[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 13, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1993-S1995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SAVING BURUNDI
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, two items I have read on Burundi recently
suggest that continued interest and support for peacemaking endeavors
and positive solutions really can be of help.
The one is an article in the New York Times by two distinguished
Americans, former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and David Hamburg, who
heads the Carnegie Foundation. They co-chair the Carnegie Commission on
Preventing Deadly Conflict.
The other article, written by Jonathan Frerichs, appeared in the
Christian Century.
Both articles, which I ask be printed in the Record, suggest that
anarchy and needless death can be avoided if we pay attention to this
troubled land.
I urge my colleagues and their staffs to read these two articles.
The articles follow:
Avoiding Anarchy in Burundi
(By Cyrus R. Vance and David A. Hamburg)
Washington.--A world grown accustomed to human disaster in
the face of diplomatic failure has more to hope for in the
coming days. Next Saturday, a meeting of African leaders in
Tunis, brokered by former President Jimmy Carter, will test
the proposition that breaking the cycle of mass violence in
Central Africa may at last be possible. They need the
international community's help.
Burundi is pivotal. The right mix of political pressures
can sustain the balance of power in a country on the brink of
repeating the slaughter that tore apart Rwanda. Maintaining
that balance could spare thousands of lives. It would also
reduce the risk of the United Nations being forced into
another crisis without the mandate, materials and money
needed to be effective.
Burundi's government, a coalition of moderate Tutsi and
Hutu leaders, is fragile. Tutsi extremists have recently
attempted to close down the capital, Bujumbura, with labor
strikes and blockades. Attacks by Hutu guerrillas in the
countryside raise fears of genocide among the Tutsi minority.
[[Page S1994]]
But there is some reason for hope. Moderate Tutsi and Hutu
leaders are committed to a national debate, open to all
political factions. The goal is to settle the terms of power-
sharing and guarantees for minority rights before any further
elections.
To reinforce this process we must be clear not only about
the differences between Burundi and Rwanda but also about who
must take primary responsibility for a peace plan.
Rwanda and Burundi are both poor, isolated countries. Their
colonizers' divide-and-rule policies left seemingly insoluble
conflict between the agrarian Hutu, who make up about 85
percent of each country, and the Tutsi, who predominate in
business, government and the military.
The Belgians left the Tutsi elite in control of Burundi,
but gave way to the Hutu majority in Rwanda. Since then
demagogues in both countries have exploited ethnic fear and
pride.
This spiral of hate climaxed in 1994, when Hutu and Rwanda
shot or hacked to death at least 500,000 people, primarily
Tutsi. When Tutsi exiles from Uganda overthrew the Hutu
government, more than two million Hutu fled to nearby
countries, where 1.7 million remain.
In Burundi, the core question is whether the country's
citizens can avoid Rwanda's tragedy by devising a power-
sharing formula that offers enough security for the Tutsi to
open the way for majority democratic rule.
Outsiders can help in several ways. First, there must be
diplomatic efforts to persuade extremists in both ethnic
groups of the futility and dreadful consequences of violence.
Killings in Bujumbura rose to more than 100 a week, and
anarchy threatens. The United States and European governments
should impose an arms embargo, block international financial
transactions by Burundi's extremist leaders and threaten to
halt trade other than humanitarian relief.
Second, African leaders should be given help in securing a
power-sharing agreement in Bujumbura and the return of
refugees to both Burundi and Rwanda. In November, Mr. Carter
arranged a meeting of the Presidents of Burundi, Rwanda,
Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire. It is these talks that resume
next week.
Third, donor governments and the World Bank should draw up
a ``road map'' linking political progress in Burundi and the
other countries of Central Africa to the restoration of
development assistance.
For the moment, however, everything depends on reaching an
agreement to contain the cancer of ethnic conflict. What is
learned from this experience can help prevent mass violence
elsewhere.
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[From the Christian Century, March 6, 1996]
Causes for Hope--Saving Burundi
(By Jonathan Frerichs)
If we hear anything at all about Burundi, it is that this
small African country is Rwanda in slow motion. There is,
indeed, justification for seeing Burundi as a catastrophe in
the making. It has a vicious cycle of intergroup violence,
with militias pre-empting politics and crowds of refugees on
the move.
