DATE=8/24/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=CLINTON / BURUNDI
NUMBER=5-46908
BYLINE=SCOTT STEARNS
DATELINE=NAIROBI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: President Clinton visits East Africa next week
to support efforts to end violence in Burundi --
efforts being led by former South African President
Nelson Mandela. As V-O-A's Scott Stearns reports, Mr.
Mandela's peace deal faces opposition from hard-liners
on both sides of Burundi's ethnic divide.
TEXT: It is a peace plan for a country that still
appears unready for peace.
There is no cease-fire between rebels and the
government army. Fighting is on the rise around
Burundi's capital, as ethnic majority Hutu rebels
battle an army dominated by the minority Tutsi.
Mr. Mandela's plan has no agreement on fundamental
issues such as ethnic power sharing in a new military,
or who gets to lead a transitional government.
Minority Tutsi parties that once said they backed the
deal now say it must be re-negotiated. They say they
will not sign the plan on Monday.
The ceremony in the Tanzanian town of Arusha will also
take place without Burundi's main rebel group. Mr.
Mandela did succeed in bringing the rebels into the
process, but the Front for the Defense of Democracy
says it will not sign any deal until the government
releases 11-thousand rebel supporters.
So who is signing the deal? Hutu political parties
with little power -- they are ready to sign. So, it
appears, is Burundi's president, Pierre Buyoya. He is
under pressure from hard-line Tutsi who oppose any
deal with Hutu rebels. So tenuous is his position,
President Buyoya this week warned Tutsi leaders not to
try to overthrow him while he is signing the peace
deal.
Many leading Tutsi fear any power sharing with Hutu
will lead to revenge attacks against years of
domination by the Tutsi minority. It is a fear that
has always slowed talks on Burundi -- an obstacle to
progress highlighted by former Tanzanian President,
the late Julius Nyerere, when he began this regional
mediation four years ago.
/// NYERERE ACT ///
The Tutsis are genuinely frightened. They cling
to power. They have power and they cling to it,
because they believe this is the safeguard.
This is an answer for their security? It is not
an answer. It is not an answer. This is the
fertilizer for the fear. You are fertilizing
that fear. You are not killing that fear at
all.
/// END ACT ///
Following Mr. Nyerere's death last year, Mr. Mandela
has pushed Burundian leaders to accept a draft peace
proposal as evidence of some good will, in a
negotiating process the former South African leader
says appears to be more about personal interest than
patriotism.
/// MANDELA ACT ONE ///
There is a view from people who have been very
close to this situation, that in Burundi you do
not have a patriotic leadership that thinks
about the nation as a whole. Political leaders
are thinking about their own individual
positions. This is what leads people, even the
donors, who say we are wasting our money, we are
dealing with a leadership which does not really
care for the people of Burundi who are being
slaughtered. The more you delay, the more
innocent people are going to die.
/// END ACT ///
/// BEGIN OPT ///
Donors applauded Mr. Mandela's tough language.
Burundi's peace process needed a push and Mr. Mandela
had the stature to push it. Now there is some concern
that his drive for an agreement has outdistanced the
will to implement that agreement on the ground.
Regional leaders are mindful of a 1994 power-sharing
agreement in neighboring Rwanda. That deal's collapse
led to genocide. Mr. Mandela knows a successful plan
must have relevance outside conference halls. He has
twice visited Burundi to make his case in person.
At the National Assembly earlier this year, Mr.
Mandela said reaching an agreement in Arusha is not
the end of talks, but the beginning of a new challenge
for the peace process.
/// MANDELA ACT TWO ///
The challenge is that we should not impose a
solution we have taken in Arusha on the Barundi.
The Barundi themselves must say to us, "We
endorse what you have done in Arusha." Only if
they do so will there be permanent peace in this
country.
/// END ACT ///
Assembly Speaker Leonce Ngendakumana told President
Mandela that Burundi's people are ready for peace, but
need better leadership from their politicians.
/// NGENDAKUMANA ACT IN FRENCH--ESTABLISH
& FADE ///
Mr. Ngendakumana says, "Each day that passes without a
cease-fire, without any step on the way to peace, each
time politicians say things which are not on the path
to peace, that burdens the people of Burundi." He
says it is deplorable that innocent people continue to
suffer and to die at a time when they are engaged in
inclusive negotiations.
/// END OPT ///
Speaking to negotiators earlier this year by
satellite, President Clinton told them to keep at the
hard work of bringing peace to Burundi. He said the
United States wants to use the Arusha talks as what he
called a "shining example" to other troubled countries
in Africa "that there is a way to walk away from war
toward a peaceful future."
In coming to see the talks for himself, President
Clinton gives a momentary boost to the attention paid
to ending Burundi's ethnic violence. Washington paid
one-million dollars last year to help finance these
talks. So far, the only example Burundi offers is of
mistrust. (SIGNED)
NEB/SS/WTW/JP
24-Aug-2000 13:34 PM LOC (24-Aug-2000 1734 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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