According to the May issue of Africa World Review there are more than seventy international journalists in the Central African state of Burundi, waiting to report on 'genocide'. Our Belgian sister publication La Gauche interviewed Colette Braeckman about the parallels with Burundi's neighbour Rwanda, which saw just such a tragedy just over a year ago. In the light of recent events, can we say that Burundi is on the way to another Rwanda?
I think we should be wary of over hasty comparisons between Rwanda and Burundi.
In Rwanda there was a minority of the people, the Tutsis and the opponents of the regime, who were unarmed and confronted with an army of militia who had sworn to exterminate them. There was, thus, a refusal to share power at the outset.
In Burundi there have been elections and then a powersharing agreement. And there are arms on both sides: there is the army which is essentially Tutsi, but there are also Hutu militia who have unfortunately linked up with the militia in Rwanda. They are ready to attack from Zaire.
I think that in the best case in Burundi there could be a more or less stable governmental agreement and in the worst a civil war which could lead to as many deaths as in Rwanda, but which would not be a genocide. Are there Hutus in Burundi who are armed?
There are the Léonard Nyangoma FDD (Forces de Défence de la Démocratie) who have taken up arms and which have guerrillas based in Zaire.
They have linked up with Rwandan militia who are well-armed and are, I think, supported by the Zairian leader Mobutu. These people have twice committed massacres. The first time after the assassination of President Ndadaye in Burundi and the second when they were refugees in Rwanda. They have the same ideology as the InLeranamwe. Do they have popular support?
In some places including Hutu districts of the capital President have now? Bujumbura, they have support or at least people are terror- The regime, and the Presiised. It is hard to know if the dent in particular, are very support is voluntary - there is weak. They are torn by interalmost certainly a mixture of nal contradictions. ethnic solidarity and intimida- The President claims to tion. disown Hutu extremists, but there is evidence that he keeps What is the army's role? contacts with them, just as the The UN Secretary-Gen- army say they disown the eral's envoy in Burundi Tutsi militia but also maintain say that the military are Connel defending the whole Will there be a national population, whether dialogue? Tutsi or Hutu. This is planned, but it has That's what the army wants not yet begun. It is essential if people to think. It may per- things are to change for better. haps really be the desire of the The government power-sharleaders. ing agreement must be apHowever, on the ground, plied. I don't think that an there are family links with the outside intervention could Tutsi extremists. My impres- change anything. sion is that the army repres- Indeed, concretely, I think sion is aimed at Hutus rather such an intervention would be than Tutsis as a result of fam- highly dangerous. The army ily ties. is against intervention and This is the same army would fight it; it could bring which murdered President about the very catastrophe Ndadaye and it does not con- which everyone is trying to trol its own extreme elements. . avoid. The UN representative, Ould Abdallah has said he What power does the
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 85, June 10 1995, Page 11