Africa

BBC 16 May 2003 Africa plans joint defence force By Damian Zane Addis Ababa Africa's defence chiefs have agreed that by 2010 the continent should have a stand-by force that will intervene to prevent genocide. The force will act in conflicts such as that engulfing Ituri, in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo. An estimated 50,000 people have died there in fighting between the minority Hema ethnic group and the majority Lendu. The chairperson of the meeting, South African chief of staff General Simpiwe Nyanda, specifically said that was the kind of problem the future force could deal with. If the timetable is stuck to, the African Union will be ready to get involved in such crises within seven years. The force will fall under the AU's peace and security council which, when established, will be able to sanction intervention in places where genocide is suspected, without reference to the country involved. However, the military officials at the meeting recognised that there was a long way to go before such action was likely. Stand-by brigades The agreed plan envisages the establishment of regionally based stand-by brigades, where each country initially pledges soldiers and logistical support to the United Nations and later to African Union observer missions. It is hoped that from these brigades an AU peacekeeping force will be constituted, and thereafter an intervention force will be formed. AU officials stress that this does not constitute the establishment of an African defence force. The soldiers will remain under the command of their individual countries until such time as the continental body takes charge of a specific mission. They will eventually return to their countries when that mission is over. If all goes to plan, this will be the first step towards enabling Africa to avoid always having to rely on the international community to solve its problems.

AFP May 23 2003 Mbeki wants standby force prioritised An African peacekeeping unit would enable the continent to carry out future security initiatives PRETORIA SA President and African Union (AU) chairman Thabo Mbeki has urged member countries to give special priority to the establishment of an African standby force to allow the continent to solve its own conflicts. "Recent international events have confirmed the need for us Africans to do everything we can to rely on our own capacities to secure our continent's renaissance," Mbeki said at a special AU summit near Pretoria on Wednesday evening. Mbeki said getting the AU Peace and Security Council up and running should top the agenda at the meeting, which opened on Wednesday at the Sun City holiday resort and is due to end today. The foreign ministers of the AU's 53 member states who make up the executive council of the organisation are attending the summit. In December last year, foreign ministers from about 30 African countries opened talks in Libya on setting up a series of institutions as part of the AU. These bodies will, in an unspecified future, include a panAfrican court of justice, parliament and central bank, with the peace and security council modelled on the United Nations Security Council and empowered to send peacekeeping troops into countries where genocide is being committed. The AU was established last year, replacing the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), formed 40 years ago. "I trust that we will specifically consider the African standby force, which would be crucial to all future peace initiatives on the continent," Mbeki said. "As we know, the African standby force shall be established in order to enable the peace and security council to perform its responsibilities with respect to the deployment of peace support missions and intervention." The South African media have been calling for the speedy establishment of an African peacekeeping force backed by the UN. Mbeki said earlier this month that he would ask the UN to authorise UN troops deployed in the troubled Ituri region in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo to take tougher action to protect civilians caught up in bitter ethnic fighting. SA has been actively involved in the Congo peace process. It facilitated a historic deal between Congolese parties that went to war in 1998, which saw an agreement for an interim government of national unity signed in Pretoria in December. Renewed fighting, especially in Ituri, has slowed, but not stalled, the peace process. Mbeki said African wars were hampering progress of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), an economic and social upliftment programme aimed at encouraging sustainable growth for the continent. Nepad was drawn up by African leaders and promises stability, good governance and democracy in return for increased trade and aid from the developed world. Mbeki said the AU had been encouraged by the progress made in conflict-stricken countries such as Burundi, Congo , Ivory Coast, Sudan, Madagascar and Angola. "The progress that we have made in most of these countries demonstrates the fact clearly that, as Africans, we can and must continue to solve our own problems, relying in the main on our efforts, determination and resources, however meagre these resources may be."

Burundi

AFP 30 Apr 2003 NGO warns conditions in Burundi unsafe for civilians and aid workers PARIS, April 30 (AFP) - The charity Action against Hunger (ACF) warned Wednesday that violence in Burundi has created unstable and deteriorating conditions for both civilians and aid workers in Burundi. "Despite ceasefires signed by the different rebel groups and the transitional government, there paradoxically have been fresh outbreaks of violence causing the displacement of people, limited access for humanitarian aid and deteriorating security for civilians," the ACF press release said. The non-governmental organisation specifically referred to shelling last week in the eastern province of Ruyigi that caused damage to its camp, and compelled it to reduce activities and evacuate its expatriate aid workers. "NGOs are victims of an increasing number of thefts, ambushes and hold-ups," ACF said. In a separate announcement Tuesday, the French humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was forced to suspend its activities in the southern province of Makamba due to "repeated administrative constraints imposed by the Burundi government". Burundi has been ravaged since 1993 by a civil war between Hutu rebels and the predominantly Tutsi army that cost the lives of at least 300,000 people, most of them civilians. The country saw a landmark swap of presidency in its transitional government from Tutsi Pierre Buyoya to Hutu Domitien Ndayezeye on Wednesday, under the terms of a political power-sharing agreement struck in 2000.

AFP 1 May 2003 Six killed in rebel attacks hours before Burundi's power handover BUJUMBURA, May 1 (AFP) - Five civilians and a soldier were killed in attacks by Hutu rebels in Burundi, officials said Thursday, hours before a historic handover of power saw Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, cede the presidency to his Hutu deputy Domitien Ndayizeye, "The FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy) attacked a displaced persons' camp at Gahongore (35 kilometers / 20 miles north of Bujumbura) at around 1:00 am (2300 GMT) Wednesday," the governor of Bubanza province, Isaie Bigirimana, told AFP. "They killed five civilians, one soldier and injured six more civilians before pulling back, taking some stolen livestock with them," he said. The rebels' target was a power station in Gahongore, according to the governor, "but the army prevented them getting to it." Burundi has been rocked for 10 years by an ethnic civil war, pitting Hutu rebels against the Tutsi dominated army. The conflict has claimed 300,000 lives, according to the United Nations. In 2000, an accord aimed at ending the war, by providing for more equitable power-sharing between Hutus and Tutsis in the small central African country, was signed in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha. It provided for a three-year transition period during which authority is meant to be shared between the small but historically dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. Rebel movements did not sign the Arusha accord, and a ceasefire reached in December last year between Buyoya's government and three of the four Hutu rebel groups active in Burundi -- including the FDD -- has been violated repeatedly and is considered a dead letter. Hours after the attack in the west, Ndayizeye took the oath of office of president Wednesday, taking over the reins of power from Buyoya, who has led Burundi for the last 18 months. At the end of the new president's term, Burundi is due to hold elections. According to a military official, Brigadier General Sylvestre Nimubona, the FDD launched another attack in northern Burundi shortly before Ndayizeye was sworn in. They "fired six missiles at the hydro-electric power station of Rwegura, but there was no damage," he said.

BBC 2 May 2003 African media hail new Burundi era Burundi's new president took centre stage in the country's media as Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, stood down in favour of his Hutu deputy, Domitien Ndayizeye. There is a sense of a new beginning - even though continued rebel attacks during the same week are also widely reported. Papers in other African countries are generally encouraged by developments, seeing new hope for the whole continent. Burundi's ABP news agency highlights the symbolism of the ceremony in which the new president and his vice president were sworn in. It portrays them as "holding the national flag in their right hands", as their left hands "rest on the transitional constitution and charter for unity". Burundi is big enough for both Hutu and Tutsi to live in harmony and prosperity The Monitor Both leaders pledged to "fight for national unity... and against genocide and exclusion" with a commitment to "promote human rights", the agency says. Burundi's Nouvelle Vision weekly believes that Mr Ndayizeye is a "favourable" choice as the new president. But the paper also points to the "heavy responsibility on his shoulders", saying Mr Ndayizeye has inherited a country "clinically dead" and in a "deep abyss". It also worries over the possible corrupting influence of holding high political office. "Power is like alcohol," the paper says. "After the first drink, one is as happy as a lark. After the second glass one feels as though one could kill a lion. By the third drink, one becomes like a pig, only able to do foolish things," the paper cautions. African triumph Elsewhere, Uganda's Monitor commends Burundi's outgoing president Mr Buyoya for his "courage". The paper urges the rebels to "join hands" with the government so that the country can put an end to the "10 years of wanton destruction of lives and property". If the transition in Burundi goes according to plan, another African country will have passed a critical test of its future stability Standard "Burundi is big enough for both Hutu and Tutsi to live in harmony and prosperity," the paper says. Tanzania's Guardian is likewise upbeat, seeing a "ray of hope" which "heralds a new era of victory" for Burundi. "Victory is certain to Burundians, the African continent and to peace lovers the world over," the paper proclaims. Kenyan papers also see the transition as a potential victory for the entire continent. "If the transition in Burundi goes according to plan," the Standard says, "another African country will have passed a critical test of its future stability." "If Burundi wins, Africa wins and the continent will have learnt that there are more civilized ways of settling ethnic-inspired power disputes, than coups that leave the people and the country poorer," the paper adds. Note of caution Kenya's Daily Nation takes heart from the peaceful handover of power. A new era for Burundi? "Considering the bitter divisions in Burundi, a Tutsi general handing over power to a Hutu is something worth shouting about," the paper says. The paper says the Burundi process is just one example of how progress towards peace has been "mirrored" across Africa. The first steps towards a transitional government in the Democratic Republic of Congo and rebels in Angola "hanging up their guns" are two other examples the paper highlights. The South African Star, however, is less euphoric. While conceding the "significance on paper" of a new president, it warns that "few Burundians are celebrating". The paper stresses the ethnic divisions between Hutu and Tutsi, pointing to a recent attack in Bujumbura by the rebel Hutu Forces for Defence of Democracy. The paper urges African countries with "military clout" to work together to establish a "robust" peacekeeping force for Burundi. Describing Burundi's power-sharing agreement as a "fragile attempt" to bring peace, the paper fears that cooperation between the Hutu and Tutsi could break down and end in a "bloodbath". BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

