested enormous amounts of time, energy and money in promoting a resolution of Burundi’s violent conflict. It kept investing time and money for years, never giving up, bringing protagonists together, acting as intermediary, absorbing the costs of negotiations and implementation of the key provisions of the transition, taking real risks in the process. When international donors funded the cantonment camps for rebels – effectively housing and feeding rebels accused of gross human rights violations for as long as a year – this was a daring move, which paid off when they were either demobilized or integrated into the army or police.

  This international community was a diversified group. It included the UN and a slew of foreign powers – the formal colonizer, Belgium; the former protector, France; the other usual major players in the region, the USA, the UK, and the EU – all of whom made enormous efforts to develop coordinated and coherent pro-peace policies for Burundi. They sent special envoys, created coordination mechanisms in their own capitals, and generally kept their eye on the prize. But a uniquely important role was also played by African countries. The regional heads of state (Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda) met constantly and tried to speak with one voice to Burundians – something that has had a very strong impact, so different from the past, when neighbors could always be counted on to pour oil on the flames. The African Union sent in a peacekeeping force in 2003. South Africa’s leadership in the transition was unparalleled, and continues up until today, as its diplomats try to finalize negotiations with the FNL.

  The international community now also extends about $300 million per year in aid to Burundi – an increase since the lean years of the embargo and the aid freeze, but by no means very much money. An enormous proportion of this money goes into the superstructure: salaries and perks for experts, consultants, managers. Compared to the billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan, Iraq, or the former Yugoslavia, this is peanuts, although it is perfectly in line with what African countries generally receive after war. Compared to the size of the problems Burundi faces, it is a drop on a hot plate as well: if these were our own children, we would cry with pain. But these are Africans, and we do have good arguments against giving more: ‘We’ (the USA, the West, the willing, the international community – take your pick) did not destroy their country or create the conflict; more money does not buy peace (Iraq and Afghanistan are indeed good examples of that) or development (a more contentious argument, although widely accepted); they cannot spend more money in any case, for they lack the absorption capacity (not entirely untrue either). As it stands, the national budget for 2006 totals $417 million,4 of which $341 million is externally financed – a whopping 82 percent (PBC 2006)! So I leave it up to the reader to decide whether this is too much, too little, or about right.

  The fact is that Burundians have come to the end of a long road. The voyage has been painful beyond imagination. Nobody will bring back the people hacked to death; the innocence of the children raped; the lives of the youth who were burned alive, oil-doused tires around their necks; the small possessions families had gathered and passed on over generations that were stolen; the people pulled off buses and shot in the neck beside the road simply for being of the ‘wrong’ ethnic group. Nobody can restore the hearts, the minds, the bodies of so many Burundians whose eyes turn distant and tired when they remember the past – before they turn away from the subject, embarrassed and pained.

  Burundians have faced their demons and come to another place. They have a functioning albeit weak democracy now, a free press, a vibrant civil society – far ahead in every respect of neighboring Rwanda. They have devised a system of cooptation and consociationalism that is uniquely theirs, and they have implemented it beyond what many thought was possible. The army is integrated, and everyone feels relieved by that. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have returned home, although as many as 200,000 remain in camps. Similarly, hundreds of thousands of refugees have returned to Burundi, although, once again, many remain abroad. Not all is done yet, of course – how could it be? But everyone agrees that things are moving forward.

  How do ordinary Burundians, in the hills and the ghettoes, look at life? What does peace mean to them? How do they relate to the state? How do they see socio-economic progress taking place in their own lives? What are their priorities? And what are the gender aspects of all this? It is to their insights into these matters that the rest of this book is devo
ted. But first we need a short chapter on methodology. Please stick with it – it is not as bad as you might fear, and really helpful to an understanding of the rest of the book.

  2 | Methodology and location

  Interviews

  The prime source of information used in this research is 388 in-depth interviews with ordinary Burundians throughout the country. On average, these interviews were about two hours long. Most of them were conducted with individuals and with small groups of two to four people.

  After a few weeks of working in Busiga, the town we started our research in, we abandoned the use of focus groups, because the sort of personal analysis and experience we sought to hear cannot easily emerge from such group conversations. From then on, we decided to interview only individuals, or very small groups of people who naturally and spontaneously fit together.

  Our interviews were as unstructured, open-ended, and flexible as possible: we wanted to discuss certain issues, but we did not care in what order, nor did we necessarily always need to get them all discussed (although we did try to cover as much of the ground as possible). Michael Quinn Patton describes four levels of interviews, from ‘informal conversation’ (where the subject often does not even know s/he is being interviewed) to ‘closed, fixed-response interviews’ (basically questionnaires) (2002: 349). Our approach squarely falls into his second category, ‘interview guide approach,’ in which ‘topics and issues to be covered are specified in advance, in outline form; the interviewer decides sequence and wording of questions in the course of the interview.’ The interview schedule itself consisted of only twenty-one questions. All these questions sought to probe into people’s perceptions, dreams, and analysis of development, governance, the future – their future.

  We encouraged people to ask questions if they had any. In the rural areas, people systematically asked the same thing: What are you going to do with this? In urban areas, the questions were often more direct, sometimes a tad aggressive: So, now that you’ve asked us all these questions, what’s in it for you? We very much enjoyed all these questions: they forced us to be honest with ourselves and with them, and they did help to equalize the playing field a bit. Sometimes people also asked us for our opinion about the questions we had posed them.

 

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