Burundi

Allow me first of all to associate myself with previous speakers in expressing to you, Sir, and to the members of the Bureau, my delegation's warm congratulations on your election to lead us in the General Assembly at this session. You can count on our total support for the accomplishment of your difficult task. I would also like to express my appreciation to your predecessor, Mr. Didier Opertti, for the skill and competence he exhibited during his mandate. I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga on having joined the great family of the United Nations. Finally, allow me to pay tribute to the work of Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of our Organization, for his ceaseless efforts in favour of international peace and security. My country, Burundi, fully appreciates his valuable contribution to the search for a negotiated political solution to the crisis it has suffered since October 1993. As the work of the current session of the General Assembly is taking place, my country is striving to turn a new page in its history. Burundis have decidedly chosen dialogue and negotiation to put an end to the armed conflict that has lasted for almost six years. The Arusha peace talks that began in June 1998 under the aegis of the former President of the sisterly country of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, are being actively pursued and are now at a crucial stage. The sixth round of the Arusha peace talks, which ended a few days ago, was preceded by fruitful consultations held in Dar-Es-Salaam among the six principal negotiators aimed at reaching a compromise 23 based on the drafts submitted by the negotiating parties or groups of parties. These consultations, which represent the keystone of the peace process, should resume on 4 October. We hope that this time they will have tangible results that could serve as a basis for the final Arusha agreement. Let me briefly recall the specific context in which the Arusha process was initiated in June 1998: five years of relentless fratricidal war between the rebels and the Government, in which the principal victims had been, as they continue to be, hundreds of thousands of innocent children, women and elderly people, for the most part unarmed. More than 30 years of massacres and killings have torn asunder the very fabric of society and resulted in entrenched hatred and extreme mistrust among the various ethnic and political groups. Repeated crises have resulted in massive flows of refugees and a major diaspora. Furthermore, economic development plans have been consistently hamstrung by recurring political instability. It was in that context that the Government objectively and deliberately decided to abandon the logic of war and to choose political dialogue in which all the people of Burundi could participate without exception, regardless of the manner — peaceful or armed — in which they previously had chosen to make their political demands. The armed groups were a particular focus of this dialogue, and it was mainly because of them that the negotiations were held outside the country. The goal is to reach a comprehensive peace agreement and ultimately achieve full national reconciliation among the entire population of Burundi, without exception. Several obstacles continue to stand in the way of that lofty goal, which will not be attained if timely efforts are not made to overcome those challenges. The first obstacle is the failure of the armed rebel factions to participate in the negotiations. Differences of opinion within those movements, where the armed groups no longer recognize the authority of the political leaders who are participating in the Arusha negotiations and thus reject the outcome ahead of time, have resulted in a situation in which the validity and viability of any peace agreement reached without those parties would be in doubt. The Government of Burundi believes that it is imperative to set aside the formalities advocated by the mediators and to invite the armed factions to participate fully in the peace process. The Government of Burundi is willing to consider any form of negotiation with them, within or outside the process. Mediation should take place immediately, because we are working against the clock in this fragile peace process, which could be jeopardized or brought to a halt by events. If, after being invited, the armed factions or other parties to the negotiations refuse to participate in the peace process, we would agree with the mediators that Burundi, in close and steadfast cooperation with its neighbours, must isolate and neutralize the rebels or other parties that are unwilling to participate in the negotiations. The second obstacle is the continuing violence. In other crisis situations, political dialogue for conflict settlement is preceded by a ceasefire or a suspension of hostilities. In the case of Burundi, however, that necessary condition for negotiation has been neglected since the beginning, as if it were optional. The Government draws to the attention of the subregion and of the international community the serious and continuing acts of violence committed by the rebels despite the ongoing peace negotiations. These unrestrained and cowardly acts of violence, whose main target is unarmed civilians, have no moral or political justification. No one even claims responsibility; it is pure terrorism. If the rebels were eventually to use as a pretext the fact that they had wished to participate in the negotiations, it would have no validity because, as I have just stated, the Government is open to any initiative that might lead to the cessation of the hostilities, which have gone on for far too long. The situation is serious, and the Government of Burundi requests the international and regional communities to help it in the following ways. First, through effective cooperation with neighbouring countries in the area of security, including with the Republic of Tanzania, with which cooperation decisions were taken at the ministerial level on two occasions, in February and August 1999; those decisions have not been implemented. There is no doubt that if those decisions were translated into joint action on the ground, both external and internal rebel activities would soon cease. Secondly, it is necessary to disarm and neutralize those Burundi rebels who are active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they are able to obtain a ready supply of arms and ammunition for their bases in Tanzania, as they have not been able to re-establish those 24 they lost in South Kivu in 1997 after the first war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Thirdly, the countries of the region must wage a common struggle against transnational rebel movements, arms trafficking and genocidal ideology. Those movements have created alliances without borders. Among the rebels who operate in Burundi are the Interahamwe, the former Rwandan armed forces and Ugandan rebels, among others. The Burundi rebellion has become regional in scope and must be combated from that perspective. Intensified activity has been noted on the part of the factions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the Lusaka agreement, which provided for their disarmament. The conflict is thus being regionalized, with Burundi and/or Tanzania as its epicentre. Prevention is better than cure. There is a real risk of another regional conflagration resulting from the countries concerned taking measures to protect themselves against these widespread rebellions. In any case, the Government will find it difficult to sign the peace agreement if it is not preceded by an effective halt to the violence on the ground. The population, parts of which are still being massacred, would simply reject it. The third — although not the least significant — obstacle to the peace process is the extreme poverty that threatens the people of Burundi with social and economic annihilation. That poverty is not the result of a reduction in agricultural production, which has continued somehow thanks to the hard-working nature of our countryfolk. Nor