Rueters 2 May 2003 Justice remains a dream in blood-soaked Burundi By William Maclean BUJUMBURA, May 2 (Reuters) - In a recent atrocity in Burundi's war, government troops shot, hacked and burned to death 173 Hutu men, women and children in two hill settlements. Five months later, in the only court case to result from the September 9 massacre in Itaba district, two officers who commanded the troops responsible were convicted of "not following orders" and jailed for four months. For human rights activists used to the casual brutality of Burundi's decade-old ethnic war, their conviction by a military court on February 20 was an advance for the concept of justice. "Most cases never even get to court. This was exceptional," said one of the activists, who declined to be identified. "The culture of impunity is very deep," said Eugene Nindorera, a former government minister of human rights. "Lots of crimes are committed in the full light of day, but such is the atmosphere of fear and retribution that no one denounces the perpetrators." Hutu rebels commit their share of rape and slaughter and regularly pillage civilians' farms and recruit their children, human rights groups say. While such atrocities continue it is fanciful to talk of peace, they say. "Not addressing justice and impunity here will prevent a durable peace," said Jan van Eck, a South African analyst. "On the other hand, we are going through a very fragile transition. The government feels very threatened by those who remain outside the process, and the potential for repressive actions will remain as long as the war continues." Fighting rages between the Tutsi-led army and the main Hutu rebel group despite the signing of a ceasefire in December, and another Hutu rebel group refuses to agree any truce at all. A framework for reconciliation brokered by former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2000 stipulated the creation of a war crimes inquiry, a tribunal for trying the worst offenders and an amnesty process. After 18 months of debate, parliament last month authorised the government to make an official request to the United Nations to set up those bodies and seek funding for them. But human rights activists say Burundi's international profile is so minuscule that international donors will never give sufficient funding to make the process work. MAGIC WAND "You'll need a magic wand," said Pie Ntakarutimana of Burundi's Ligue Iteka human rights group of the possibility of a robust judicial inquiry. Funding for an international tribunal along the lines of the U.N.-backed court that is probing Rwanda's 1994 genocide "is a dream. "You need to be realistic". Analysts say the need for justice and the political imperative to get leaders with blood on their hands to lay down their guns place contradictory pressures on the peace process. "There is an analysis that says an inquiry might simply stir up political instability. Many leaders in the country have some alleged link to crimes of war, but these are the very people involved in negotiating peace," said former human rights minister Nindorera. "And for the donor countries, the top priority is the ceasefire, not justice. They are after all politicians, not human rights activists." The peace process got a boost on Wednesday when Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, took over the presidency from Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, becoming the first Hutu president since Buyoya overthrow then Hutu President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya in 1996. The idea is that the powerful symbolism of the first Hutu president in seven years will send a clear message of change in a country historically dominated by minority Tutsis. But the impunity enjoyed by combatants on all sides makes most Burundians wary of seeing the move as anything other than a tiny, fragile step on the path to reconciliation. They recall that some of those responsible for the incident that sparked the war -- the assassination of then president Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, in October 1993 -- remain at liberty today, as do many Hutus who have massacred Tutsis.

The Age AU 2 May 2003 Mandela mediates to end African genocide May 2 2003 The transfer of power in Burundi raises hopes that the killing will stop, but Hutu rebels have different ideas. James Astill reports from Bujumbura. Within range of rebel guns, Nelson Mandela has presided over the inauguration of a new Burundian president - his latest effort to end an ethnically based civil war that has been threatening a second genocide in central Africa for almost a decade. In the ceremony, on Wednesday, the country's elite Tutsi minority handed over power to the Hutu majority. Mr Mandela praised President Pierre Buyoya for stepping down on schedule to cede power to his Hutu vice- president, Domitien Ndayizeye. "I swear to fight against genocide," Mr Ndayizeye vowed. Burundi is a mirror image of neighbouring Rwanda, where similar ethnic hatred between the Hutus and Tutsis in 1994 led to killings of more than 800,000. The toll in Burundi is estimated to be 200,000 deaths. advertisement advertisement Hutu rebels held fire from their positions in the hills above Bujumbura, the Burundi capital on Lake Tanganyika, during the presidential handover. But, with the Hutu rebels refusing to recognise Mr Ndayizeye as their champion, and fighting intensifying throughout the country, the prospects for peace appeared little improved. "This change is purely cosmetic," said Peter Nkurunziza, leader of the main rebel group, the Force for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), by phone from a fund-raising drive in Gabon. "How do you expect us to give up 10 years of effort for nothing?" In a brief and uncharacteristically sombre speech, Mr Mandela acknowledged that Wednesday's transition had not delivered peace. "We have not nearly reached the end of that road," he said. Mr Ndayizeye's accession to power follows the terms of a peace accord between Burundi's main Hutu and Tutsi political parties, brokered by Mr Mandela three years ago. Three of four Hutu rebel groups signed it, but not the FDD, which views Mr Ndayizeye, (even though he is Hutu), as the stooge of Burundi's Tutsi-dominated army. Two weeks ago, the FDD fired more than 100 rockets into Bujumbura, killing at least six civilians. Mr Nkurunziza warned that its next attacks would be "catastrophic". The African Union - the common arm of African nations - and South Africa in particular, had worked hard to turn Burundi into a showcase of how Africans can create peace among themselves. As part of the agreement, the African Union will station 3500 peacekeeping soldiers - from South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia - in Burundi. While Tutsis make up 15 per cent of the population and Hutus 85 per cent, Tutsis have traditionally dominated the government and army, stoking long-simmering resentment among the majority. Now, with the FDD effectively excluded from the peace process and rapidly rearming, some analysts warn that the danger of a genocide in Burundi is increasing. "If the rebels launch a total assault (the Tutsi elite) would be completely cut off from Rwanda and Tanzania," said a leading Western analyst, based in Bujumbura. "This is the plan, it is a genocidal agenda." Others disagree, countering that Burundi's army and the rebels are too closely matched, and the two tribes too internally divided to try exterminating each other. But no analyst disputes that unless the FDD can be brought into Mr Mandela's power-sharing plan, the inauguration will be meaningless. "Burundians see this transition as a time of fear, not a time of hope," said Alison Des Forges of Human Rights Watch. "Civilians still have no faith that they won't become the targets of unpredictable violence, either from the government or the rebels."

Reuters 4 May 2003 Burundi Abuses Continue By William Maclean Reuters Sunday, May 4, 2003; 8:37 AM BUJUMBURA, May 4 - Four Burundian rebels raped a woman so violently at a health centre in the African country that the woman, eight months pregnant, aborted the foetus. As the infant emerged, a rebel hacked off one of its legs. The July 12, 2002 atrocity at Butwe village was reported by the Ligue Iteka human rights group, which commented there would be no end to Burundi's civil war and the horrors it inflicts until its combatants sincerely worked for peace. That is the consensus on Burundi's decade of massacre, rape and pillage: it grinds on because ethnic extremists want to retain the military option, despite some progress in peace efforts and the arrival of African Union (AU) peacekeepers. For many reasons topped by mistrust between the political leaders of the Hutu and Tutsi communities, a December truce between the Tutsi-dominated government and Hutu rebels has been largely disregarded and so there is no peace for the AU to keep. "It's very delicate. There is still a mile to walk for peace," Mamadou Bah, political director of the 3,000-strong AU force, told Reuters. "The combatants have restarted hostilities. But that does not mean we stop preparations for our mission." The peace process got a boost on Wednesday when Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, took over the presidency from Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, under a reconciliation process brokered by former South African president Nelson Mandela in 2000. The idea is that the powerful symbolism of the first Hutu president in seven years will send a clear message of change in a country historically dominated by minority Tutsis. But whatever the success of the move -- and Ndayizeye is seen by rebels as a Hutu sell-out in a system of Tutsi supremacy -- the job of silencing the guns has so far been botched. Diplomats say the ceasefire was a rushed effort that made the mistake of leaving for later discussion of key issues such as how to demobilise and disarm the combatants. TROOPS ARRIVE LATE And the AU troops, meant to deploy within weeks to monitor any violations, arrived too late, diplomats say, starting to fly in only in April. They will be at full strength only in August. Their absence has helped undermine confidence in the truce and reinforced the position of hardliners in the Tutsi-led army and their foes in the Hutu rebel Forces for Defence of Democracy (FDD) group who want to impose a solution through force of arms. Within weeks rebels restarted shelling the capital Bujumbura and government troops resumed operations in the countryside. Army troops shot dead at least 30 and possibly up to 80 men, women and children at Mwegereza in Ruyigi province in late January, rights activists said. The army is investigating. South African analyst Jan van Eck says the solution is in effect to start again, by holding a regional summit where the combatants recommit themselves in public to the ceasefire. "We need to determine whether we have a ceasefire to keep, and then deploy the AU to see if anyone violates it," he said. The AU troops will also eventually have the job of creating cantonment areas where disarmed former army soldiers and rebels prepare for integration into a new national army. Later, the former foes will collaborate on building ethnic power-sharing, reforming the Tutsi-dominated army and civil service and prepare for free elections in 18 months' time. But that cannot happen without a ceasefire, a fact made repeatedly at Ndayizeye's inauguration by Mandela and other speakers, and by a choir that serenaded the audience as it prepared to witness him take the oath of office. "Oh God, change our hearts so that we can live together," it sang.

Bongiwe Mlangeni Johannesburg 'TO MAKE peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy." Nelson Mandela wrote these words within the context of the South African negotiation process. That motto guided Mandela's work as the mediator of the Burundi peace process, at times strengthening and at times threatening the negotiations. However, his commitment to bringing an all-inclusive deal to Burundi is slowly beginning to pay off. It has taken much patience from all sides and sceptics who proclaimed the process was doomed have had to eat their words. On Wednesday, Mandela witnessed the hand-over of power from Tutsi leader Pierre Buyoya to Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu. The handover occurred under the terms of a three-year power-sharing government inaugurated in 2001. Ndayizeye will rule until presidential elections are held at the end of this transitional phase. He is the fourth Hutu to lead the country since the assassination of President Malchior Ndadaye in 1993, a few months after his election by an overwhelming majority. Ndadaye's death shattered hopes for peace; the situation worsening when his successor, Cyprien Ntaryamira, also a Hutu, was killed in a plane crash, together with his Rwandan counterpart, sparking the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Observers say this week's handover was a miracle. There was a time when such a development was unimaginable because of the intricate nature of the Burundi conflict, the mistrust and animosity which characterised the negotiations, and the ongoing killing of civilians. The successes in Burundi so far are testimony to what Africans can achieve if they work together. South Africa's involvement in the two countries has gone beyond proving President Thabo Mbeki's assertion that the continent has to find its own solutions to its problems. It has also registered a shift from the old days when intervening parties were foreigners who used force to settle conflicts. Mandela brought his moral authority to the Burundi peace process, ensuring international support and involving the expertise of other Africans in his mediation, most notably Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who has been the chief facilitator and a key player in bringing on board the main rebel forces. The process was not without challenges, however. Burundi's political history cannot be viewed in isolation from the rest of the Great Lakes region, a centre of intense ethnic conflict. The divide between the Hutus and Tutsis has been manipulated ever since the Belgian colonial rulers formalised and entrenched that divide by proclaiming one group inferior to the other. Mandela understood that successful mediation depended on how well he understood the nature of the Burundi conflict. He was lucky to find a process that was built on sound principles. South African analyst Jan van Eck points out that Burundi was the only country in the region which had in place a peace process built on the principle of all-inclusiveness, even though inclusiveness was difficult to achieve in practice. The process was also headed by a prominent statesman, Tanzania's Mwalimu Nyerere, whose death left a void but also created an opportunity for a different approach. Madiba's magic was obvious from the beginning. His first meeting with Burundian parties took place in Arusha in January 2000. Van Eck points out how pleasantly surprised the delegates were by Mandela's entreaty that if they thought he did not understand certain facts correctly, they should discuss it further with him and provide him with more information. He also stunned the warring parties when he extended an invitation to excluded rebel movements to join the peace process. So far, only one of the major rebel groups has not signed the ceasefire agreement. The recent transfer of power from a Tutsi to a Hutu leader displayed a commitment to peace from Burundi's leaders. Buyoya's assertion that there would be no more coups from his side has been encouraging. Buyoya seized power in two coups: in 1987 when he ousted President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, recently released from house arrest; and in 1996 when he ousted Slyvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu. The challenge of leading Burundi to real peace is now in the hands of Ndayizeye. It is still true that too many civilians are dying , adding to the United Nations' figure of 300 000 dead and one million displaced since 1993. Rebel movements continue to exchange fire with the Tutsi-dominated army, raising doubts about how much control Ndayizeye will actually exercise. The continent's leaders, through the African Union, are going a long way to offer home-grown answers to local conflicts. Burundi, together with its neighbour Congo, will soon provide answers to the question of just how far Africans themselves can take the dream of a peaceful and stable continent.