Approximately 800 people are dying there each month,
according to a United Nations estimate. Like its neighbor,
Rwanda, Burundi has a population of about 85 percent Hutu and
15 percent Tutsi. Tutsi militias operate with help from
Burundi's army, an army that has usually taken its orders
from ethnic leaders rather than from the moderate civilian
government. The actions of Hutu guerrillas puts the majority
population at risk of reprisal. The countryside, like the
capital, is increasingly balkanized. A fragile national
``convention,'' an agreement on power-sharing, barely merits
being called a government.
Yet to equate Burundi with Rwanda is inaccurate and
dangerously self-defeating. In Burundi there is still scope
for remedial action, for taking steps largely untried in
Rwanda--as certain Burundian Christians and aid partners are
demonstrating. The balance of power, the course of events and
the rule of the churches in Burundi differ significantly from
those in Rwanda.
There is no ``final solution'' underway in Burundi, as
there was in Rwanda. Because they are a minority, Burundi's
Tutsi extremists cannot implicate a whole population in the
perpetration of genocide, as Rwanda's Hutu majority did in
1994. The 1.5 million Rwandans still encamped outside their
country today fled not genocide but fear of reprisal for the
slaughter they had allowed to happen in their name. In Rwanda
the majority Hutus had the arms. In Burundi most of the arms
are still in the hands of the minority Tutsis.
The Tutsi-dominated national army is searching for Hutu
insurgents and punishing the Hutu majority for allegedly
sheltering them. Tutsi militia with names like ``The
Undefeated'' and ``The Infallibles'' operate in the capital,
Bujumbura, and in the northern provinces. When these
extremists have targeted a community for a ``ville mort''
(dead city) campaign, the army sometimes has stood by without
intervening or has even helped. These campaigns force Hutus
out of Tutsi areas.
The Hutu guerrillas opposing these tactics are not well
organized, according to aid workers in Bujumbura, but they
were strong enough to mount an attack on the capital in early
December. One day members of one community are killed, next
day members of the other. A rough balance of power and fear
prevails, a legacy of a century of national and colonial
political practices. As extremists within both ethnic groups
undermine the convention government, the army is forced to
choose between trying to re-establish Tutsi supremacy and
maintaining some version of the status quo. An incident in
January may indicate a shift in the army's position. When
Tutsi militia declared a ``ville mort'' in Bujumbura,
hoping to force out the Hutu president, the army actually
blocked the campaign in some quarters of the city. Since
then, the militia cannot count on army support, say aid
officials. Two Tutsi extremist leaders were actually
arrested recently. Some local observers suggest that the
army may merely want to improve its image abroad while
deflecting talk of international intervention. However, it
may also fear that militia politics will end in collective
suicide.
Burundi's government wants to do what is right for the
public at large, but it is not in control, according to
Susanne Riveles, Africa director of Lutheran World Relief. In
contrast, in early 1994 the Rwandan government was in control
but wanted to do the wrong thing. That there are moderates at
the highest levels of Burundi's government makes it possible
to keep humanitarian issues in focus.
A second cause for hope in Burundi is that its churches are
not swept up in the conflict, as happened in Rwanda. Some
church leaders are increasingly willing to oppose the
violence. But they need support. In Rwanda, certain religious
leaders were linked so closely to the government that, even
during the genocide, they did not dissociate themselves from
that government. Some even went abroad to engage in damage
control. When the old regime fell and fled, such people fled
with it--which eliminated all doubt about where they had
stood. Some are still not willing to return home. In
contrast, the bishops and archbishops of Burundi do not sit
on permanent councils of state.
``In the last four or five months, there is a feeling among
the Protestant churches that they have to gather people
across ethnic lines to protest and to work together,'' says
Eliane Duthoit-Privat of Christian Aid in Bunumbura. Church
programs include humanitarian and peace initiatives. One
example is local peace committees of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa (who
constitute about 1 percent of the population). Citizens
gather to air grievances, clarify information and address the
kill-or-be-killed mentality. ``In these meetings,
participants can say: `I don't have to kill the person in
front of me so that he won't kill me,' '' notes Duthoit-
Privat.
