Leaders from several African countries meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, to discuss trade and the civil war in Burundi, have chosen former South African President Nelson Mandela to facilitate the Burundi peace process. Mandela will replace former Tanzanian President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who died of leukemia last October.

According to Reuters, the African leaders urged "Mandela to move quickly to end the violence" that has devastated this tiny central-African country. The leaders also called on all parties to the Burundi conflict to seek a "negotiated settlement" to end the civil war.

News of Mandela's appointment was welcomed by Burundi's government and one of the 18 opposition parties in Burundi. In a statement sent to the UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), Hutu rebels fighting to overthrow the government rejected Mandela's involvement in the Burundi peace process. They accused South Africa of providing military assistance to the government of Burundi.

Many analysts familiar with the conflict in Burundi doubt that Mandela's appointment will bring an end to the war in that country. "It will be difficult to involve the rebels in the talks," Reuters quoted one regional analyst. Other news organizations report that the peace process may not move forward because the rebels were not consulted about the appointment of Mandela.

A former Belgian colony, Burundi became independent in 1962. The country is divided along ethnic lines Hutus, Tutsis, and Twas. Hutus make up the majority of the population, but the Tutsi minority has for centuries controlled all the power, including the army and the government.

Fighting in Burundi erupted in 1993 between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated army after Tutsi soldiers killed Melchior Ndadaye, Burundi's first-ever democratically elected president. After the assassination of Ndadaye, who was a Hutu, other Hutus were hunted down and killed by the army. Fearing for their lives, many, including UMC Bishop J. Alfred Ndoricimpa, fled into exile.

Ndadaye was replaced by another Hutu, Cyprien Ndaryamira, who was killed in a mysterious plane crash in 1994 as was Rwanda's President Juvenal Habyarimana. In 1996, Pierre Buyoya, a former Tutsi military officer, overthrew Ndaryamira's replacement also a Hutu.

According to humanitarian sources, more than 300,000 people have been killed since the war started six years ago. Human Rights Watch has reported that both sides in the Burundi conflict have "slaughtered unarmed civilians and carried out other human-rights violations, including arbitrary executions, rape, and torture, . . . pillage and destruction of property." An estimated 20 percent of the population has been displaced since the outbreak of the conflict. Others are scattered throughout refugees camps in neighboring countries. Tanzania holds the largest Hutu refugee population, according to press reports.

The Associated Press reports that "violence has escalated in recent months and has led to the army's forced resettlement of . . . Hutu civilians into camps that international human rights groups have condemned as squalid and unsafe." According to Human Rights Watch, the camps often have "no adequate provision for food, water or health needs." African leaders meeting in Tanzania called on Burundi to dismantle the camps. But, according to reports from IRIN, Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya rejected the leaders' call, saying that the camps are necessary to insure security in the country.

Clashes between the army and the rebels have been stepped up recently. According to the Associated Press, "Burundi's government has repeatedly accused neighboring Tanzania of allowing Hutu rebels to train there and launch cross-border raids against targets in Burundi." Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa has rejected the allegations.

December 13, 1999