Salt Lake Tribune 12 May 2003 Dyer: Burundi May Soon Bear Witness to Another African Genocide By Gwynne Dyer SYNDICATED COLUMNIST There may be another genocide coming in Africa, this time in Burundi, and the most frustrating thing about it is that you can't even pin the blame for it on some monster of wickedness. It's just the situation. Burundi got a new president recently. On April 30, Domitien Nzayizeye, a member of the Hutu majority, accepted the presidency from Pierre Buyoya, the Tutsi army officer who has ruled the country since 1996. Former South African president Nelson Mandela showed up in person to bless the transfer of power, and a 3,000-strong force is being sent by the African Union to keep the peace. But there is no peace to keep: Last month a hundred rockets rained down on the lakeside capital, Bujumbura, from the hills behind, and the massacres out in the villages continued at about the usual rate. Burundi has a past only slightly less bloody than its twin to the north, Rwanda, where 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority and Hutus thought to be friendly toward them were slaughtered by a Hutu-led extremist government in 1994. It has exactly the same population mix and, just as in Rwanda, the Belgian colonial authorities played a game of divide-and-rule, transforming the traditional patron-client relationship between the pastoral Tutsis and the Hutu farmers into a modern and far nastier system of ethnic privilege. Then they departed, leaving the 15 percent minority of Tutsis in charge of both countries. There were Hutu rebellions in both countries, but in Burundi the Tutsi, who have a stranglehold on the army, managed to hang onto power. In 1972 Tutsi extremists massacred up to 250,000 Hutus in an attempt to wipe out the entire educated Hutu elite in Burundi, and since then guerrilla war has been almost constant in the countryside. The Hutu are filled with mistrust and bitterness, which makes the Tutsi minority all the more reluctant to relinquish power, and even clever people with good intentions cannot break the vicious circle. Major Pierre Buyoya is such a person, and the coup he carried out in 1987 was meant to solve the problem. He actually gave the country multi-party democracy for a little while, and a Hutu, Melchior Ndadaye, was elected president in 1992. But the Hutu guerrillas never came in from the hills, the Tutsis never let go of the army -- and in 1993 Ndadaye was assassinated by a rebel group of Tutsi paratroopers. Buyoya managed to stabilize the situation, and another Hutu was elected president of Burundi -- but he was almost immediately killed in Rwanda, shot down together with the Rwandan president by a surface-to-air missile. The Rwandan regime blamed the downing of the presidential aircraft on Tutsi rebels and began the great genocide of 1994, but the missile was almost certainly fired by Hutu extremists in the Rwandan army precisely in order to provide a pretext for a massacre of the Tutsis in the country. Another Hutu, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, became president of Burundi in 1994, but the Hutu guerrillas out in the hills saw him as just a Tutsi puppet and escalated their attacks. The Tutsi-run army retaliated with counter-massacres of Hutu villagers, and by 1996 the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights was talking about a "genocide by attrition" in Burundi -- so Buyoya seized power again. He never fully got the army back under control (there were two coup attempts against him in 2001, and village massacres are still commonplace), but he is trying once again to hand over power to the majority. Buyoya understands that Burundi's future, and the safety of his own Tutsi people, can only be assured in the long run by a democratic system that grants the majority full rights. His problem with the Hutu presidents he boosted into office in the mid-90s was that he had to choose people moderate enough to escape a veto by the Tutsi army officers, who see themselves as the final bulwark against the kind of genocide that their fellow Tutsis suffered in Rwanda. Unfortunately, he has the same problem again with Nzayizeye. Pierre Nkurunziza, leader of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, the biggest Hutu rebel group, rejects Nzayizeye as a mere Tutsi puppet: "This change is purely cosmetic. How do you expect us to give up 10 years of effort for nothing?" The FDD is no longer observing the cease-fire that it signed last December, and insists that it will only suspend its attacks if the Tutsi-dominated army disarms. Given what happened to the Tutsis in Rwanda, that is not going to happen. Nobody is being unreasonable here. Buyoya is right to keep trying to hand over power to Hutus, and Nkurunziza is right to say that the change is cosmetic so long as the army remains Tutsi. Even the Tutsi army officers are just trying to protect their own people in a terrifying situation they did not create. The new African Union is meeting its first challenge well -- but it may all be in vain. Most rural people in Burundi live in perpetual fear and misery, and the FDD is rapidly re-arming. It may soon be a match for the army in both firepower and discipline. "If the rebels launch a total assault [the Tutsi elite] would be completely cut off from Rwanda and Tanzania," said a Western analyst based in Bujumbura. "This is the plan. It is a genocidal agenda." ----- Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

AFP 18 May 2003 Ethiopian advance party arrives in Burundi for peace mission An advance party from Ethiopia arrived here on Sunday to finalise preparations for an African peacekeeping force due to monitor peace accords aimed at ending the civil war, an AFP journalist reported. "The contigent of troops will come after. We will prepare and arrange everything for the coming troops so that they arrive in favorable conditions," the African Force's future second-in-command, General Tadese, said. More than 900 soldiers from South Africa have already been deployed in the country. The peacekeeping force will be made up of some 2,800 soldiers, including 1,600 South Africans, 980 Ethiopians and 290 Mozambicans. The remainder of the South African contingent is expected to arrive on August 5 while the troops from Mozambique and Ethiopia are due to arrive on May 22 and June 2 respectively. The African Force was mandated by the African Union to monitor a peace ceasefire signed last year between Burundi's government and three of the country's four Hutu rebel movements. "Now we are busy planning the details for encampments in five provinces", commander of the African Force, South African General Sipho Binda, explained. However the ceasefire signed in December between the government and Pierre Nkurunziza's Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) has been violated repeatedly with both sides accusing the other of breaking it. "We are calling him (Nkurunziza) to come on board. Our principal political masters are helping (us) to move forward," Sipho Binda said. More than 300,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in Burundi since the civil war erupted in 1993 with the assassination of the first democratically elected Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye.

IRIN 20 May 2003 UN envoy decries "gross violations" of human rights BUJUMBURA, 20 May (IRIN) - The UN Special Rapporteur of Human Rights in Burundi, Marie-Thérese Bocoum, who on Monday completed a weeklong visit to the country, has decried the "gross violations" of human rights in Burundi. "With the war [between rebels and government forces] continuing in Burundi, I don't see how we can talk about the improvement of the human rights situation, human rights violations are committed daily," she said. Speaking at the end of her visit, she said Burundian women and girls were increasingly victims of sexual violations and rights to health care and education were not respected. A majority of the population lived in abject poverty, she said. "That is why I call upon all the warring parties to deploy all possible strategies to stop war, otherwise all efforts already made will be in vain, and this will discourage the Burundian population," she added. During her visit, Bocoum held talks with government officials, representatives of human rights organisations, civil society and political parties.

AFP 25 May 2003 African Union force to launch rebel demobilisation program BUJUMBURA, May 25 (AFP) - African Union (AU) peacekeepers in the war-ravaged central African state of Burundi will set up the first demobilisation camp for rebel fighters in June, an AU statement on Sunday. The camp will be opened up in northwest Burundi even as fighting rages on between the Tutsi-dominated army and the main Hutu rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), in violation of a December ceasefire. "The first demobilisation camp will be set up in Muange in June 2003 and will be supervised by South Africa," the AU statement said. The African Force (AF) has been mandated by the African Union to monitor a ceasefire signed last year between the government and three of the country's four Hutu rebel movements, aimed at ending the 10-year civil war. More than 900 South African soldiers have been deployed in Burundi, the first of a 2,800-strong force that will include troops from Ethiopia and Mozambique. The AF has been tasked with overseeing the demobilisation of rebel fighters and their integration into Burundi's armed forces. The operation will begin by targeting two minor Hutu rebel groups, who agreed to the ceasefire. "We cannot give a precise date for the start of the demobilisation operation, but we will be ready by June to receive rebel fighters who wish to integrate these zones," said an AF officer, who did not wish to be identified. "Nobody will be forced to come into these zones, we will be open and ready to welcome the fighters who come to us," he said. More than 300,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in Burundi since the civil war erupted in 1993 with the assassination of the first democratically elected Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye.

IRIN 26 May 2003 African peace mission commanders in place BUJUMBURA, 26 May (IRIN) - The high command of the African peace mission in Burundi is now complete, with the arrival in the capital, Bujumbura, on Monday of 11 officers from Mozambique. They join officers from Ethiopia and South Africa already in Burundi. "The army staff of the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB) is now complete, with the arrival of the 11 Mozambican officers. Sixteen officers from Ethiopia - among them the deputy commander of AMIB - have been in Bujumbura since 11 May. South Africans - including the force commander - have been in place since March, so the process of deploying all peacekeeping troops is moving forward," Maj Botha, a spokesman of the South African Protection Support Detachment, told reporters in Bujumbura. "We hope all remaining troops will be in Bujumbura in the early days of June," he added. The entire force will ultimately comprise 2,870 troops: 1,600 South Africans, 290 Mozambicans and 980 Ethiopians. They will help demobilise, disarm and reintegrate combatants of three Hutu rebel groups fighting against the Tutsi-led army as part of the ceasefire agreements signed by three rebel movements and the government in October and December last year. Combatants of two minor rebel groups - the Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD) faction led by Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, and the Forces nationales de liberation faction of Alain Mugabarabona - have declared themselves ready to be cantoned. Three cantonment areas are currently being established respectively in eastern, central and northwestern Burundi. An AMIB press release on Sunday said the first cantonment area to be deployed will be at Muyange in the northwestern province of Bubanza, by June 2003, and will be manned by South Africans. The Mozambican deployment in the first cantonment area is planned for later in June. No agreement about cantonment has been reached between the main Hutu FDD rebel faction, led by Pierre Nkurunziza, and the government.

