http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=132&fArticleId=390564
Fear of violence as polls near
April 2, 2004
By Beauregard Tromp
Crucial elections are looming in Burundi but the country is showing no signs of being ready for them.
Fighting between government and rebel armies is intensifying and people are still suffering from murder, rape, pillage, and looting as the soldiers of both sides advance and retreat through their villages.
The 1 500 South African soldiers who form the backbone of an African peacekeeping force in the country are facing growing risks.
This was the warning given in Pretoria this week by independent experts based on first-hand observations in Burundi .
They said government troops, bolstered by former Hutu rebels from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy - now in the government - have launched waves of attacks on the Forces for National Liberation (FNL) led by Agathon Rwasa.
The FNL, also mainly Hutu, is the only rebel group not to have joined the transitional, power-sharing agreement which has been assembled through SA mediation, starting with the Arusha Agreement.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma has been battling for over two years to get all the rebels to lay down arms and join the government.
Recently the FNL met Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye in January in the Netherlands and both sides agreed to meet again. But nothing has happened. It is understood that some mediators believe the FNL is feigning interest in negotiations as a way of relieving military pressure on itself and that it will eventually have to be defeated in battle.
South African military intelligence sources have previously dismissed the FNL as a group of "deranged Jehovah's Witnesses", suggesting that they do not believe they can negotiate with them.
Burundi is nearing the end of a three-year transitional government in which majority Hutus and minority Tutsis share equal power. Elections for a final government in which power will no longer be shared ethnically are on October 31.
But with the FNL still fighting and numerous other issues regarding stability left outstanding, many Burundians want the elections postponed.
They believe the October 31 deadline is intensifying conflict by raising fears and tensions.
Independent mediator and analyst Jan van Eck indicated that if elections were to take place as planned the country could well sink back into total turmoil.
The last time elections took place in Burundi the elected president was assassinated, sparking off the massacres of tens of thousands of people across the country.