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Africa: Ghosts at the African Union Summit
AfricaFocus Bulletin
February 16, 2016 (160216)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Our organisation acts as it has for the past 20 or 30 years: we
meet often, we talk too much, we always write a lot, but we don't do
enough, and sometimes nothing at all." - new African Union chair
President Idriss Déby of Chad
In his commentary on the most recent African Union summit, Adekeye
Adebajo, executive director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution in
Cape Town, reflects on "ghosts" haunting the organization's efforts
to cope with current crises. Like its predecessor the Organisation
of African Unity, the United Nations, and indeed all multilateral
organizations, such efforts are profoundly ambiguous, both essential
as attempts to mitigate violence but also flawed due to dependence
on the political will and vested interests of member governments.
The primary case at issue in Addis Ababa was the ongoing crisis in
Burundi, where incumbent President Pierre Nkurinziza's insistence
on a third term and violent repression both political opposition and
civil society has been widely condemned, as well as evoked armed
opposition and a cycle of internal and potentially international
escalation of violence.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin, in addition to Adebajo's commentary,
includes two recent background articles on Burundi, as well as links
to other relevant sources. One article, by Edna Buchanan in the
International Business Times, profiles the African leaders more
recently called on to assist in "mediation," while another article,
by Central Africa historian René Lemarchand, contextualizes recent
development in the context of Burundi's post-colonial history.
Other recent articles with useful background on the current
situation in Burundi include:
André Guichaoua, "What's gone wrong in Burundi's quest for
stability," The Conversation, Feb. 2, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/gr4ohhc
"Rwanda seeks to expel Burundian refugees," BBC, Feb. 12, 2016
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35558082
Stephanie Wolters, Institute for Security Studies, South Africa "Are
African heads of state dropping the ball in Burundi?," 2 Feb 2016
http://tinyurl.com/j7fcvgh
Lee Mwiti, "African Union's 'hot air' as it backpedals on Burundi;
Nkurunziza pulls off a deadly diplomatic victory," Mail & Guardian,
1 Feb 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zh5lfw9
Jordan Anderson, "Burundi’s cross-ethnic opposition under threat,"
African Arguments, Feb 16, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zqtyxdu
For regular updates and links, follow the Facebook timeline of peace
activist Jean-Claude Nkundwa (https://www.facebook.com/Humble.steadfirm)
And, on twitter, Cara Jones (https://twitter.com/profcarajones)
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Burundi, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/country/burundi.php
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Ghosts at the AU Summit
Adekeye Adebajo
Dr. Adekeye Adebajo is Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict
Resolution in Cape Town, South Africa, and Visiting Professor at the
University of Johannesburg.
Guardian (Nigeria) and BusinessDay (South Africa), 8 February 2016.
http://tinyurl.com/h29mneu
The recently concluded African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa was
a tale of political ghosts. Outgoing AU chair, Zimbabwean president,
Robert Mugabe, started off this theme when he told United Nations
(UN) Secretary-General, Ban ki-Moon, that Africans "are also human,
not ghosts." After bemoaning the dehumanisation of Africans, the
91-year old Zimbabwean leader - in power for 36 years -
controversially confirmed his president-for-life intentions: "I will
still be there until God says, come join the other angels." Mugabe
then called for greater African representation on the 15-member UN
Security Council, before suggesting that the UN Secretariat be moved
from New York to China, India, or Africa. He then told Ban "You're a
good man ... but we can't make you a fighter".
Ban ki-Moon was attending his last AU summit to bid farewell to the
continent. His ghostly presence praised the efforts of African
peacekeepers in Somalia, and health-workers in tackling Ebola in
West Africa. Ban's decade in office has, however, not been
memorable, and he has confirmed the desire of the powerful members
of the Security Council to have a "secretary, rather than a general"
in the position. As was said about his Peruvian predecessor, Javier
Pérez de Cuéllar, the uncharismatic Ban would not make waves even if
he fell out of a boat! Under the South Korean's leadership,
collaboration between the UN and the AU has been strained in Mali,
Darfur, and the Great Lakes, though there has recently been better
cooperation in Burundi.