IRIN 26 May 2003 Rights groups urge respect for ceasefire NAIROBI, 26 May (IRIN) - Local and international human rights campaigners on Sunday denounced violence which they said was "blindly directed at the civilian population" in Burundi, and urged the army and rebels to respect a ceasefire agreement reached on 2 December 2002. A statement issued in Paris by the Federation internationale des droits de l'homme (FIDH), and its member organisation Ligue Burundaise des droits de l'homme (Iteka), condemned violations of the ceasefire which were "mortgaging the settlement of the Burundian conflict". According to the statement, there was fierce fighting in April in several provinces, notably Bujumbura Rural, Muramvya, Gitega, Ruyigi, Kayanza and in Bujumbura city. It said that a FIDH mission which visited Bujumbura from 15-20 April found "yet again a climate of fear and insecurity prevailing in the Burundian capital". The human rights campaigners called on the transitional government to pursue dialogue with rebels so that progress made in the peace process was not wiped out. Meanwhile, Burundian news agency, Netpress, on Friday quoted President Domitien Ndayizeye as saying that rebel groups which did not sign up to the peace process would be "very aggressively fought". Ndayizeye, a Hutu, took over as president on 30 April from Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, in accordance with the terms of a peace agreement to end the country's civil war. News agencies on Friday quoted the leader of the main rebel group, Conseil national pour defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Pierre Nkurunziza, as saying the group would do its best to ensure implementation of the ceasefire agreement, but it reserved the right of "self-defense".

AFP 26 May 2003 Burundi rebels threaten to attack African peacekeepers BUJUMBURA, May 26 (AFP) - The main rebel group in the central African state of Burundi threatened Monday to attack an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force deployed there, accusing it of siding militarily with government forces. Also Monday, the command headquarters of the force were fully established. "Since Sunday, South African soldiers of the African Force have been heading towards the interior with army troops," said Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, spokesman for the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD). "The African Force is coming with cannons together with the army it came to support and if these elements of the force enter our areas it will be a simple act of agression... an act of war and we will respond," he added. Some 900 South African soldiers mandated by the AU to supervise peace accords signed with some of Burundi's rebel groups are deployed in the country. "The African Force is neutral," insisted Mamadou Bah, the AU representative in Burundi. "It is not working with the army and we are preparing cantonment sites," he said. Among the force's jobs is to help in the process of regrouping, disarming, demoblising and reintegrating rebel fighters. "We beg them not to attack us, because the work we are doing is not hostile against any party," said Bah. Meanwhile, the command centre of the force was fully established Monday, according to its South African spokesman, who identified himself only as Major Botha. "The headquarters of the African Mission in Burundi is today complete with 11 Mozambican officers having just arrived," he said. "Sixteen Ethiopians, including the second-in-command, Brigadier Geberat Ayale, have been in Burundi since May 11, and the South Africans, including the force commander, General Sipho Bindo, have been here since March," he added. Some 300,000 people have been killed since 1993 in Burundi's civil war, which pits a Tutsi-dominated army against various rebel groups, some of which have signed ceasefires with the government.

AFP 28 May 2003 Fifty thousand civilians flee Burundi fighting BUJUMBURA, May 28 (AFP) - An estimated 50,000 civilians have fled new fighting between rebels and the army of Burundi near to the capital of the small central African state, local officials said. The new exodus, from an area in the Kabezi region, began on Sunday when the army began an offensive against rebels of the National Liberation Forces, a group made up mainly of people from the majority Hutu ethnic group. "Some 50,000 people, or around 70 percent of the population, have fled from the hill country in the Kabezi district since the army began operations against the FNL," said Felicien Ntahombaye, a local official. He said the exodus had mainly centred on the regions of Masama, Gitenga, Kiremba and Mwanza. Firing could be heard from the hills of the region until mid-morning on Tuesday. Eyewitnesses said the army offensive came after FNL rebels carried out a mortar attack on Kabezi village last Friday. Ntahombaye said the FNL had fired three mortars into the village. "They seriously injured a civilian, and then the army came to flush them out," he said. Both the army and the FNL confirmed the clashes, but neither mentioned casualties. Ntahombaye said he hoped that the people who had fled would be able to return to their homes by the weekend. The FNL is the only one of the four main rebel groups fighting the government in Burundi which has refused to sign a peace agreement. The civil war in Burundi, one of the world's most densely populated countries, has killed an estimated 300,000 people since it began in 1993. The war is mainly linked to a long-standing conflict between the two main ethnic groups in the country, the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis.

IRIN 29 May 2003 More than 15,000 civilians flee fighting in west NAIROBI, 29 May (IRIN) - Between 15,000 and 20,000 civilians have fled continuing fighting that erupted last week between the army and rebels of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) faction of Alain Mugabarabona in Kabezi Commune, about 20 km south of capital, Bujumbura, in western Burundi. Radio Publique Africaine reported on Tuesday that the displaced people were from the regions of Mwaza, Gitenga, Mubone and Kiremba. Some of them had found refuge in Mutumba, others in Karinzi in Mutambu Commune and in Rusiba in the Rusiba zone. Kabezi Communal Administrator Felicien Ntahombaye said he deplored the persistence of insecurity in his commune and called on humanitarian agencies to help the displaced, who had nothing to eat and nowhere to take shelter, the Burundi human rights NGO, Ligue Iteka, reported on Wednesday.

IRIN 30 May 2003 Burundi: Chronology of political and security situation in 2003 NAIROBI, 30 May (IRIN) 14 Jan - Burundi ceasefire talks facilitator, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, says in Addis Ababa that Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa agree to supply troops to support the ceasefire in Burundi until a UN peacekeeping force could be deployed. 17 Jan - South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma meets Pierre Nkurunziza, the leader of the larger Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Force pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) faction. They discuss the implementation of ceasefire agreements. 21 Jan - Zuma meets with Alain Mugabarabona, leader of the Parti leader of the Parti de liberation du peuple hutu-Forces nationales de liberation and Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, the leader of another CNDD-FDD faction, to discuss the implementation of ceasefire agreements. 25-26 Jan - Zuma facilitates meetings in Pretoria, South Africa, between Burundian President Pierre Buyoya and three rebel leaders: Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, Alain Mugabarabona, and Pierre Nkurunziza. The meetings cover issues such as the return of former fighters and leaders to Burundi; the participation of the former armed movements in the transitional institutions of the state and parliament; and issues relating to disarmament, demobilization, and the building of a new inclusive security apparatus in the country. 26 Jan - Buyoya signs a memorandum of understanding with Ndayikengurukiye and Mugabarabona, which will see the two exiled leaders return to the Burundi capital, Bujumbura, on 10 February. 27 Jan - President Buyoya and the leader of the largest wing of the CNDD-FDD, Pierre Nkurunziza, sign a memorandum of understanding in Pretoria, capital of South Africa, paving the way for the implementation of a ceasefire accord they reached in Arusha, Tanzania, on 2 December 2002. 30 Jan - A weeklong meeting of the defence and security technical commission of the transitional government of Burundi and Jean-Pierre Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD faction in Dar es Salaam begins. 4 Feb - Burundi's interior and public security minister, Salvator Ntihabose, announces a 60-day extension of the house arrest of former President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, who has been under house arrest in Bujumbura since 4 November 2002. 13 Feb - Following years of exile, Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurikiye, leader of a faction CNDD-FDD rebel group, and Alain Mugabarabona, leader of a faction of the Parti pour la liberation du peuple hutu-Forces nationales de liberation (Palipehutu-FNL) rebel group, return to Burundi to take part in the implementation of the ceasefire accord signed with the government in October 2002. 14 Feb - The EC announces in Brussels will this year provide about two million Burundians a €15-million (US $16.1 million) aid package, the commission's Humanitarian Aid Office. 24 Feb - The suspension of ceasefire talks between Burundi's transitional government and the main Hutu rebel group, CNDD-FDD is an "acutely negative" development that might lead to a "serious deadlock", Jan van Eck, a conflict analyst form the University of Pretoria, says. 25 Feb - The Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) faction led by Pierre Nkurunziza warns that it will not be responsible for the security of observers sent by the African Union to monitor a ceasefire in the country. 2 Mar - Burundi's transitional government and the main rebel movement, Pierre Nkurunziza's faction of the CNDD-FDD recommit themselves to implementing past agreements to end nearly 10 years of civil war. The commitment is made in a joint communiqué signed at the end of a two-day regional summit on Burundi in the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam. 4 Mar - The EC donates €1.23 million (US $1.34 million) towards the establishment of an African Union Ceasefire Observer Mission in Burundi that will monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreements signed at the end of 2002 between the transitional government and all but one rebel faction. 9 Mar - Rebels of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) loyal to Agathon Rwasa attack Rukaramu, an area 10 km northwest of the capital, Bujumbura, displacing 3,000 people. 12 Mar - Eight Gabonese soldiers arrive in the capital, Bujumbura, bringing to 43 the number of the African Union's ceasefire monitors in Burundi. Their arrival brings the force to its full complement. 19 Mar - Thousands of people from Ruyigi commune surviving in critical conditions, sleeping rough in order to escape repeated attacks by Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD) rebels. 26 Mar - The African Union (AU) and the government of Burundi sign an agreement on the statutes for the AU peacekeeping force due for deployed to Burundi. 27 Mar - Ministry of Defence Serge Nizigiyimana says 68 rebels loyal to Pierre Nkurunziza and four government soldiers died during three days of intense fighting in the west-central province of Muramvya, around the Kavumu and Musenyi hills. 1 Apr - Defence ministers of Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa announce that their countries would send 3,500 peacekeeping troops to Burundi, under the aegis of the African Union. 2 Apr - The African Union (AU) outlines the mandate of its 3,500-strong peacekeeping force, due to be deployed in Burundi within 60 days. 3 Apr - A radio station in Burundi, African Public Radio, reports that around 440 civilians have been killed in fighting in the eastern province of Ruyigi since January. 4 Apr - Jean Baptiste Bagaza, the leader of the suspended Tutsi opposition Parti pour le redressement national (PARENA), is released from house arrest. Bagaza, a former president of Burundi, was placed under house arrest in November 2002 for allegedly plotting to kill President Buyoya. 10 Apr - Thousands of people flee Kanyosha Commune, southeast of the capital, Bujumbura, following heavy fighting between government forces and fighters loyal to rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza. 15 Apr - Legislators vote 99-3 in favour of a bill repressing genocide and other crimes of war. There were 26 abstentions. 22 Apr - Alphonse Marie Kadege of the Uprona political party is nominated as the candidate for the vice-presidency in the second transitional phase in Burundi due to begin on 1 May. 25 Apr - The Burundian National Assembly and Senate confirm Alphonse Marie Kadege of the Uprona political party as the country's next vice-president. 25 Apr - The UN Children's Fund distributes non-food items to more than 500 Burundian families who were displaced when rebels shelled Kanyosha Commune, Bujumbura Rural Province. 30 Apr - Domitien Ndayizeye is inaugurated president of Burundi, to lead the second half of a three-year transitional power sharing government designed to end 10 years of civil war. 30 Apr - The African Union's ambassador to Burundi, Mamadou Bah, is appointed head of the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB), South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma announces. 5 May - Army launches offensives against FDD rebels in central and northern parts of the country. 5 May - A week after the transfer of the presidency from a Tutsi to a Hutu, the first wave of Burundian refugees arrives in Burundi, aid agencies say. 5 May - New President Domitien Ndayizeye reshuffles his cabinet, retaining all the ministers who served under former President Buyoya and naming three new faces from three pro-Hutu rebel groups. 7 May - The government lifts a six-month-old ban on the Parti pour le redressement national (Parena) led by a former state president, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza. 15 May - Humanitarian workers say that ore than 12,000 people have fled Bubanza Province, northwestern Burundi, since 5 May when the army launched an offensive against Forces pour la defence de la democratie (FDD) rebels. 18 May - The deputy commander of the African peacekeeping mission in Burundi, Brig-Gen Geberat Ayele of Ethiopia, arrives in Bujumbura, together with 15 officers, to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the Ethiopian contingent expected to take part in the mission. 26 May - The high command of the African peace mission in Burundi is complete, with the arrival in the capital, Bujumbura, of 11 officers from Mozambique. They join officers from Ethiopia and South Africa already in Burundi. 27 May - The UN Security Council says it will send a mission to Burundi 7-16 June to urge all parties in the country to "continue pressing for peace. 27 May - A local radio station reports that between 15,000 and 20,000 civilians have fled fighting that erupted on 22 May between the army and rebels of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) faction of Alain Mugabarabona in Kabezi Commune, about 20 km south of capital, Bujumbura. 27 May - President Ndayizeye holds his first meeting with military commanding officers to discuss harmonisation in the running of the country during the second phase of the transition period.

