Why the crisis in Burundi is tying the African Union in knots

Why the crisis in Burundi is tying the African Union in knots

Simon Allison for Daily Maverick, part of the Guardian Africa network

Thursday 6 August 2015 08.00 BST

 

Country is reeling after two high-profile shootings but efforts to end the standoff are troubled by the president’s trump card – Somalia, says Simon Allison

A painted mural with portraits of Burundi’s presidents past and present in the National Assembly in Bujumbura. Photograph: PHIL MOORE/AFP/Getty Images

Two nights in Bujumbura, two assassination attempts on high-profile figures from opposite ends of the political spectrum. One succeeded, the other failed. Together these add up to bad news for a country reeling from weeks of street violence, as hopes for a peaceful resolution dim and the international community runs out of ideas.

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 Government repression after a disputed election and attacks against high-profile public figures is worsening the country’s political crisis             

 

Over the past few months President Pierre Nkurunziza has tightened his grip on power, culminating in his disputed re-election on 21 July. As his opponents seek to resist him, residents of the Burundian capital have become increasingly used to the sound of gunfire at night – and the reports of deaths in the morning. But even by Burundi’s increasingly low standards, the attacks on two high-profile figures from opposite sides of the divide came as a shock.

 

The first attack was on Sunday evening. General Adolphe Nshimirimana, a colleague and confidante of the president, was attacked in his car by men in military uniforms. The general was killed, as were his bodyguards.

Nshimirimana wasn’t just any old general. He was the president’s right-hand man, his war buddy, perceived by many to be the power behind the throne. Whoever killed him – and speculation ranges from armed opposition to plots from within the government’s inner circle itself – struck a devastating blow against the heart of the regime.

 

Pierre Claver Mbonimpa Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images

The second attack was on Monday evening. Human rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa was also in his car, near his home, when he was surrounded by motorcyclists who fired into the vehicle. Mbonimpa didn’t die, but he was seriously injured and rushed to hospital. It’s believed his injuries are not life-threatening.

Mbonimpa wasn’t just any old human rights activist (although there are precious few of them left in Burundi). “I would say he is Burundi’s leading human rights activist. [He] has been threatened by all sides, but he’s carried out his work regardless, and I think the authorities just can’t handle that,” says Human Rights Watch’s Carina Tertsakian. Mbonimpa was also a leading critic of Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term in office.

 

Whether by coincidence or design, there’s something ominous about the symmetry of these assassination attempts. It’s hard to escape the feeling that they presage a new and disturbing chapter. “Up until now I’ve been resisting the more alarmist interpretations of what’s been going on, but in the last few days the situation is really spinning out of control. These two dramatic and quite shocking incidents are a sign that the violence is likely to escalate,” says Tertsakian.

Her fears are echoed by the International Crisis Group’s Thierry Vircoulon. “The re-election of Nkurunziza has put Burundi on the path of war,” he says. “It sent the signal to the opposition that there is nothing left to negotiate and all they can do is to accept his ‘victory’. As a result, the opposition is trying to unite on the political front (with the creation of an opposition coalition in Addis Ababa) and some parts of the opposition have opted for the armed struggle and decided to strike at the top of the Burundian regime’s power system. The change of the pattern of violence, from street demonstrations to targeted assassinations is a clear sign of things to come.”

Intervention

While the signs aren’t good, it’s important to note that the violence is still relatively small-scale and targeted. Burundi has yet to become the bloodbath some have been predicting. Comparisons with Rwanda in 1994 remain off the mark – for now.

“What you see now is really very similar to what you saw following [the] 2010 elections. But concern is that you have high-level targets, compared to mid to low-level targets previously,” says Yolande Bouka, senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies. “Until you see an escalation of violence in the street or in up-country violence, then we’re not at the worst-case scenario.

Naturally, attention turns to what comes next, and specifically what can be done to prevent that worst-case scenario. Options are dangerously limited for the international community, which remains reluctant to be drawn into a costly, open-ended military intervention.

Moreover, it is hamstrung by its reliance on Burundian soldiers to keep the peace in Somalia. Amisom, the African Union Mission in Somalia, has sent 22,000 peacekeepers from around the continent to fight against al-Shabaab – and more than 5,000 of these are from Burundi.

If Nkurunziza withdrew these troops or Burundi’s membership of the African Union was suspended, it would be a major blow for Amisom, the continent’s flagship peacekeeping operation. The chances of finding any country willing and able to replace this commitment at short notice is slim. As the AU and the international community considers how to deal with Burundi, they must also consider how any action taken against Nkurunziza will negatively affect Somalia.

To complicate matters, the measures that are being taken are failing: neither the regional East African Community nor the chief mediator, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, have been able to make any headway in negotiations. And while the African Union has been vocal in its condemnation of the assassination attempts, its military observers – deployed only late last month – have been powerless to prevent the violence.

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The last word goes to Burundian journalist Domitille Kiramvu, who reported for Deutsche Welle until she was forced out by the violence. In a moving op-ed for the German news organisation, she describes just how chaotic the situation remains – and, in these circumstances, how easily power comes and goes: “In such choppy waters, more or less everybody believes they can lay their hand on the tiller. Former henchmen who helped create the repugnant apparatus of repression now cloak themselves in innocence. Former politicians choose to remember their past deeds in a positive light, forgetting that the people rejected them for their authoritarian and tyrannical excesses. New arrivals to Burundian politics promise everybody everything... One can only hope that with the passage of time, political realism will triumph over the villainy, egotism and thoughtless speculation.”

 

A version of this article originally appeared Daily Maverick