Mandela mediates to end African Genocide in Burundi by James Astill The Age 11:54am 2nd May, 2003   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. 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."    - agencies Visit the related web page
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