Shannon Ebrahim
The reality is we have failed to learn the lessons of history on our own continent. And it seems no one is listening. Burundi just keeps deteriorating but does anyone really care?
The African Union has left the political resolution of the conflict in Burundi up to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni who had this to say three weeks ago when asked about the progress of his mediation efforts: “I received a report on the progress of the dialogue. I hear the talks are not going well... I have not been following this closely. I think I will need to find out…”
In a neighbourhood that has known more genocide than any other region in the world, is this honestly what we call African solutions to African problems?
We have a president who is the finest mediator of African conflicts that this continent has ever seen. It is Jacob Zuma who as deputy president succeeded in brokering a peace resolution in Burundi in 2003 when 14 other international mediation efforts before him had failed.
He knows all the stakeholders in Burundi personally, having spent agonising weeks mediating between them through the night for weeks on end, and he is highly regarded by most of them.
We also have our current Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa who has earned his stripes in conflict resolution since 1994, mediating intractable conflicts around the globe from Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka to Lesotho and South Sudan.
We have more mediation skills between our country’s two top leaders than probably any other country in the world can boast of.
So why are we leaving Burundi’s fate in the hands of a leader who has already taken sides in this conflict, is not personally aware of the details of its mediation, and who himself believes there is no need for term limits in Uganda’s democracy, having himself been in power for 29 years?
Museveni has many laudable qualities, but conflict resolution is not one of them, and one of the first rules in conflict mediation is that the mediator of a conflict should be absolutely impartial. This is precisely what made Zuma and Ramaphosa so effective in the past.
What makes the situation even more complex is that Museveni is a known ally of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who is not only inflaming the conflict in Burundi, but preparing a force of Burundian armed opposition in camps in Rwanda that could stage an armed intervention in Burundi at any time.
Reports coming out of Rwanda that Kagame has been arming and training Burundi’s political opposition have been plentiful, but more recently human rights organisations claim they are increasingly credible.
According to a report recently published in the Washington Post by a former UN official Jeff Drumta, who worked for five months in the Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda, Rwandan officials have been carrying out conscription of Burundians from the Mahama refugee camp in South East Rwanda, presumably for the purpose of conducting an armed insurgency inside Burundi.
Drumta believes that an invasion of Burundi by a rebel army from Rwanda would transform Burundi’s current political violence into an ethnic bloodbath.
It is not unthinkable that the minority Tutsi regime in Rwanda would want to see regime change in Burundi and either a Tutsi or a more palatable regime installed.
This is what Burundi’s politicians have been claiming all along. The warnings have long been there that if Rwanda flexes its muscles in terms of Burundi, it will inflame the ethnic undertones that have long haunted this region. The calls for “gukora” from Burundi’s politicians would then have an unmistakably ethnic dimension.
Once the bloodletting starts, it will almost be impossible for any intervention force to stop it. If the AU waits until we get to that point it will likely be too late. The time to deploy is now – even if it means deploying an international police presence to patrol Burundi’s neighbourhoods. That way Burundi’s police force can back away from such duties which have been the catalyst for most of the violence in recent months.
It is true that an international police force would be easily overwhelmed if the conflict escalates, which is why it is imperative that the AU has a contingency plan in place for the immediate deployment of an AU rapid reaction force.
Ugandan General Wilson Mbadi, who is the Joint Chief of Staff of the Ugandan military, recently said on record that the AU has the capacity to deploy in the shortest time possible, but it is up to the political leaders at the AU to make this strategic decision.
This suggests that Africa does have the capability of solving its own problems.
Now it is time to work on finding a political solution.