Analysis - Burundi's patchwork army faces test to keep the peace

mchambawima1 · 2015-05-01T07:28:47+00:00

Thu, Apr 30 13:05 PM BST By Edmund Blair and Patrick Nduwimana BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - When protesters in Burundi cheer for soldiers who turn up at demonstrations against the president's bid for a third term, it is redolent of uprisings further north in Africa where the military was hailed as friend not foe. But deploying the army on the streets of Burundi may carry higher stakes than when generals intervened in Cairo and Tunis in 2011 and Ougadougou in 2014 to turf out veteran leaders. Since Burundi's ethnically fuelled civil war ended in 2005, the army has been a symbol of reconciliation, absorbing rival factions that were part of the bloodletting that killed 300,000 people in a nation of just 10 million. Drawing the military into a political row about whether President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader and now the army's commander-in-chief, should run for office again risks testing that unity. It could drive troops back to rival camps. Everything hinges on the army, said a senior diplomat who tracks the military. "Does it stay unified or does it split up? The answer may have repercussions well beyond the borders of tiny Burundi. It lies in a region where genocidal forces tore Rwanda apart 20 years ago and where other presidents, such as Joseph Kabila in Democratic Republic of Congo, face term limits soon. For now, protesters who say Nkurunziza's bid for a third five-year term is unconstitutional clap and chant when trucks of soldiers cross battle lines. They jeer police who fire teargas, water cannon and, say demonstrators, even live rounds. The police are killing us, but the army is behaving well, said Egide Nimbona, 27, at a protest in a Bujumbura suburb where barricades of stones and smouldering tyres blocked streets. "They are very disciplined. The army will be our saviour." The government says it called out the army to end violence by opponents bent on derailing elections. It says the president is eligible to run in the June vote because his first term, when he was chosen by lawmakers, not elected, does not count. "The army and the police are playing the same role to avoid violence," said presidential media adviser Willy Nyamitwe. The army had no comment. Nyamitwe dismissed the idea that the army could break up or, as in Burkina Faso, turn against an incumbent president seeking to extend his rule. "Burundi is not Burkina Faso," he told Reuters. Civil society activists, who oppose Nkurunziza's third-term bid, say their only demand is that the army stays neutral and protects demonstrators from police, widely seen as broadly aligned to the ruling CNDD-FDD party, a charge it denies. DIVIDED OFFICERS But staying neutral may mean different things to soldiers who were once enemies, said Thierry Vircoulon, a Burundi expert with the International Crisis Group. For some, it may mean following orders from the commander-in-chief, whatever they might be; for others it may mean avoiding the military being sucked into the political fray at all. "My understanding is that those two interpretations also divide the officers in the security forces," said Vircoulon, citing private discussions with several officers. But some want the army to take sides. "If the police can be on the side of those who want to abolish the constitution, it would be better if the army takes the side of those who fighting for respect of that constitution," said opposition leader and presidential hopeful Agathon Rwasa, who like Nkurunziza led a rebel force in the war. Burundi's civil conflict broadly pitted the army, at the time led by the ethnic Tutsi minority, against rebel factions of the majority Hutus, one of which was led by Nkurunziza. Bujumbura was a key battleground, controlled by the army and was frequently shelled by rebel fighters from the bush. Now, opposition groups have broad support in Bujumbura and other cities, while 51-year-old president has his power base in the countryside. The army, however, is now shared between Tutsis and Hutus, a deal hammered out in the Arusha peace process that ended the 12-year civil war and decades of sporadic ethnic massacres. That mixed make up is what reassures protesters that it will act fairly. So far, the soldiers have lived up to expectations. "Don't use violence. If anything worse happens, you will be responsible for that," an army officer was overheard scolding a policeman on Monday at a protest in Bujumbura's Nyakabiga area (Editing by George Obulutsa/Jeremy Gaunt)

Thread starter mchambawima1
Start date May 1, 2015

mchambawima1

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Analysis - Burundi's patchwork army faces test to keep the peace

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