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Mandela's efforts to arrange Burundi cease-fire |
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September 21, 2000
NAIROBI (AP) - Efforts by mediator Nelson Mandela to get Burundi's warring parties to sign a cease-fire Wednesday appeared doomed, a negotiator involved in the talks said. The former South African President had summoned the rebel groups that had boycotted the Burundi peace process in hopes of finalizing a power-sharing agreement reached last month and of establishing a cease-fire to end the seven-year civil war in the tiny central African nation. Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya, three small hardline Tutsi political parties and the two main Hutu rebels groups attended the Wednesday meeting during which they only began to discuss a cease-fire, the negotiator told The Associated Press on condition his name not be used. But he said the Tutsi parties were expected to sign the power-sharing agreement they had refused to endorse at an Aug. 28 ceremony in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha where Buyoya's government, the Hutu parties and six of the 10 Tutsi parties did sign. Burundi's civil war began in 1993 when paratroopers from the Tutsi- dominated army assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu. More than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in attacks by the army and the rebels. Buyoya and the rebels have repeatedly made it clear that they are not yet prepared to sign a cease-fire. The principal problem, according to another person involved in the peace process, appears to be the "insistence by each belligerent for assurances that its group will lead the transitional government." "The groups were supposed to begin negotiations on Monday on cessation of hostilities and cease-fire, but they arrived here Tuesday night," the negotiator, who also asked not to be further identified, said. Because they have not, until now, been involved in the peace process, the rebels can't sign the Arusha agreement for technical reasons. But it had been hoped they would agree to the cease-fire. The talks, hosted by Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi and attended by his counterparts from Tanzania and Uganda, were expected to continue throughout the day. Mandela, who has been mediating the peace process since December, arrived in Nairobi Wednesday expressing optimism that the problems could be resolved. "I have always been very confident and have never shared the pessimism of the press," Mandela said. "Whatever problems we have we are solving, and I am confident that we will solve (any) problems arising today." While Hutus make up the majority of Burundi's 6.5 million inhabitants a Tutsi elite has controlled the government, military and most business interests since independence in 1962. Under the Aug. 28 power-sharing deal, the government, the army, seven Hutu political parties and six of the 10 Tutsi parties agreed to an ethnically balanced military and legislature as well as a transitional government until elections can be held in three years. But the two main rebel groups, the Forces for National Liberation and the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, boycotted the talks and no cease-fire was reached. Three of the four holdout Tutsi parties refused to sign without a cease-fire. A fourth signed later in South Africa.
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