Although cagey about her future, South Africa's AU Commission chair,
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, may also soon be a political ghost in AU
terms. She is widely expected to leave in July at the end of her
four-year term, eventually to run for the African National Congress
(ANC) presidency in 2017.She again pushed her pet projects at this
summit: the "Agenda 2063" vision of a borderless Africa in which
human rights are respected, and gender parity is achieved. She also
championed conflict resolution efforts and self-determination in
Western Sahara.
The summit was, in fact, dominated by the AU's efforts to "silence
the guns" in Africa. Burundi was the central issue, with the 15-
member AU Peace and Security Council having mandated a 5,000-strong
military intervention force last December to halt instability in
which about 400 people have died and 230,000 refugees have fled into
neighbouring countries. AU leaders, however, refused to approve the
force which has been vociferously opposed by third-term Burundian
president, Pierre Nkurinziza. They called instead for mediation and
more human rights monitors. In South Sudan, three past presidential
political ghosts are involved in mediation efforts: South Africa's
Thabo Mbeki, Botswana's Festus Mogae, and Mali's Alpha Konaré,
reinforcing the saying that too many cooks spoil the broth. Another
presidential political ghost - Tanzania's recently retired Jakaya
Kikwete - was appointed as the new AU special envoy to Libya in a
bid to support UN efforts to unite the country's fractious parties.
Vanquishing the scourge of terrorism was also widely debated at the
meeting.
At the same time as the summit, another past political ghost, former
Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo, was being tried by the Hague-based
International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes: the first ever
head of state to be brought before the court (Liberia's Charles
Taylor had been tried and convicted before a special international
court). With all eight of the ICC's cases being in Africa, Kenya -
strongly supported by Ethiopia and Chad - led efforts to adopt a
roadmap for the withdrawal of African governments from the court.
South Africa reportedly repeated its intention to withdraw from the
court, following widespread criticisms of Tshwane for its hosting of
Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir - wanted by the ICC on war crimes
charges - at an AU summit last year.
There was an attempt to revive yet another political ghost: the
African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), whose panel of eminent persons
had been chaired by Nigeria's widely respected Adebayo Adedeji
between 2007 and 2010. South Africa's Eddy Maloka was appointed as
the APRM's chief executive officer at this summit, but only 17 out
of 35 countries have been reviewed in 13 years, even as the body
struggles financially. The rivalry between Nigeria and South Africa
also continued, with both winning seats on the AU Peace and Security
Council.
Mugabe handed the chair of the AU to Chadian warlord-president,
Idriss Déby, who has been in power for 25 years. Déby lambasted the
organisation for relying too heavily on external support for over
90% of its security needs. As he memorably put it: "Our organisation
acts as it has for the past 20 or 30 years: we meet often, we talk
too much, we always write a lot, but we don't do enough, and
sometimes nothing at all."
Burundi: Who are the five heads of state pressed to convince
Nkurunziza to accept peacekeepers?
Elsa Buchanan
International Business Time, February 9, 2016
http://tinyurl.com/zsfh4jg
The African Union (AU) has revealed the name of the five heads of
state it has appointed to try to convince the government of Burundi
to accept a peacekeeping force that its President Pierre Nkurunziza
has rejected.
At the January AU Summit held in Ethiopia's Addis Ababa, Ban KiMoon,
secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) outlined his
goal: for Nkurunziza to return to the negotiating table with the
opposition, and for the embattled president to accept the deployment
of the 5,000 peacekeeping force, Maprobu, to maintain order.
1.South Africa's Jacob Zuma
Aged 17, Jacob Zuma joined the African National Congress (ANC), once
on the United States terrorism watch list, and became an active
member of its military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe, in 1962. He was
jailed for 10 years on the notorious Robben Island alongside exfreedom
fighter and president Nelson Mandela, for "conspiring to
overthrow the apartheid government". After prison, he fled South
Africa in 1975, but was one of the first leaders to return in 1990
when the ANC ban was lifted. He then participated in negotiations
with the white-minority government.
