[allAfrica.com] [Take_allAfrica.com_with_you] Hope Dawns in War-Ravaged Country The Nation (Nairobi) ANALYSIS May 2, 2003 Posted to the web May 2, 2003 By Joel Frushone Nairobi Ten years of civil war have ravaged Burundi, killing at least 150,000 civilians and uprooting millions more with negligible notice from the rest of the world. Today, more than 400,000 Burundians refugees are scattered throughout Africa's Central and Great Lake's regions. An additional 400,000 Burundians, unable to escape the country's targeted and indiscriminate violence, are displaced from their homes within the country's borders and struggle for survival in deplorable conditions. Only half of Burundi's estimated 6 million citizens have access to potable water. One in ten are infected with HIV/Aids. UN agencies estimate that the Aids epidemic and a decade of civil war have orphaned more than 275,000 Burundian children, including thousands who survive as refugees in neighbouring countries. Unpredictable violence and poor security have all but stopped delivery of much- needed humanitarian assistance to most of the country. On Wednesday, former President Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, handed over the office he seized in a coup in 1996 to his vice-president, Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu. The peaceful transfer of power, an event rarely experienced in Burundi's war- torn history, represented a positive step towards peace. Burundi's Hutu and Tutsi populations have violently competed for power for 30 years. A relatively small number of Tutsi elite, primarily from the southwest province of Bururi, have dominated the country's politics and military since independence in 1962. Major slaughters in the 1970s left hundreds of thousands dead and forced hundreds of thousands of others to flee the country. The last time Burundi seemed to be on the verge of a peaceful change of power, in 1993, the country imploded. Tutsi soldiers assassinated Burundi's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, and other high-ranking Hutu officials, triggering a wave of violence that killed approximately 50,000 people of both ethnic groups and began Burundi's current civil war. The violence uprooted approximately 1.5 million Burundians, nearly half of whom fled to neighbouring countries. Fragile signs of hope began to emerge in 2000 after vigorous mediation by former South African President Nelson Mandela produced the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement. The Arusha Accords among 19 parties and factions called for a power-sharing government, an ethnically mixed military, and the reintegration of uprooted Burundians. But the accord had little positive effect during most of 2001. The agreement contained no ceasefire provision, and Burundi's two main rebel groups, the Force for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) and the National Liberation Forces (FNL), refused to sign the accord or engage in negotiations. In mid-2001, signatories to the peace accords agreed to split a three-year transitional national government into two 18-month periods in which a Tutsi president and a Hutu vice-president would lead the government for the first term before switching roles in the second term. Numerous Tutsi and Hutu political leaders rejected the agreement, however, and FDD and FNL rebels continued fighting. Despite political and armed opposition to the Arusha Accords, Burundi's newly integrated transitional government took office in November 2001 amid continued civil war. Last year, international efforts to negotiate an end to the 10-year civil war failed to stop the violence as all sides sought to gain a military advantage before reaching a political solution. In December, Burundi's transitional government and FDD rebel leaders signed a ceasefire accord that promised to stop all hostilities by the end of the year. FNL rebel leaders refused to sign the accord. The ceasefire pledge failed to curtail the violence which still raged in many regions of the country. As recently as February 2003, President Buyoya called for a national debate to consider a delay in the handover of the presidency until after ethnic Hutu are integrated into the military. In late March, he retracted and vowed to relinquish the presidency as agreed. Considering Burundi's violent history and the fighting that continues between the government military and the FDD and FNL in many regions of the country, the future remains unclear. Clashes between government soldiers and rebel forces in the west continue to push hundreds of refugees into Tanzania each week. Shelling near the capital in early April uprooted an estimated 50,000 civilians. Several possibilities present themselves: Vice-President Ndayizeye may have peacefully assumed the presidency, but the Burundi military could refuse to accept his authority and attempt a coup in weeks or months. Should this happen, it would result in the displacement of tens of thousands of Burundians. Alternatively, radical Hutus might resist Ndayizeye's authority. Disgruntled FDD and FNL forces, excluded by choice from the peace process, may intensify attacks. In another scenario, Tanzanian authorities might exploit the change of power to force hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees home, a move that would destabilise Burundi and create enormous suffering. Approximately 850,000 Burundians - overwhelmingly Hutu - reside in Tanzania, including some 370,000 refugees and an estimated 470,000 living without official refugee status. Alternatively, hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees might spontaneously repatriate voluntarily. This, too, would overwhelm Burundi's already inadequate social services and fragile economy. Nobody knows what to expect as the transitional government enters a critical phase. Any of these scenarios might materialise sooner or later. However, the important thing is that the handover has gone smoothly, and there is still hope for Burundi. Mr Frushone is a policy analyst with the US Committee for Refugees   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2003 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================