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Refugees Magazine Issue 131: (Africa) – Burundi: Violence and upheaval since independence
But Burundi is again at a crossroads
It has been convulsed by violent conflict for 30 years. Though it is one of Africa's smallest countries, in the last decade alone around 150,000 civilians were killed and 1.5 million more uprooted in the landlocked state of Burundi. The world at large paid little attention.
And like the continent as a whole, Burundi is again at a crossroads. After years of patient diplomacy, first by Tanzania's late President Julius Nyerere and latterly by former South African President Nelson Mandela, the country in early May reached the mid-way point in the life of a three-year transitional national government.
To mark that occasion, President Pierre Buyoya, an ethnic Tutsi, handed over the office he seized in a coup in 1996 to his Vice President, Domitien Ndayizeye, an ethnic Hutu.
The two populations have competed for power virtually since national independence in 1962 and a peaceful transfer of power was a rare event. The future of the country and its six million population will now depend on the success of this latest attempt to forge a lasting peace.
Even during the transition, there have been mixed signals. Clashes between the Tutsi dominated army and two major Hutu rebel groups, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) and the National Liberation Forces continued in parts of the country.
LARGEST REFUGEE POPULATION
Burundians comprise the largest single refugee population in Africa. Some 570,000 civilians are officially recognized refugees, the great bulk of them living in neighbouring Tanzania, while there are several hundred thousand others who have lived abroad for several decades and are not officially counted.
In the bizarre climate of central Africa, even as negotiations and fighting continued side by side, so an estimated 40,000 Burundians returned to peaceful parts of the country while a similar number fled the ongoing fighting elsewhere to seek refuge in a neighbouring state.
"I feel deeply that I had to come home," Nduwimana, a 25-year-old mother of one child said, reflecting the optimism of the returnees looking forward to a more peaceful future. "I saw that other people from my area were coming home and I didn't want to miss the chance," she said after hitching a ride on a twice-weekly UNHCR convoy from Tanzania, organized to help anyone wanting to take a chance on peace.
The refugee agency has tried to bolster the long-term chances of a successful outcome by also building schools and health centres for both refugees and local communities, assisting the vulnerable and elderly and even helping to launch a ‘judicial clinic' that travels through northern Burundi trying to settle disputes between local residents and returning refugees.
At the presidential handover, UNHCR's senior regional official, Wairimu Karago said the move was "very welcome and raises hopes for a solution for the refugees. It may mean they can come back home and end many years spent outside of Burundi. I would like to see this saga come to an end." The country has been here before, however, and the future continues to hang in the balance.
Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 131: "Africa At A Crossroads" (June 2003). Download the complete issue in pdf format: low-resolution (730Kb) here or high-resolution (1.8Mb) here
