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Buyoya Says Burundi Headed in Right Direction on Power Sharing

(Former President tells Wilson Center peace process is progressing)
(400)
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Even without "a complete ceasefire," the peace process
in Burundi is on track and making progress toward real power sharing
between rival Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups, says former President
Pierre Buyoya.
Despite a holdout by two rebel movements, several other groups that
joined talks started in the mid-1990's are cooperating with the
government to implement the peace agreement signed in Arusha in August
2000, Buyoya told Africanists meeting at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars June 24.
Now, a reconciliation and security process is underway even as efforts
to even up Tutsi and Hutu representation in the military and
legislature are making progress, Buyoya said.
Buyoya, a former major in the Burundian Army, served as the country's
president in the 1980's. In 1996 he returned to power with the support
of the military to try to bring an end to the "terrible inter-communal
violence" wracking his nation, said Howard Wolpe, head of the Wilson
Center's Africa Program.
Wolpe, who served as President Clinton's special representative to the
Great Lakes region, noted that Buyoya, a Tutsi, "always included Hutus
in his cabinets." Now, the fact that he had "honored the Arusha
agreement" by agreeing to step down as president to hand power over to
his Hutu vice president was "a courageous and significant act" that
gave real impetus to the Hutu/Tutsi power-sharing negotiated in the
agreement, Wolpe told the gathering.
"Although the peace process has been long and difficult and there is
not yet a ceasefire, there is now a clear determination to end the
fighting," Buyoya said.
Interestingly, he pointed out that there has been a shift in the
internal conflicts. Where in the past "the conflict had been between
Hutus and Tutsis" fighting for power, now there is a kind of
internecine struggle where "you have people within the Hutu community
fighting for leadership within that community."
Despite that, Buyoya said, "Change has been smooth [and] no particular
tension" has arisen to throw negotiations off track. "We have had a
small shuffle of government to bring in some rebel groups that have
signed and committed to a ceasefire."
The challenge now, he told his Wilson Center audience, is "to convince
the other rebel groups to come on board."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)