IRIN 30 May 2003 Halfway through transitional period, peace remains elusive BUJUMBURA, 30 May (IRIN) - The second of two 18-month transitional periods has just begun in Burundi. In a long awaited ceremony, witnessed by leaders and dignitaries from all over Africa, presidential powers were transferred from a Tutsi to a Hutu. The questions are: How much was achieved in the first 18 months? And what is the new president, Domitien Ndayizeye, expected to achieve in his 18 months in power? So far, the most crucial elements of Burundi's peace process - ceasefire agreements signed between the government and armed rebel groups - remain unimplemented on the ground. Commentators noted with optimism that the transfer of power was a real step forward, and a sign that promises were beginning to be kept in the Burundian context. The 30 April handover marked the mid-point of the implementation of the Arusha Accord that was signed in 2000, the country's roadmap to peace that was facilitated by former South African president, Nelson Mandela. The date was also symbolic as, for the first time since the 1993 assassination of Burundi's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye - the event that sparked the decade long civil war - a member of the Hutu majority was ruling Burundi. However, other commentators complained that 30 April merely marked a superficial alteration and little would change for most Burundians, as the political process was moving far faster than the reality on the ground. During Pierre Buyoya's 18-month tenure as president of the transitional government, peace continued to elude Burundi, and the war between the Hutu rebel factions and the government forces intensified. Agathon Rwasa's Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) is yet to enter into ceasefire negotiations with the transitional government, and a 3 December 2002 ceasefire signed between Pierre Nkurunziza's Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) and the government has not held. Amid the continued fighting, civilians continued to suffer at the hands of all the parties involved in the conflict; social infrastructure collapsed, humanitarian agencies struggled to deliver relief and, Burundians said, the country had never been poorer. Little change with political transition Aside from changes at the head, the transfer brought little structural change to the political scene in Burundi. President Ndayizeye made only minor changes to the cabinet that had served under Buyoya, introducing three new ministers from pro-Hutu rebel groups to take part in the next stage of the transitional process. These new additions to the cabinet were Gaspard Kobako, a senior member of the CNDD-FDD faction led by Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, who was appointed minister for public works and equipment; Cyrille Hicintuka, from the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL-PALIPEHUTU) faction led by Alain Mugabarabona, minister for civil service; and Rodolphe Baranyizigiye, from the Front pour la liberation nationale (FROLINA) rebel group led by Joseph Karumba, who was appointed minister for youth, sports and culture. This left Agathon Rwasa's FNL and Pierre Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD still outside the framework of the transitional government for Ndayizeye's 18-month term. FNL still seems a long way from joining the peace process, but in an effort to iron out issues not finalised in the 3 December ceasefire agreement negotiations with Nkurunziza have continued. Reasons for continued fighting However, following the FDD's bombardment of Bujumbura in the lead-up to the 30 April handover, and the subsequent successful transfer of power, pressure mounted on CNDD-FDD to clarify its political position. Many analysts saw the continuation of the war, despite the December ceasefire, as a result of wrangling for positions in the transitional government. "The problem that remains is political," a regional analyst who requested anonymity told IRIN. "CNDD-FDD is not prepared to integrate into the existing political framework. They want a new constitution so they can start again from a new agreement." The analyst added, "They are going for very high positions - maybe even the vice-presidency." There was some concern over the 28 March agreement, signed between Buyoya and Ndayizeye to confirm the transfer of presidency, which some observers said left Ndayizeye with his hands tied and saw him devolve the main thrust of negotiating with the rebels to his vice-president, on the grounds that it would be easier for a Tutsi to negotiate with Hutu rebels. However, in the brief period since he has been in office, Ndayizeye himself has taken the lead and actively rekindled negotiations, travelling regionally and repeatedly telling the CNDD-FDD that the door is open for them to participate in national institutions. But Nkurunziza has made it clear that, unlike Ndayikengurukiye's CNDD-FDD faction and Mugarabona's FNL, his group is not prepared to enter into the transitional government just yet. Nkurunziza argues that the lack of implementation of the 3 December ceasefire agreement, and the need to renegotiate the make-up of the transitional government, makes his group's entry into government institutions impossible. "This accord was signed between two belligerents who are the transitional government and the CNDD-FDD movement and these two belligerents have to be treated equally," Nkurunziza told IRIN recently. "If arrangements must be made in the composition of the transitional government, they should be negotiated," he said. "It is out of the question that we adhere to the transitional government. The issue here is to negotiate together the composition of a responsible transitional government," he added. In the weeks following the change of president, it emerged that another regional summit would be called, most probably in the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, and the CNDD-FDD would get the negotiations they wanted. Pressure has also mounted on Rwasa's FNL, the only remaining pro-Hutu movement yet to sign a ceasefire with the government, to at least enter into negotiations with the government. In a statement issued on 30 April, the UN Security Council warned the FNL that sympathy for the movement was scarce. "The FNL's unwillingness to date to seek a peaceful resolution of this conflict makes it difficult for the international community to accept the legitimacy of its concerns," it said. The government's position was somewhat stronger, and in the 28 March agreement, Ndayizeye vowed to sideline FNL and impose sanctions "if the group continued its policy of violence". However, Ndayizeye neither specified the sanctions nor how he intended to go about them. This is a threat that has been used before, albeit without success, but the consensus was that if Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD joined the process, Rwasa would be left with little room for manoeuvre and would also be forced to sign up. However, according to FNL spokesman Pasteur Habonimana, because they were not signatories to the Arusha accord, they were not part of the peace process; therefore, negotiations with a Hutu president "are impossible" and the only possible course for dialogue would be in the ethnic context, with a Tutsi. "We will talk with the vice-president, but only if he comes as a Tutsi and not as the vice-president," Habonimana said. While believing that the change of presidents had been symbolic, many Burundians said that, as political wrangling continued and deals were made and broken daily, they continued to feel increasingly separated from those in charge. Jan van Eck, an analyst who follows the Burundi process closely, agreed. "There is a disconnection between the population and the peace process," he said. "The process is like a train that is trying to meet all the deadlines. The locomotive is moving on, regardless of the situation on the ground, and other elements are being left behind." Other critics argued that while South Africa was breathing life into the process, some aspects of its approach were not suitable to the Burundian context. They said that South Africa "oversimplified" the Burundian problem, and was trying to address it in the same way that it addressed apartheid. Meanwhile, politicians within the government said that there had been significant collaboration between Tutsis and Hutus, and that progress had been made in changing the political mindset on ethnicity. They also felt that the strategy adopted by the ruling party, the Front pour la democratie au Burundi (FRODEBU), to join the transitional government - within the framework of the Arusha accord - was realistic and sustainable, whereas the rebels who have remained in the hills would soon be a spent force. "If the rebellion doesn't come to the table, it will be crushed," a FRODEBU member said. "If this change really brings even more progress, then the rebellion will have lost its raison d'etre." However, sceptics suggested that the political class, whether Tutsi or Hutu, was in collusion and the change in mindset would only accentuate the difference between those within and those outside the process. "Now they [Hutu politicians] have had a taste of power, they are protecting each other, Eugene Nindorera, a former Burundian minister for human rights, told IRIN. "There are so many divisions, that it can't merely be put down to the simple Tutsi-Hutu split. It is a war of a different nature." Nindorera said that Burundians were waiting for a leader who would deliver peace and govern according to the wishes of the people, rather than for personal interests. "We will judge the change on what he [Ndayizeye] delivers. If he brings peace and kicks the bad people out - whether Hutu or Tutsi - people will understand and respect him for it," he said. "However, the reality is that there is a lack of confidence between the parties. This is not only within the context of the ceasefire negotiations, but also within the government itself." In his speech at the inauguration, Mandela put the burden of change on Burundi's political class, urging them to put the good of Burundians before their own personal interests - something many Burundians outside the process agreed had not been done. Humanitarian situation deteriorates Despite the change in president, fighting has continued in parts of the country. There is little doubt that though a few may have benefited, the large majority of civilians continue to suffer, and providing humanitarian assistance remains difficult for the agencies involved. Most humanitarian agencies agree that their main problems are the lack of security on the ground and lack of government clearance to access war-affected populations, and, frequently, a combination of the two. "The political changes that are taking place are positive steps, but at the end of the day, security on the ground and access to people are our main concerns," Antoine Gerard, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Burundi, told IRIN. "We want to see these steps translated into tangible benefits for the population, otherwise we run the risk of there being two tracks of development - while the political process continues, the population continues to suffer," he said. Poverty increases In a country that was already extremely poor before the war, the humanitarian situation in Burundi has declined drastically over the last decade during what aid workers called "the silent emergency". By 2001, the Human Development Index for Burundi had dropped to the third worst in the world, reflecting the accumulating impact of the collapse of indicators such as vaccination coverage, which, according to OCHA, declined from 83 percent in 1993 to 54 percent in 2001. Primary school attendance, which declined from 70 percent in 1993 to 48 percent in 2001, served as another indicator of Burundi's decline. "Burundi is on its knees," Cyrille Barancira, an official at the Banque Commercial du Burundi, said. "If this war doesn't end now and the international community doesn't come in, this country could simply implode." Aid workers, who often complained about the lack of political will on all sides to bring about a lasting solution to the problem, said that the only thing that would change the lives of Burundians for the better was lasting peace. According to Action Contre la Faim, an organisation overseeing emergency food distribution and nutrition programmes in Burundi, there have been fewer beneficiaries recently despite the large numbers of internal displacements. However, the organisation was looking to see whether rain in May would be sufficient to ensure that the June harvest eases food security concerns. During the decade of war, basic health care deteriorated so drastically that, according to a recent report issued by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an NGO that works in the health sector, disability in Burundi is often the result of the lack of primary health care and the subsequent non-treatment of minor problems rather than a result of war injuries. Civilians bear the brunt of human rights violations Furthermore, civilians are increasingly on the receiving end of wide-scale human rights violations as a result of what many see as the "paralysis of the justice system". In a recent statement, the UN Security Council welcomed the approval of legislation on genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and "looked forward to their implementation". But many Burundians felt that, in reality, this was a distant dream. "These laws are being introduced, but how, in the situation that the country is in, are we really going to impose these laws?" Nindorera, the former minister for human rights, said. "They give the impression of moving forward without addressing the real problem, which is the need for peace." In early May, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Burundi, Marie-Therese Bocoum, completed a trip around the country and echoed Nindorera's concerns. "With the war [between rebels and government forces] continuing in Burundi, I don't see how we can talk about the improvement of the human rights situation, human rights violations are committed daily," she said. Some observers have said the answer lies in an international tribunal similar to the Arusha-based tribunal for the Rwandan genocide. Others have called for increased references to the Geneva Conventions in the ceasefire agreements signed, so that all sides become more aware of the violations that they commit. Some Burundians are even hoping that the African Union (AU) force in Burundi would impose peace on their country. But many observers agree that, over the next 18 months, Ndayizeye's ability to bring a lasting ceasefire would be the only way to begin resolving Burundi's humanitarian problems. Military concerns The humanitarian situation in Burundi has remained precarious because, despite a brief lull in hostilities immediately after the signing of the ceasefire in December, both sides have largely ignored the agreement. Soon after the formalities of the change in president were over, there was yet more fighting. On 5 May, the army launched heavy offensives against the FDD rebels in central and northern Burundi, leaving more than 100 dead. The rebels said that civilians were the victims, but the army said that it had killed rebels that had tried to occupy areas in Bubanza and Mwaro provinces. Meanwhile, the new president suggested that the army's attacks were in response to the bombing of Bujumbura by the FDD during the lead-up to the 30 April power transfer. Whatever the explanation, it was clear that a change in president was not going to bring an immediate end to the war. Some claimed that this was proof of Tutsi Vice-President Alphonse Marie Kadege's hardline stance towards the rebellion, after he warned the rebels during his inaugural speech "as they have become militant, the government is willing to fight them, so they are forced to accept what they should have done willingly". However, Ndayizeye considered an all-out war "unlikely" and observers said that both sides knew that an absolute military resolution of the conflict was impossible, as neither has the ability to ultimately defeat the other. The hostilities, they argued, were more an attempt by the government to assert its position before the pending talks with the rebels. The African peace force As the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB) deployed by the African Union (AU) arrive in greater numbers on the ground, speculation mounts over the role that they would play. According to Maj-Gen Sipho Binda of South Africa, the commander of the AMIB force, the AU troops have a clear mandate "to assist with the safeguarding of the terms of the ceasefire to enable the role players to implement what they agreed upon in Arusha". However, sceptics have repeatedly questioned how peacekeeping troops, with a "non-combat" mandate, would operate when essentially there was no peace to keep. According to the AU, 6 June is the date for the first cantonment area to be operational, and Binda said that, militarily, they would be ready to support the process, but there were still many other factors involved. "We, as a military, have a plan. We have a road map to peace but when it comes to cantonment areas, we have a lot of people that must be brought on board," he told IRIN. The main players, Binda said, had to be willing to stop fighting and, in the case of the rebel factions, have the confidence to come out of the bush and go to the cantonment areas "by themselves". But none of the rebel factions seem prepared to take part yet. FNL and CNDD-FDD have repeatedly said that they have not been involved in the negotiations over the AU mission and the cantonment areas, so there has to be further negotiations over nearly every security issue before cantonment is likely. "The points we still need to negotiate are the mandate of the AU mission, the training of the new defence force and the police, the establishment of cantonment zones for rebels and the barracking of government soldiers and the reintegration of combatants," Nkurunziza told IRIN. From the army's point of view, chances of an end to the fighting also seem slim and they argued that they would not return to the barracks while rebel attacks continued. "In the ceasefire it is clearly marked that so long as there is still fighting, the army will not return to the barracks," army spokesman Col Augustin Nzabampema told IRIN. "So, it is up to the rebellion to stop their attacks. In the meantime, we will continue our mission of maintaining security." Nzabampema added that although the army did not oppose reform, and had been discussing it for several years, implementation was still a long way off, as the parties were "not yet agreeing on many things, so discussions on the future structure of the army will continue". Other factors determining prolongation of war But there are other factors in play that will continue to determine how long war will continue in Burundi despite the change in president. Despite Tanzania's reassurances that it was not supporting rebels, there have been repeated calls from Bujumbura for Burundi's eastern neighbour to stop its support of the CNDD-FDD. Tanzania said it had nothing to gain from supporting the war and that western Tanzania's massive refugee population was proof of that. But critics say that ever since former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere's involvement in the Burundi peace talks, Tanzania has always been more sympathetic to the Hutu cause. However, a diplomat in Bujumbura suggested that it was time that Tanzania was brought more closely into the Burundi process and, in return, it "came clean" on the issue of the rebels, known to launch their attacks from the bush in western Tanzania. A further complication was the important role that key members of the armed forces played in politics, business transactions and government contracts in Burundi. Many observers suggested that real change in Burundi was unlikely as there were too many profiting from the status quo and in the near future, the real power would remain in the hands in those in power in the army, no matter what reforms were made. "The power has never and will never leave the army," a local journalist said in Bujumbura. "They [the army] are the people deciding the policy so even if there is a change, the people that will have the influence are still Buyoya's men."

