BUJUMBURA (dpa) – Nelson Mandela walks slowly and stoops slightly, but still commands respect like a freedom fighter at the height of his powers, not least here in a country scarred by civil war.
The former South African president is being credited with bringing Burundi as close to peace as it has been since 1993, when ethnic Tutsi soldiers assassinated a democratically elected Hutu president, triggering a conflict that has killed an estimated 200,000 people.Not one to take it easy in retirement, Mandela last year agreed to facilitate Burundi’s moribund peace process, which had little to show for more than a dozen all-party meetings under the mediation of the late Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere.By August 2000, the Nobel laureate had arm-twisted reluctant Burundian politicians into signing a power-sharing agreement and this week, he travelled to the Burundi capital to witness the swearing-in of the resulting government of national unity.In a speech, Mandela thanked those who selected him to do what he called “a task that was arduous and often very frustrating and taxing, but at the end was a great honour to be entrusted with.”Some observers had worried that the seemingly intractable situation in the central African nation would send the 83-year-old Mandela to an early grave. Those fears were heightened earlier this year when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.Yet he continued his work, alternately chastising Burundian leaders for being stubborn and urging armed factions to join the peace process.Speaker after speaker took turns during the early November inauguration ceremony to praise Mandela for rescuing Burundi.“Despite his age, he spared no effort to make the peace efford move forward,” said Burundian President Pierre Buyoya, to applause from the audience. “Everybody knows that without his assistance, the peace agreement would not have been signed.”Everyone, that is, except for Mandela himself. He dismissed a suggestion that his influence was the key factor in clinching the deal.“No, no, no, that’s a mistake,” he told reporters. “It is the leaders of Burundi, plus the president here who are responsible for this breakthrough. All that we could do was merely to help them, so that they could reach a settlement as soon as possible.“The spadework was done by former president Nyerere. All of us just put the finishing touches to the work of the real architect of this agreement.”Yet many observers said the peace process had stalled before Nyerere’s death in 1999 and that only a man of Mandela’s stature could have revived it.Mandela is widely admired by Africans both powerful and ordinary for his defiant fight against apartheid in South Africa and for his willingness to step aside as president after just one term in office, a trait shared by few heads of state on the continent.He is “a beacon of hope for all leaders to emulate,” said Ugandan vice president Speciosa Kazibwe. “We are really grateful that he has been able to achieve what has been achieved so far.”On the surface, Burundi’s political situation was not dissimilar from what Mandela struggled against in apartheid-era South Africa.A small minority, the ethnic Tutsis, long controlled the government and military, while Hutus, who make up 85 per cent of the population, were severely disenfranchised.Yet the power imbalance was coloured by repeated ethnic massacres, the most recent of which was the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when a Hutu government led the killings of some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis.Mandela saw the need to allay Burundian Tutsis’ fears that they would suffer the same fate if they released their grip on power, while insisting that moderate Hutus deserved a role in government.His influence was also considered essential in persuading the South African government to send 700 soldiers to Burundi on the country’s first international peacekeeping mission since the end of apartheid.What Mandela has yet to achieve in Burundi is a ceasefire. Armed Hutu rebel groups did not sign last year’s peace accord and have continued to mount deadly armed attacks as well as kidnapping children.But in recent months, they have held parallel talks through other mediators and Mandela has said that rebel leaders told him they are prepared to negotiate with the transitional government.