After judges dropped a corruption cases against him in 2009, he was
elected president after the ANC won the general elections. The
nation's most colourful and controversial president - the proud
polygamist's credibility was damaged in March 2014 when an
independent inquiry found the government had improperly spent money
on upgrading his private residence - Zuma is described as a "man who
listens" by his supporters.
While Burundi's Hutus and Tutsis joined the power-sharing government
under the 2001 peace deal brokered by Nelson Mandela to end the
central African state's 'slow genocide', Zuma is also expected to
have an influence on the Burundian negotiations process. Indeed,
unlike the more diplomatic terms used by his predecessor Thabo
Mbeki, Zuma is reported to have slammed Nkurunziza's third term and
proposed the embattled president left his post "even if he had the
right to that mandate" for the good of Burundi.
His discourse has recently sounded less resolute - some commentators
have attributed the change of tone to the promise of inclusion of a
number of South African firms in the processing of Burundi's
minerals - but Nkurunziza will still have to face a strong delegate,
who has always been keen on negotiations having himself helped
Mandela draft Burundi's Arusha Accords.
2. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania
The only military on the panel, Abdel Aziz is a general of the
Mauritanian army who seized power in a military coup in 2008 before
winning presidential elections with a majority of votes a year
later. He was treated in France in autumn 2012 after he was shot in
the arm following a bizarre incident in which he was shot in the
stomach, apparently by mistake, by his own troops. Military guards
at a checkpoint mistook the president, who was travelling back to
the capital Nouakchott after a trip to the desert, for a "security
threat".
The general won another five-year term in June 2014 with almost 82%
of the poll in an election boycotted by large parts of the
opposition - a poll described by a delegation of French
parliamentarians who observed voting as "honest and regular". In
January, campaigners said authorities in Mauritania were leading an
increasingly violent clampdown on the anti-slavery movement in a
nation where 4% of the population are still enslaved, despite Abdel
Aziz's 2014 declaration that no slavery existed in Mauritania.
Seen as an ally of Western powers in the battle against al-Qaida in
West Africa, Abdel Aziz is to be representing the North African
region and the Sahel during the talks.
3. Ali Ben Bongo of Gabon
The son of the late Omar Bongo who ruled Gabon for 42 years, Ali
Bongo was declared the winner of the presidential election on 3
September 2009, three months after his father died. Though the
election result was approved by nation's Constitutional Court,
opposition described Ali Bongo's victory as "a constitutional coup
d'etat". Opposition has long alleged that the Bongo family amassed a
vast fortune, with Omar Bongo accused of embezzling oil revenues and
bribery.
Ali Bongo, meanwhile, is to represent the central region of Africa
in Bujumbura in the absence of 'dictator' Obiang Nguema of
Equatorial Guinea, who Chadian President Idriss Deby judged as too
sensitive to Nkurunziza's claim to "sovereignty". Ever since
Burundi's civil war, Gabon has always stood alongside Bujumbura to
embark on an all-inclusive and genuine process of dialogue and
reconciliation. Burundi's former head of state, Pierre Buyoya, is
known to have made numerous trips to the Gabonese capital of
Libreville.
However, commentators suggest a more recent event could jeopardise
the relationship between both countries. It is believed that Ali
Bongo, during his inauguration as president of the Economic
Community of Central African States, may have shown his irritation
towards his counterpart Nkurunziza with regards to his management of
the crisis following the anti-third term protests in Burundi.
Ali Bongo is also known to be a great friend of Burundi's neighbour
Rwanda and admirer of its president Paul Kagame's economic
management of the country. This could prove tricky amid already sour
relations between Rwanda and Burundi, especially after UN experts
told the Security Council that Rwanda was destabilising its
neighbour.
4. Macky Sall of Senegal
A dedicated member of Senegal's Socialist Party, which had ruled
since independence, Sall joined the opposition in 1983 after
becoming dissatisfied with the party's misrule.
Alternatively minister of territorial administration, government
spokesman and prime minister, Macky Sall was elected in a landslide
victory in the country's 2012 presidential elections.