Some of the groups are moving from words to deeds. Several
Tutsi and Hutu families may join hands to repair the damage
done by raiding militia or soldiers--rebuilding a house for a
vulnerable neighbor, for example, or a local dispensary.
These pioneering ``Discussion sur La Paix'' are led by local
Quakers with support from the Mennonite Central Committee.
Other Protestants are considering them as a model for
standing up to the spread of violence. Protestants number
about 15 percent of the population, and include Anglicans and
Pentecostals (the two largest non-Catholic groups), varieties
of Methodists, plus Baptists, Quakers and Kimbanguists (an
indigenous African body).
The Roman Catholic Church (84 percent of the population) is
also beginning to mobilize for national reconciliation, says
Annemarie Reilly, Burundi program director of Catholic Relief
Services. Drawing on the church's experience in Latin
America, it has brought people of different ethnic and
economic backgrounds together for work and worship. A pilot
phase has been completed in three dioceses and is ready to be
expanded across the country.
Some prominent churchpeople are risking their lives for
peace. University teacher Adrian Ntabona, who heads the
reconciliation project, strongly condemned a recent killing
before a student group that included members of the Tutsi
militia widely assumed to be responsible. In Babanza, the
northern province where foreign church and relief workers
have been withdrawn because of the violence, and where some
priests have been killed and others made virtual prisoners in
their own compounds, Catholic Bishop Evariste Ngoyagoye works
as a one-person relief agency and keeper of peace. Though
recently the archbishop of Gitega was ambushed and a priest
in his party was killed, the incident has not stopped the
archbishop from traveling in his region.
Churches are providing food and other supplies to people
forced to flee from their homes. The Burundian Council of
Churches purchases and distributes seeds, tools, soap and
non-food items, and the Episcopal Church brings food to camps
of displaced people. The Evangelical Friends Church, which
formed the peace committees, also runs mobile health clinics.
Christian Aid, a British agency, maintains a stockpile of
emergency supplies for 10,000 families. The agency is the
focus for an international, interchurch aid coalition called
ACT (Action by Churches Together). All church programs are
hobbled by restrictions on movement. In relatively secure
areas, ACT has plans for agricultural rehabilitation, the
rebuilding of houses and small income projects for women.
We can do much to help Burundi avert disaster. A colossal
sin of omission was committed against Rwanda. The cost of
preventing another disaster in Burundi is negligible compared
to the expense of a major emergency rescue operation.
``Burundi needs our eyes and ears. It needs a solid,
multilateral
[[Page S1995]]
outside presence,'' says Riveles. ``Burundi needs
international civilians inside the country, not foreign
troops at the border.
John Langan, S.J., argued in these pages (January 24) for a
new rule of intervention that would involve massive and early
deployment with a cautious use of force. The UN recently
discussed positioning a force in Zaire for possible Burundi
intervention. Massive and early civilian rather than military
deployment seems the best prescription for Burundi. Human
rights observers are urgently needed, as is strong support
for existing Burundian peace initiatives.
Another key area for international observers and personnel
is the judicial system. Riveles suggests that foreign aid and
human rights workers may be able to ``bring to bear insights
on truth-finding and reconciliation from the apartheid
experience and from the Holocaust.'' Through personal
diplomacy, Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been making a
similar point. Now head of South Africa's Truth Commission,
he is also active in peace initiatives for the Great Lakes
region of Africa.
In Rwanda, extremist media propaganda was used to support
political and militia coercion. In Burundi, such propaganda
must be stopped--whether by international political pressure
or by jamming or other technical means. The UN Security
Council recently called on member states to identify and
dismantle any mobile stations operating outside Burundi that
broadcast Hutu extremist propaganda into the country.
To regard African countries like Burundi as hopeless or to
dismiss its problems as a case of unsolvable ``ethnic
conflict'' is to trap ourselves. Rather than debate past
holocausts, we can calculate how to stop a new round of
death.
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