Côte d'Ivoire - Also read News Monitors for Côte d'Ivoire from 2002 and 2001

May 5, 2003 Chaos in West Africa By SOMINI SENGUPTA BIDJAN, Ivory Coast, May 4 — Liberian mercenaries fight alongside Ivory Coast government forces. Guinean soldiers open their barracks for Liberian rebel gun-runners. Veterans of Sierra Leone's insurrection show up to assist rebels in Ivory Coast. Weapons are ferried from Burkina Faso to the Liberian capital, in brazen violation of a United Nations embargo. This, according to recent reports by United Nations investigators and international advocacy groups, is what the chaotic conflicts of West Africa look like today. These are not conventional civil wars. Rather, they are part of a lethal, internecine web that has ensnared every country on this suffering patch of the continent, as guns proliferate across the bush, hardened fighters roam in search of work and rebel armies flourish with the succor of neighboring heads of state. Restoring a measure of normality here is among the toughest challenges facing the United Nations, diplomats and international advocacy groups say. The next test comes on Monday, when the Security Council considers whether to renew sanctions against Liberia. Liberian officials admit they violate the sanctions. But the issue is whether sanctions against Liberia alone are sufficient, when rebels and their government patrons in the region share responsibility for the mayhem. The fate of millions of ordinary people who must live in this bedlam is at stake, as well as the manpower and money already invested in the region, from France's deployment of nearly 4,000 soldiers to a former colony, Ivory Coast, to peacekeepers from Britain in a former colony, Sierra Leone. The United States, by contrast, has refrained from intervening directly in Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves, and has opposed an expanded United Nations role in Ivory Coast. A report to be released Monday by the United Nations' Expert Panel on Liberia details the ways the government of Charles Taylor and his rebel enemies continue to violate the United Nations arms embargo, through a network of Serbian arms dealers, Chinese timber companies and fake documents. Some of the same companies, the panel says, have delivered weapons to neighboring countries, including Ivory Coast. The panel calls for additional scrutiny of all rebel groups and their government benefactors across the region. "The basis for the imposition of the sanctions against Liberia needs to be reassessed because violence and conflict are spreading across the region and are generated not only by Liberian forces," the panel concludes. "A comprehensive new approach by the Security Council to the situation in all of West Africa is required." The British ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, is scheduled to lead a Security Council Mission to the region in mid-May. Its goal, in part, is to look at the impact of arms trafficking and mercenaries in fueling conflict across the region. The British-based advocacy group Global Witness has proposed including timber in the new Liberia sanctions package. Proceeds from logging, it alleges, have financed other wars in the region. Sanctions prohibit the Taylor government from selling diamonds and buying weapons and bar top government officials from traveling overseas, on the basis of its support for the rebel army known as the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, which was known for hacking off its enemies' limbs. Its two top commanders have been indicted by a United Nations-backed war crimes court. One of them is accused of having aided the Ivory Coast rebels and gone into hiding in Liberia, which Mr. Taylor — himself at risk of prosecution as a war criminal — has vehemently denied. Liberia says it plays no part in aiding rebels in the lawless west of this country. With insurgents tightening the noose on the Liberian capital, Monrovia, the Foreign Minister Lewis Brown, said his government had neither means nor will to foment trouble elsewhere. He openly admitted that his government continued to buy guns. "We are using our money to defend ourselves," he said in a recent interview. "If we get a dime, what do you think we are going to do with it, build toilets on Broad Street?" On sanctions, he said he hoped for sympathy from Washington. "They clearly have to include other violators," he said. The Taylor government has found an improbable ally of sorts in the International Crisis Group, a research and advocacy organization based in Brussels that for years pointed to Liberia's destabilizing role. In a report issued last week, it urged the United Nations to investigate other countries in the region and warn their presidents about their potential vulnerability to sanctions and war crimes prosecution if they keep meddling in their neighbors' affairs. "A strategy centered on Liberia alone will not be enough," the group argues in its report. "Rebel groups ally with neighboring heads of state in symbiotic relationships to pursue wars of revenge." In a sense, the bloodshed has come full circle. The insurrection that Mr. Taylor started from here more than 13 years ago wreaked havoc in Liberia, fostered a war of rape and mutilation in Sierra Leone, and nipped at Guinea's southern heels. Last September, a failed coup dragged Ivory Coast, long an oasis of political stability, into West Africa's vicious cycle. There was little cause for wonder when veterans from the region's wars landed here and began pulling a new generation of young Africans into their fraternity of killing and banditry. Government and rebel leaders signed a cease-fire over the weekend, but not without rebel accusations of new attacks by the army. Even if the cease-fire holds, refugee camps here and in Ghana have become recruiting grounds for new fighters, the United Nations panel says. Hired hands have bragged to researchers with the Crisis Group of 10-year contracts that could take them into Togo next. Roughly 1,000 former rebels from Sierra Leone prowl West Africa for a paycheck, the panel estimates. Ever-growing numbers of youths from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Ivory Coast are now schooled in nothing but the art of destruction. The panel cites numerous links between government forces in one country and rebel operatives in another. It offers the example of Liberian soldiers and pro-Taylor militias who crossed into western Ivory Coast and came back loaded with cars and cellphones. Ivorian government forces, meanwhile, recruited Liberians from inside refugee camps, the panel reports. The government used them to fight western rebels, the panel reasons, and also "encouraged" a new insurrection in Liberia.

