[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.
                                                                    ____


              [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.

                          ____________________