Known for his frankness, calm and diplomacy, Sall is seen as a fine
democrat in Senegal, and having been in power for four years, his
integrity was applauded when he announced he would seek to shorten
his mandate from seven to five years. This would be a first, as
current presidents are seen as dreaming to prolong theirs. El Hadji
Wack Ly, a lawmaker with the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) said
of Sall: "He is a firm man who keeps his word."
Meanwhile, it is worth noting that in West Africa - particularly the
Ivory Coast in the 2000s - peacekeeping became the preserve of
francophone nations, primarily Senegal.
5. Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn
Desalegn, who served as chairperson of the African Union from 2013
to 2014, is seen as a leader who speaks little but analyses a lot,
but his government has come under fire. Ethiopia is deemed as one of
the most heavily censored countries in the world and has also been
accused of ruthlessly crushing political opposition and civil
liberties.
Last year, however, Desalegn is believed to have annoyed Nkurunziza
by allowing for the Burundi's main opposition coalition - the
Council for the Observance of the Constitution, Human Rights and the
Arusha Peace Accord (CNARED), an alliance-in-exile of several
opposition movements - to see the light in Ethiopia's capital Addis
Ababa.
Desalegn's country is host to the majority of AU summits on the
Burundi question, but its military are also secretly expected to
replace Burundi National Defence forces serving with AMISOM, the AU
mission in Somalia, if the latter were to be banned from the
mission. Meanwhile, if the AU peacekeeping force Maprobu were to be
established, it is believed that Ethiopian soldiers could be part of
the contingent.
In the shadow of genocides past: can Burundi be pulled back from the
brink?
African Arguments, January 22, 2016
René Lemarchand
http://www.africanarguments.org - direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/jo62w9p
[René Lemarchand is emeritus professor at the University of Florida.
He has written extensively on Rwanda, Burundi and the Great Lakes
region of Central Africa, and is the author of The Dynamics of
Violence in Central Africa, Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide
and Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice.]
Rather than the Rwandan genocide, it is the 1972 genocide of Hutu in
Burundi that suggests itself as the most meaningful frame of
reference for an understanding of the present crisis.
"Can national dialogue break the power of terror in Burundi?" This
key question addressed by participants to an international
conference held in Bujumbura in May 1994, days after the Rwandan
bloodbath, has lost none of its pertinence. Today, as in 1994,
Burundi is tottering on the brink of the abyss, and once again the
Rwanda genocide casts an ominous shadow on the future of this small,
poverty-stricken Central African nation.
Many wonder whether the on-and-off announcement of a dialogue with
the opposition can break the cycle of violence triggered by
President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term, in
defiance of the constitution. A replay of 1994, though unlikely,
cannot be ruled out.
Burundi shares many characteristic features with its neighbour to
the north. Besides its minute size, lack of natural resources, high
population density, and a conflicted fault line between Hutu and
Tutsi - the former accounting for approximately 80% of a total
population of over 10 million - much of the country's history since
independence in 1962 has been written in blood.
Where the destinies of the "false twins" differ is in the outcome of
the genocidal violence each has experienced. Unlike Rwanda, where
the extermination of some 600,000 Tutsi led to the enthronement of
the victorious Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), Burundi's seemingly
endless enmities were eventually resolved in 2005 through a
constitutional compromise based on a power-sharing formula whereby
Hutu held 60% of governmental and parliamentary positions and the
Tutsi 40%. The army, crucially, was reorganised on the basis of an
equal number of Hutu and Tutsi. It is this much touted, pivotal
achievement in constitutional engineering that is now on the verge
of collapse, and with it the promise of a peaceful transition to
plural democracy.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed over the past year, many
gangland-style, some by police and security forces, others by the
predominantly Hutu youth militia (the so-called imbonerakure,
meaning "those who see from afar"), and yet others by still
unidentified assassins. A number of opposition politicians,
journalists and human rights activists - Hutu and Tutsi - have been
targeted or forced to seek asylum abroad. As many as 200,000 are
said to have fled their homeland, of whom some 70,000 mainly of
Tutsi origins are now living in Rwanda.