Reuters 17 May2003 Troops in Ivory Coast to Fight on Liberian Border ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, May 16 (Reuters) — The top United Nations official in Ivory Coast said today that President Laurent Gbagbo had given approval for French and West African troops to move into the country's anarchic west. The troops have been waiting for the president's go-ahead before entering the area bordering Liberia, where fighters have been coming in across the border and have complicated efforts to end the eight-month-long civil war in Ivory Coast, a former French colony. The United Nations special representative to Ivory Coast, Albert Tevoedjre, said the movement of troops could start in a matter of days. "The president has given us his decision to help the rapid deployment of the necessary forces to the west," he told reporters after meeting with Mr. Gbagbo in Abidjan, the country's main city. Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower and traditionally one of the most stable countries in western Africa, tumbled into civil war after a failed attempt by renegade soldiers to oust Mr. Gbagbo last September. Three rebel factions now hold the predominantly Muslim north and large chunks of the west. Rebel ministers have joined a power-sharing government under a peace accord signed in January. No clashes have been reported between Mr. Gbagbo's forces and the rebels for more than 10 days, after a total cease-fire signed largely to end persistent clashes in the west. Fighting in the west has been complicated by the involvement on both sides of fighters from Liberia's civil war, West African mercenaries and tribal militias. Reports of atrocities against civilians have been widespread. French officers say they plan to deploy up to 900 of their 4,000-person military force in Ivory Coast to the west, to keep the warring sides apart and prevent gunmen from crossing the border in either direction. The French force is to be helped by regional troops. The United Nations has agreed to deploy a force of 26 military observers to assist in peacekeeping, bringing in another 50 if they are needed, officials have said.

AFP 20 May 2003 Precarious stability in Ivory Coast eight months after start of civil war by Laurent Banguet ABIDJAN, May 20 (AFP) - Eight months after civil war first erupted in Ivory Coast, the west African nation finds itself in a precarious position, having taken firm steps toward reconciliation, but still far from peace and stability. A ceasefire has held for more than two weeks and an eight-month-long curfew has been lifted, but key posts in a reconciliation government remain vacant and the economy of the region's former powerhouse is sputtering. Ivory Coast's reputation as the most prosperous and peaceful country in west Africa evaporated on September 19 when a military rebellion broke out and rapidly transformed into a civil war, slicing the country in half. After a first peace agreement was signed near Paris in January, more peace talks followed in Togo and Ghana and eventually lead to the formation of a national reconciliation government on April 3 and to a ceasefire a month later. The eight months that it took Ivory Coast to go from war to a fragile peace is impressive compared to neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia, where civil wars raged for years before a semblance of normality returned. Except for the entry of rebels into the government, the most important sign of calm in Ivory Coast has been the ceasefire signed May 3 between the army and the three main rebel groups, now called the "new forces." In addition to stopping the fighting, the belligerents pledged to "do everything to ensure the free movement of people, goods, economic operators and humanitarian agencies... throughout the national territory." Under the agreement, the warring parties also accepted the deployment in the troubled west of the country of peacekeeping troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and some 900 troops from France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler. The government then announced that territory controlled by the rebels was no longer considered "war zones," which opened the way for a resumption of economic and administrative activities in the northern half of the country, under rebel control since last September. That announcement was followed by the politically symbolic test-run of a train from Abidjan to Ouagadougou in neighboring Burkina Faso, which used to be the main export route for goods from Ivory Coast destined for landlocked countries such as Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Then on May 12 the prime minister of Burkina Faso, which Ivory Coast has often accused of supporting its rebel forces, announced that the border between the two neighbors, closed since the start of the war, could reopen by end of May. Another sign of progress could come this Thursday, when the government is due to meet in the central city of Bouake, the country's second city and the de facto headquarters city of the "new forces" since the September rebellion. Yet against this bright tableau of progress there remain several dark and ominous gaps. The war has hit hard the economy of the world's largest cocoa producer that was once a magnet for investors in the region. The main port of Abidjan, which in normal times accounted for more than 85 percent of national customs revenues and served as a lifeline for Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, has seen business fall by half since the start of the war. On the political front, the all-important posts of defense and security ministers remain vacant. President Laurent Gbagbo has refused to be pressured into naming the ministers and is supported in his stance by his Ivorian Popular Front (IFP) party, but the country's other political parties have called on Gbagbo to quickly fill the posts. In response to what they call an "anti-IFP front," the vociferous Young Patriots movement that backs Gbagbo has called a demonstration for May 24, where they are expected to demand the "immediate disarmament" of the rebels, as in previous protests. The most worrying security situation remains the "wild west," the most unruly part of the country since the start of the civil war, which is even more vulnerable due to its proximity to Liberia. Liberia is itself grappling with a rebel war and Liberian combatants have fought alongside both Ivorian rebels and government soldiers in the area. The main Ivorian insurgent movement is now clearing the west of Liberian combatants.

AFP 23 May 2003 Ivory Coast starts sweeping military operation to secure western border GUIGLO, Ivory Coast, May 23 (AFP) - Ivory Coast Friday launched a joint operation combining government troops, rebel forces and French and West African peacekeepers to secure the west of the war-torn country bordering Liberia. A convoy of some 115 vehicles and armoured vehicles, mostly French, left the western town of Guiglo for Toulepleu, near the Liberian border, in an effort to extend a ceasefire line up to the border. Liberians fighting alongside both Ivorian government forces and rebels in the area have been accused of rights abuses and looting in the area. Ivory Coast had been sliced in two since a September 19 rebellion that rapidly transformed into civil war. Rebels control the north and a vast swathe of the west. The rebels recently joined the government after gruelling peace talks and this month signed a truce with the government which has so far been respected. From Toulepleu, the combined French, West African and Ivorian government force will travel north towards Teapleu to join another convoy which left Friday morning from the western town of Duekoue, still under rebel control. Duekoue is about 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Guiglo. The second convoy includes French troops, soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) peacekeeping force and rebels, who are now called the "new forces" after joining a peace government. The aim is to create a "zone of confidence" in the west with the French and West African peacekeepers and rebel forces monitoring the north and the Ivorian government soldiers in charge of the southern portion of the western frontier. Both the west African peacekeepers and the estimated 4,000 French troops have a United Nations mandate to to police a ceasefire between government and rebel forces. General Bruno Dary, the head of the French force in Ivory Coast, said: "I will have succeeded in my operation today if we arrive in Bangolo and Teapleu without firing a single shot." "Our soldiers can still be the target of uncontrolable elements," he said, that the operation, in which some 800 French troops are involved, would take between two and three weeks. Gaspard Dely, the chief of the Movement for Peace and Justice (MJP) rebel movement which surfaced in the west at the end of November came to Guiglo -- a government-held town -- to serve as a liasion officer on the part of the insurgents. Last Friday, Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo gave his approval to the deployment of "impartial" forces in western Ivory Coast, bordering Liberia, where civilians have suffered widespread exactions.

AFP 24 May 2003 Rebel attack kills five in Ivory Coast: report ABIDJAN, May 24 (AFP) - Five civilians were killed in a rebel attack on an Ivory Coast village in the west of the country, the government army said on Saturday. Colonel N'Goran Aka, the army spokesman, said the attack occurred on Friday at Guezon, a village on a main east-west road between the towns of Daloa and Duekoue. The spokesman accused the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement (MPCI), the main rebel group in the west African country, of giving weapons to foreigners from Burkina Faso to "sow terror in the zone". "The Liberians have gone, now it is the Burkinabes armed by the MPCI who are sowing terror," he charged. Both citizens of Liberia -- which borders Ivory Coast to the west -- and of Burkina Faso -- located to the north -- have been widely accused of taking part in the Ivory Coast civil war, which broke out after an army rebellion in September last year. There are large immigrant communities from both neighbouring countries within Ivory Coast. Much of the western region where the attack was reported has descended into lawlessness in recent months. The latest attack was reported the day after the start of a major pacification operation in western Ivory Coast by the combined forces of the government army, French and west African peacekeepers and rebel forces who have signed a peace agreement. Colonel Aka said that as a result of that operation, launched close to the Liberian border on Friday, a command post was to be set up in the town of Guiglo, some 400 kilometres (240 miles) west of the main city of Abidjan.

AFP 26 May 2003 Ivory Coast monitors say belligerents in the west committed to peace TEAPLEU, Ivory Coast, May 26 (AFP) - An international team tracking the implementation of a peace accord in Ivory Coast Monday said both rebels and government forces were committed to creating a "zone of confidence" in the lawless western region. Albert Tevoedjre, the head of the committee, which visited the region bordering Liberia, told AFP: "Up till now, both sides have given proof of their good faith. "There are problems that but mainly on a political level and I am sure the prime minister will address them very soon." Ivory Coast on Friday launched a vast operation combining government troops, rebel forces and French and West African peacekeepers to secure the west of the country. Liberians fighting alongside both Ivorian government forces and rebels in the area have been accused of rights abuses and looting. Ivory Coast had been sliced in two since a September 19 rebellion that rapidly transformed into civil war. Rebels control the north and a vast swathe of the west. The rebels recently joined the government after gruelling peace talks and this month signed a truce with the government which has so far been respected.

DR Congo

CNN 2 Jun 2003 4,000 dead in Congo in 8 months BUNIA, Congo -- Human rights organizations say the death toll in fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now 429 in the last few weeks and 4,000 in the past eight months. They say 50,000 have died in the past four years and that 500,000 have fled over the same period. The U.N. Security Council Friday unanimously voted to deploy an emergency force to help stabilize the conflict in the northeastern part of the country to try to prevent further massacres in a remote area scarred by tribal killings and cannibalism. The 15-0 vote authorizes the deployment until September 1 of an interim force in Bunia, the center of the strife. Ethnic violence between the Hema minority and Lendu majority for control of the town is blamed for the deaths. A Congolese militia accused a rival group on Monday of killing 352 civilians in a weekend attack near Bunia, where French-led peacekeepers are due to start deploying this week. Kisembo Bitamara, spokesman of the Party for the Unity and Safeguarding of the Integrity of Congo (PUSIC), told Reuters the attack was carried out by Lendu fighters backed by Congolese government troops at Tchomia on the shores of Lake Albert. "They killed 352 civilians, men, women and children, 37 of whom were at the Tchomia hospital," Bitamara, whose party represents a segment of the rival Hema community, told Reuters. He said the attack at Tchomia, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Bunia, involved mortars and automatic weapons and started at 5:00 am (0300 GMT) on Saturday and lasted the whole morning. Officials in Kinshasa and Lendu commanders in the Bunia area could not immediately be reached for comment. U.N. peacekeepers in Bunia routinely say they have no hard information on events beyond its outskirts because they do not venture far from the town. "The attackers, about 2,500 of them, attacked the residence of our leader Chief Kawa and killed 22 of his relatives but chief Kawa was not there," Bitamara added. He said Hema fighters had fought back, killing six Congolese government troops. "Kinshasa is behind this attack...the Lendu did not have mortars and machine guns before they came from Kinshasa," he said. The reported attack happened only hours after the U.N. Security Council authorized a French-led multinational peacekeeping force to deploy in Bunia to try to prevent massacres in the remote area scarred by tribal killings and cannibalism. Human rights groups had pleaded with the United Nations for months to beef up its presence in the region surrounding Bunia, known as Ituri, warning of the possibility of genocide on the scale of Rwanda, where 800,000 were slaughtered in 1994.