is it the result of the embargo imposed by the countries of the region, since economic and financial cooperation with those countries was and still is very limited. It results above all from the freezing of bilateral and multilateral cooperation by certain partners, countries and financial institutions in line with the economic sanctions imposed by the subregion. Those regional sanctions were suspended on 23 January this year, and Burundi expected that, mutatis mutandis, our international partners would resume their cooperation in conformity with the subregional action. That has not yet happened, and some financial institutions, which anticipate no practical problems, are blocked by their shareholders at the political level. It is said that we will have to wait for the signing, or even the implementation, of the Arusha Agreement. Peace and national reconciliation in Burundi will not be restored through revolution. It is a process that will be consolidated over time. Nothing spectacular will happen the day the peace agreement is signed. It is progressive reform activities, taking place as a result of courageous and determined political will, that will stabilize the country over the months and years following the signing of the agreement. All the parties involved in the negotiations agrees that peace will be not an event, but a process. Furthermore, the rate at which negotiations proceed will not be subject to the Government’s control; it will be linked to the procedures followed by the mediators and to the willingness of the 17 other parties to the negotiations to place the national interest above all else, to distinguish between what is essential and what is of secondary importance, and to realize that the true road to peace will begin after the signing of the Arusha Agreement, among the citizens of Burundi themselves. The Government of Burundi calls on its partners to reassess the situation and consider the realities on the ground as a matter of great urgency. The extreme stress under which the population has been suffering for six years is pushing it towards a popular uprising. The responsibility lies with the international community, which is committed in this respect. The Government has provided all it can: proof of its irreversible political will to negotiate until a peace agreement is reached. The Great Lakes region has become a real powder keg because of the persistence of insecurity. With regard to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi welcomes the signing in July of the Lusaka Peace Agreement. We call on all the parties to that conflict to continue to make efforts to restore a climate of dialogue, trust and reconciliation, so that energy can be concentrated on actions aimed at economic recovery and development. Burundi is not a belligerent in the war that is pitting the Democratic Republic of the Congo against some of its neighbours. The Government of Burundi has already had the opportunity to explain that fact to the international community on several occasions in various forums, including from this lofty rostrum last year; in Lusaka, where it participated in all the meetings as an observer and as one of the countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of the Congo that were concerned about the security of their common border; and in meetings of the Organization of African Unity. Listening to the statement made in this Assembly by the Chairman of the delegation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 29 September, I was astonished by his confusion and the degree of malice he expressed towards my country, Burundi. I should like to respond by making several comments. 25 First, Burundi is not at war with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, either individually or in alliance with any other party. Second, Burundi has no reason to be at war with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is true that it is poor and that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is rich. But Burundi has never wanted, does not want, and will never want to live off the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It will develop a policy of normal cooperation with that country, as has always been the case, in particular within the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries. Furthermore, the trading arrangements that exist between the border towns and border provinces do not cause Burundi any problems and should continue. Third, Burundi has no political ambitions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at either the central or the provincial level. Fourth, Burundi had just signed an agreement for cooperation on border security when war broke out. Fifth, Burundi has adopted an attitude of strict neutrality with regard to the conflict, and has no interest in it. Sixth, several months after war broke out Burundi was informed of the presence among the Congolese troops of the armed Burundi rebel movement, the FDD. Burundi’s assessment was that the FDD had a threefold objective: first, to obtain arms and munitions to strengthen their bases in Tanzania; secondly, to cross Lake Tanganyika and recover the bases they had lost in south Kivu facing the capital, Bujumbura, and the provinces of Bubanza and Cibitoke, where the civil war broke out in 1994; and, thirdly, to obstruct trade on Lake Tanganyika to and from Burundi through the port of Mpulungu in Zambia, which is the only import-export corridor remaining following the economic blockade imposed by the region in an attempt to suffocate the country. Seventh, Burundi had to defend itself, and decided to adopt necessary border defence and security measures on land and on Lake Tanganyika in order to counter-attack the FDD rebels. It was a question of life or death. Those measures will remain in place as long as the threat of insecurity caused by the FDD, and coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, remains. That is the absolute truth. The allegations made by the delegation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo that Burundi is acting aggressively towards their country, are groundless and based on invention and misinformation. Burundi is ready to do all it can to help to resolve the conflict. It welcomes in particular the fact that two military observers were sent to Burundi in the framework of the pre-deployment exercise decided upon by the United Nations. Burundi cannot fail to welcome the prospects for a final resolution of the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which would immediately remove the threat of insecurity at the common border and, we hope, involve the FDD rebels in the peace process in Burundi. At this final General Assembly session of the millennium, my delegation hails the giant steps taken by mankind in science and technology, information and communication, democracy and development — especially during the twentieth century, which is now drawing to a close. At the same time, we deplore the scourges that have marked this century, such as all manner of wars and conflicts and a range of evils and natural or man-made catastrophes. Our greatest wish is that the new millennium will bolster our achievements and add new triumphs for the well-being of the whole of mankind. We want to see in the next millennium a world in which peace will prevail over conflict, justice over injustice and impunity, freedom over oppression and generosity over selfishness. We seek the creation of a world in which the gap between rich countries and poor countries will be bridged; a world in which all men and all women will live decent lives, work in peace and eat their fill; a world in which the concepts of freedom, democracy, brotherhood and development can have true meaning in every corner of the earth. For all peoples and all nations to set about attaining these purposes, the United Nations must play the role of vanguard and catalyst to generate and maximize all the necessary energy. The key to such success is, first and foremost, peace. The peace that we desire for Africa we also want to see benefitting all mankind everywhere on earth.