The anti-Nkurunziza opposition, fragmented and poorly organised,
also bears its share of responsibility in the mayhem. On 11
December, three military bases were attacked by armed men, causing
scores of victims. Revenge killings quickly followed. According to a
statement issued by the UN refugee agency on 15 January, three mass
graves have been identified, containing some one hundred corpses; a
dozen women, mainly Tutsi, are reported to have been sexually
abused.
Meanwhile, a newly organised armed opposition movement, the Forces
Républicaines du Burundi, which is said to comprise a fair number of
army defectors, is rumoured to be gaining strength in parts of the
countryside. Which if any of the several anti-regime forces may take
part in the talks tentatively scheduled to start in Arusha,
Tanzania, at the end of the month is anybody's guess. What is beyond
doubt is the likelihood of further violence in the weeks ahead.
Echoes of the past
Much has been made of the fact that Burundi has been spared the kind
of relentless, ethnic polarisation that paved the way to the carnage
in Rwanda. So far the Burundian army - the Forces de Defense
Nationale (FDN) - has indeed shown commendable cohesion in the face
of mounting challenges to its authority. Yet signs of ethnic tension
are unmistakable, especially in those communes of the capital where
Tutsi elements predominate.
The composition of the urban landscape is not the only element to
consider. Regional parameters need to be taken into account too.
Whether there is any truth to government allegations that Rwanda is
manipulating refugees in order to destabilise the regime, the
possibility of an infiltration of Rwanda-based opponents into
Burundi cannot be dismissed, any more than, in last resort, a fullscale
Rwandan military intervention should the Tutsi community of
Burundi become the target of genocidal killings. Rwanda is both a
potential security guarantee for the Tutsi minority as well as the
source of its political vulnerability.
Burundi's tormented history is another critical factor. For some
Hutu politicians, the killing of Tutsi is payback for what happened
in 1972, when an estimated 200,000 Hutu civilians were
systematically wiped out by an all-Tutsi army assisted by Tutsi
youth militias (the so-called Jeunesses Révolutionnaires Rwagasore).
That the carnage was provoked by a locally-rooted Hutu-led peasant
insurrection, resulting in the loss of hundreds and possibly
thousands of Tutsi lives, makes it no less genocidal in its scale
and motivation.
Rather than the Rwandan genocide, it is the 1972 genocide of Hutu in
Burundi that suggests itself as the most meaningful frame of
reference for an understanding of the present crisis. A surprising
number of Hutu politicians - including Nkurunziza and his former
head of security, the late Adolphe Nshimirimana, killed in 2015 -
lost their fathers, friends and relatives during the 1972 bloodbath.
Often referred to as "the orphans of genocide", they are deeply
aware of the horrors endured by their families. Now, as in 1972, the
youth militia are a major instrument of violence in the countryside.
And again, just as a great many Hutu in 1972 were devotees of the
Pentecostal Church, Nkurunziza takes pride in proclaiming himself a
"newborn Christian", going so far as to boast, according to one
informant, that he was elected to execute God's mission and that he
knew about his victory from prophecies way before his election in
2005.
Such God-inspired pretensions bode ill for the chances of a
negotiated solution. To expect Nkurunziza to resign as a
precondition of the Arusha talks - a key demand of the opposition -
is unrealistic. Yet there are other ways to bring creative pressure
to bear on the regime so as to induce greater flexibility.
Although the African Union's threat to deploy a 5,000-strong
protection mission proved a non-starter, it does signal a
significant change of mood on the continent. And added to the
European Union's decision to suspend financial aid (accounting for
50% of the government's budget), this should serve as an inducement
for the UN Security Council to issue a strongly-worded resolution
calling for a multinational peace-making force, possibly under the
terms of chapter 7 of the Charter.
The Burundi economy is in a shambles. The country's rapidly
shrinking resource base is bound to further undermine the regime's
legitimacy, stimulate wider grievances within the security forces,
and alienate regional allies. All of which may help mitigate
Nkurunziza's trust in Imana - Burundi's traditional designation of
the Deity - for the sake of a more rational and potentially more
fruitful investment in a negotiated compromise with opposition
forces within and outside the country.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a
particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
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