Like all megalomaniacs throughout history, Pierre Nkurunziza appears completely unperturbed by the high cost to his people of his personal ambition, writes Peter Fabricius.
Johannesburg - “The announcement of the coup attempt in Burundi on Wednesday was one of those rare occasions where the temptation to join in celebrating the toppling of the constitutional order is very great,” columnist Murithi Mutiga wrote in Kenya’s Sunday Nation on Sunday.
That was honest. Military coups are not a good way of changing governments. But when governments cling to power at all costs, by fair means or foul, then a point may be reached where a coup becomes the lesser evil. Whether that point had been reached in Burundi last Thursday is perhaps debatable. But it was at least very close. President Pierre Nkurunziza had used violence, intimidation and manipulation to bend the constitution to enable him to run for what will clearly be an unconstitutional third term.
And so Major-General Godefroid Niyombare, whom Nkurunziza had fired as military chief in February when he warned about the danger of his third-term bid, tried to depose him when he was absent in Tanzania, ironically for a summit of the leaders of the East African Community (EAC), convened to try to resolve the growing crisis. But troops loyal to the president suppressed the coup attempt inside 24 hours.
Scores of people have already been killed and more than 100 000 have fled to neighbouring countries. Cholera has already killed several of the refugees in Tanzania. Yet, like all megalomaniacs throughout history, Nkurunziza appears completely unperturbed by the high cost to his people of his personal ambition.
On Sunday he addressed a press conference, but did not address the coup attempt explicitly at all, though he bizarrely suggested that Somali Islamist terror group al-Shabaab was somehow behind it.
Like the EAC leaders, the AU has duly condemned the coup attempt, but has also said that conditions did not exist in Burundi for free and fair elections and has called for them to be postponed.
Encouragingly, Nkurunziza’s spokesperson told journalists on Sunday that might be acceptable. But postpone to what effect? The only solution to the crisis is for Nkurunziza not to contest the presidential elections later this year, which he seems determined to do.
To his credit President Jacob Zuma – instrumental in brokering the deal that brought Burundi’s long and bloody civil war to an end – sent Minister Jeff Radebe to Burundi a week before the coup attempt to convey South Africa’s view that Nkurunziza should stand down or risk plunging his country into another war.
Nkurunziza clearly brushed Radebe off. Some analysts believe that the coup attempt has weakened Nkurunziza’s position. But some South African officials fear that the attempted coup might instead have strengthened his hand, because its failure has illustrated that he still has strong support.
Yet it is in the hands of South Africa and the regional governments to decide which of those interpretations prevails. They must make it very clear that his survival of the coup attempt is no recommendation. He has already damaged his country, killed many of his people and jeopardised the lives of many more by scaring them enough to flee their homeland. And more violence can be expected if he does not stand down.
The AU’s rules allow it to suspend Nkurunziza’s government for what is clearly an attempt to remain in power unconstitutionally.
That Burundi’s constitutional court has ruled otherwise is irrelevant since the court was quite obviously intimidated into making that ruling.
It would be unpalatable if Nkurunziza swanned into the AU summit to be held in Sandton next month unless he had first undertaken to retire before this year’s elections.
Independent Media Foreign Service