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afrol.com, 4 March - Violence returned back to Bujumbura and Burundi last week, as Hutu militias attacked government forces around the capital this week. Over 40 persons have been killed and an estimated 53,000 people have fled their home in the fiercest clashes in Burundi for many years. Rebel attacks on Bujumbura now go on their ninth day. Rebels of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) started their attacks on northern and eastern suburbs of the capital Bujumbura on Saturday 24 February. Government forces immediately responded with armoured vehicles, with little success in the first days of fighting. A senior FNL commander told news organisations "this is the beginning of a huge offensive on all of Bujumbura. We are advancing and we are going to take the town." About the further plans of the FNL he said "our aim is the whole country." On Wednesday 28 February, the Burundian army claimed that it has repulsed the rebel attack on Bujumbura, and retaken control of the city's suburbs. Reports from the Kinama suburb however rapidly demonstrated that the army's announcement had been premature. "It is a joke what the army is saying," a senior rebel commander told Reuters news agency. "We are still in Kinama and we expect to progress further," he added. The shooting from Kinama could be heard all over town. Fresh reports from Bujumbura confirm that the FNL today (Sunday, 4 March) still is in control of the northern suburb of Kinama. The BBC today reported that Bujumbura authorities "have extended a night time curfew as Hutu rebels continued their attack". The FNL seem to be consolidating their hold on the suburb. According to UN source, the fighting has led to the displacement of as many as 53,000 civilians and the reported deaths of some 40 people. According to local reports, the fighting is preventing many casualties from being transported to hospitals and the death toll may be much higher. This comes at a time when the humanitarian situation is still critical after earlier fighting and displacements. UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had expressed concern that the fighting would "exacerbate a precarious humanitarian situation in which the incidents of malaria and malnutrition has already reached alarming proportions." Annan said he was "deeply dismayed at the outbreak of renewed fighting in Burundi," and called "for an immediate end to the fighting, and respect for international humanitarian and human rights law." On Friday 2 March, the UN Security Council repeated Mr. Annan's concerns and protest, "strongly condemning" the attacks launched by the FNL. In the statement, the Council noted that the timing of those actions was of particular concern since they were launched during a meeting of parties to the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement (the Arusha Agreement) on Burundi, convened by facilitator Nelson Mandela on 25 February in Arusha, Tanzania. The FNL is one of the few Burundi militias that have not signed the Arusha Agreement. The Security Council condemned "the deliberate targeting of the civilian population by the armed groups and called upon all parties to refrain from any further military action that would endanger the civilian population." It also called on all parties, including the armed groups, to engage in dialogue immediately, so as to allow an early cessation of hostilities and agreement to be reached on a permanent ceasefire. Despite of the international calls for peace, reconciliation and respect of the civilians, the fights have gone on with undiminished strength. The humanitarian situation reportedly is worsening while none of the fighting parties seems to consider the humanitarian situation. Local humanitarian groups even accuse government troops of unwillingness to provide a safe corridor to evacuate civilians from the suburbs where the fights go on. The government has however appealed to Western aid agencies to help people displaced by the fighting. Background The political crisis following the coup lasted until early 1994 when parliament elected another Hutu as president, Cyprien Ntaryamira. President Ntaryamira was however killed in a plane crash in April 1994, where also the Rwandan president was killed. The killing of the Rwandan president sparked off the Rwandan genocide, where up to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. In Burundi, violence was kept on a lower level, avoiding the Rwandan massacres. In October 1994, another "moderate Hutu, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, was appointed president in an attempt to avoid the Rwandan crisis. The pact was however short lived, as the former Tutsi ruling party pulled out of the government. By 1996, political confrontations had again turned into ethnic violence, and both Hutu and Tutsi extremist groups attacked civilians. With these renewed atrocities, the international community, by the UN and the OAU, stepped into the scene and encouraged a peace settlement. A new setback to the peace process came in July 1996, when Tutsi Major Pierre Buyoya seized power in a bloodless coup. Burundi's neighbour states immediately imposed economic sanctions on the country, trying to force President Buyoya to restore democracy. The sanctions remain, but there has been little progress in returning to a democratically elected government, which would mean handling over power to the Hutu majority. The Arusha negotiations have sought to find a power-sharing model for the two groups, but have not been able to include all parties, in particular the extremist Hutu militias like the FNL. Although there have been continuous fighting in the country since the coup of Buyoya, it has been on a lower level. The attacks on Bujumbura February/March 2001 involve the heaviest fighting in Burundi since 1996. All in all, an estimated 200,000 people have died in Burundi's civil war between 1994 and 2001. Despite all efforts by the international community, the peace process has made little progress. The security and humanitarian situation has continued to deteriorate, although calls for the dismantling of government regrouping camps resulted in a commitment by the Government of Burundi to do so in January 2000, and the dismantling process had commenced by February of that year. The facilitator of the Burundi peace process, appointed by African heads of State, is former South African President Nelson Mandela. Further, in January 2000, the UN Secretary-General appointed Berhanu Dinka (Ethiopia) as his Special Representative for the Great Lakes region. Intensive efforts by Mr. Mandela led, on 28 August 2000, in Arusha, Tanzania, to the signing of a Peace and Reconciliation Agreement by most of the parties. Mr. Mandela, supported by the United Nations and by statements from the Security Council, has since made efforts to encourage those Burundi movements and groups that have not signed the agreement to sign it. The humanitarian suffering in Burundi has continued unabated, according to UN sources. Hundreds of thousands have died as a result of the conflict between Government and rebel forces, and the number of Burundian refugees had reached 500,000 and is growing. More than 800,000 people - 12 per cent of the population - were internally displaced even before the renewed fighting began. By Rainer Chr. Hennig, afrol.com
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