CNN 8 May 2003 Fighting feeds Congo genocide fear KIGALI, Rwanda -- Fighters from rival communities clashed in the eastern Congolese town of Bunia Thursday, swelling the numbers of people fleeing violence and raising fears of possible genocide. "The streets of Bunia are deserted and most of the shops are shut down," an official of the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUC, told Reuters. "MONUC does not have enough food to feed the displaced people and there might be a lot of problems in the next few days," the official said by telephone from the town. Bunia, 50 miles from Uganda, and nearby areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo have suffered some of the worst atrocities in the mineral-rich country's war, which began when Uganda and Rwanda invaded in 1998 to back rebels fighting to topple the government in Kinshasa. Aid agencies say more than three million people have died in the conflict, mainly through war-related starvation and disease. Fighting intensified on Wednesday night and Thursday between members of the Lendu and Hema communities in and around Bunia, the official said. Thousands have escaped or tried to flee since fighting erupted at the weekend. Five hundred gathered at MONUC's Bunia office and about 1,000 were at the airport, the official said. "They are coming along with all their belongings, running from different parts of Bunia. Fighting is taking place at different places at different times," the official said. Uganda started withdrawing its remaining troops from Bunia at the end of April but said at the time it considered the United Nations would not be able to keep the peace in the area. Panicked Congolese -- fearing a power vacuum and limited role from U.N. peacekeepers will lead to new killing fields -- have been desperately trying to escape the country's northeast although most are unable to leave the region. Uganda was one of five nations neighboring Congo which were sucked into a war in the country and which withdrew forces as part of a peace deal. But Uganda has since sent troops back into the country to fight what it says were Ugandan dissidents training there. Uganda's most recent withdrawal is to be completed this week. Taking the place of the withdrawing Ugandans are 800 Uruguayan peacekeepers with a mandate only to protect United Nations personnel. Uganda says it offered to stay for a couple of more months to hand over control -- gradually and properly, it says -- to a U.N. force with a robust mandate. Human Rights Watch, based in the United States, said ethnic killings between Congo's Hema minority and Lendu majority have claimed at least 4,000 lives in the past eight months.

Reuters 8 May 2003 Congo Tribes Fight Amid Fears of Major Bloodshed NAIROBI - Rival tribes exploiting a power vacuum left by departing Ugandan troops fought for supremacy in the eastern Congolese town of Bunia on Thursday, swelling the numbers of people fleeing violence there, a U.N. official said. U.N. sources reported widespread looting on Thursday evening after a day of sporadic clashes fueled fears a small U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in and around the town would be not be able to prevent a fresh round of ethnic bloodletting. A Western diplomat who visited the town of up to 300,000 earlier this week said on Thursday there was considerable potential for serious violence against civilians by fighters of the rival Hema and Lendu communities. 'It is a very, very dangerous situation, In a worst case scenario there could be massive ethnic violence in Bunia. There is a high risk of civilians not simply being killed in the crossfire but of them being targeted,' he said. 'There has been a lot of talk of genocide which I have not listened to. But now I can say that this is a possibility. The situation is grave.' Bunia, 80 km (50 miles) from Uganda, and nearby areas in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have suffered some of the worst atrocities in the mineral-rich country's war, which began when Uganda and Rwanda invaded in 1998 to back rebels fighting to topple the government in Kinshasa. Uganda started withdrawing its remaining troops from Bunia at the end of April but said at the time it considered the United Nations would not be able to keep the peace in the area. About 400 troops of the U.N. Mission in Congo (MONUC) patrol in and around the town, not nearly enough, according to residents, to check ethnic violence let alone keep normal law and order. MONUC Patricia Tome said a plane carrying DRC Human Rights Minister Ntumba Luaba had been shot at as it was approaching Bunia on Thursday and was forced to turn around. He had been flying to Bunia to assess the humanitarian situation there. It was not clear who had opened fire on the place but Tome said the recent clashes had not been far from the airport. Thousands have escaped or tried to flee since fighting erupted at the weekend. Five hundred gathered at MONUC's Bunia office and about 1,000 were at the airport, the official said. Some 4,000 people sought refuge at U.N. compound in Bunia on Tuesday, MONUC officials said. Most foreign troops have now pulled out under international pressure and Uganda, the last foreign state to have soldiers openly deployed, is due to finish its withdrawal this month. For many years local land conflicts have pitted the Hema against the rival Lendu but bloodshed has spiraled out of control as factions from the country's wider conflict have taken sides in this 'war within a war.' Amnesty International said in a 2002 report that fighting between Hema and Lendu had killed an estimated 50,000 people, mainly civilians, since June 1999. Aid agencies say more than three million people have died in the wider conflict, mainly through war-related starvation and disease. Ugandan troops were close to the Hema until late last year when a Hema militia leader threw in his lot with Rwandan-backed rebels. Uganda then drew closer to the Lendu militia.

VOA News 14 May 2003 UN Expresses Fear of Rwanda Like Genocide in DRC U.N. officials are expressing fear that the fighting between rival ethnic militias in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (D-R-C) could turn into "a Rwanda-like" genocide. In 1994, extremist ethnic Hutus in Rwanda massacred close to 800-hundred thousand ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during a three-month period. Carolyn McAskie, U.N. Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator said the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation and ethnic tension in the region has conjured up "shades of Rwanda 1994." The fighting between the ethnic Hema and Ledu militias has killed hundreds of people in past few weeks. Ms. McAskie said the humanitarian situation in Bunia, the region's main town, is extremely dangerous and desperate" and needs what she called "the very basic life-saving interventions." Margaret Carey of the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations says what is needed in Bunia is a rapid deployment of well-equipped, well trained troops, under a mandate that permitted the use of force. A U.N. monitoring force of just over 600 soldiers is in the region. But it does not have the mandate or equipment to stop the fighting. Meanwhile, the DRC government and the ethnic militias are expected to hold talks Thursday in Tanzania in an effort to halt the fighting. But it is unclear if all the factions involved in the conflict will attend the meeting. A U.N. spokeswoman, Patricia Tome, said the fighting in Bunia is preventing the distribution of relief supplies to civilians. The U.N. mission in Bunia says it is providing refuge to more than 10,000 civilians in its compound. Thousands others have fled the town, some crossing into neighboring Uganda. Carla del Ponte, the chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor, says the latest fighting could, in her words, be a genocide. Some information for this report provided by AP.

NYT 14 May 2003 France Says It Will Send Troops to Congo Under U.N. Mandate By FELICITY BARRINGER UNITED NATIONS, May 13 — As tens of thousands of troops from rival Congolese militias skirmished in the northeastern province of Ituri and the death toll from the weeklong spasm of violence rose past 160, the French government indicated today it was preparing to respond to a call by the secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, to send troops to quell the disturbances before they escalated further. But French diplomats here took pains to point out that Mr. Annan's recent appeal was to France and other governments. Mr. Annan reinforced that point today. "It wasn't a request only to France," he said. "It was a request to governments with capacity." Mr. Annan further added that "France has indicated in principle that it is prepared to participate in such a force, provided there is a clear mandate, and other governments join in. So we are in touch with other governments trying to see if they will join France in such an effort." About 700 Uruguayan troops are in the embattled city of Bunia as part of a peacekeeping operation. A Council diplomat said Monday that an additional contingent of Bangladeshi troops was expected to reinforce them. Calls for international attention to this newly virulent killing ground in the Congolese wars escalated today. Pope John Paul II said that the recent killings — including the deaths of two Roman Catholic priests and 48 others who took refuge in a church in the town of Bunia over the weekend — were "profoundly disturbing." Echoing the warnings that came from United Nations diplomats Monday, the Vatican statement said, "We risk a tragedy like the one in Rwanda in 1994." Carla Del Ponte, the war crimes prosecutor at The Hague, picking her words carefully, said to reporters at the United Nations today that "from what we know" the killings in Ituri "could be a genocide." A genocide, she and aides said, is marked not just by its scope but by the essential fact that victims are chosen for their race. Militias from the Lendu and Hema groups have been battling for control of Bunia since Ugandan military forces pulled out, with the last troops leaving May 7, The Associated Press reported. An A.P. dispatch today quoted Patricia Tomé, a United Nations spokeswoman on the scene, as describing fighting as near as 200 yards to United Nations bases in Bunia, where thousands of civilians have taken refuge. "As we speak, they're using artillery, mortars. You can hear the exchanges of gunfire," she told The Associated Press. Mr. Annan said today that the United Nations had "asked the Ugandan government to cooperate and use its influence in the region to ensure that the militia and the people in the region restrain themselves and do not escalate tensions in the region."

AFP 14 May 2003 UN rights chief calls for end of eastern DR Congo violence, GENEVA, May 14 The UN's top human rights official Sergio Vieira de Mello on Wednesday expressed grave concern at reports of indiscriminate and ethnically-motivated killings in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) town of Bunia. "The High Commissioner calls on all parties to immediately cease using violence and to cooperate with the United Nations," Vieira de Mello said in a statement as he welcomed France's decision to send troops to the area. The UN rights chief said he was gravely concerned "at the latest reports of indiscriminate killings in Bunia... and in particular at reports that civilians are again being killed because of their ethnicity". Vieira de Mello pledged "complete support to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in investigating these events and warned "that there will be no impunity". He also called for more human rights monitors throughout the northeastern Ituri province. A report by the High Commissioner's office and the UN mission to DRC (MONUC) into massacres in Drodro, north east of Bunia, last month has been completed and will be submitted to the UN Security Council shortly, the statement said. France announced on Tuesday that it was ready to deploy troops alongside a beleaguered UN force there amid warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe. At least 10 people were killed and about 100 wounded on Wednesday as fierce clashes rocked Bunia, a UN spokesman told AFP as the fighting continued. Over the weekend at least 30 civilians, including three babies and two priests, were massacred in the town. Since 1999, an estimated 50,000 people in Ituri have been killed in tit-for-tat massacres linked to the long-running feud between the minority Hema and the Lendu majority.

AFP 16 May 2003 DR Congo's leader, Ituri factions sign truce DAR ES SALAAM, May 16 (AFP) - Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila and five armed ethnic factions vying for the control of the country's northeastern Ituri region signed a truce agremeent in Tanzania Friday. The agreement, due to come into effect at midnight (2100 GMT) Friday, provides for the cessation of hostilities, the cantonment of fighters, the demilitarisation of Bunia, Ituri's battle-ravaged capital, and the deployment of foreign troops in the region. It also warns foreign governments against arming groups involved in the conflict. Other signatories included Thomas Lubanga, the leader of the the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), an ethnic Hema-led group now in control of Bunia, and Justin Gopa Lobo the commander of the Front of Nationalists and Integrationists (FNI), a faction comprising the Hemas' arch-rivals, the Lendu, who have been battling to recapture Bunia Over the last week, at least 40 civilians have been killed in Bunia some in apparently targetted ethnic massacres, others caught up in battle. Fears of a humanitarian crisis in Ituri are mounting in the wake of this week's violence. Most of the town's inhabitants have fled and those who remain face dire shortages of food, running water and medical facilities. The ceasefire agreement follows two days of talks in Dar es Salaam between Kabila and the Ituri factions. "Objective number one is a total cessation of any military action in Ituri," Kabila told BBC radio on Wednesday. "Since the situation is so dire, so catastrophic, I believe ... the whole international community (may be) forced to impose peace on those elements who don't want to conform with the (Ituri) Pacification Commission,"