The InterDependent

BUJUMBURA—A decade and a half ago, the world looked on—unwilling and unable to help—as genocide swept through the villages and towns of Burundi and Rwanda. In 1993 in Burundi, as many as 25,000 were massacred—an even which ignited a brutal seven-year war. A year later in Rwanda, 80,000 perished. The international community watched and did little.

These days, however, something incredible is happening in the birthplace of the anti-genocide slogan “Never again.” Burundi in particular has become not just an example but an exemplar of the good that international engagement can do in a post-conflict setting. Over the last decade, a cadre of diplomats, NGOs and UN agencies have used a powerful mix of inducements and pressures to improve security, increase political openness, guarantee human rights and ensure justice for past crimes.

In a world in which stories of failed (or incomplete) international engagement are rife, Burundi’s example stands out. Its quiet success could offer lessons for places as diverse as Libya, Syria and Cote d’Ivoire. But Burundi’s story also matters more than ever back at home. In recent months, human rights abuses have been on the rise, press freedom has been curtailed and there are signs that political violence may return in pockets to the countryside. If, how and when the international community engages could determine the course of what comes next.

UN Photo/Martine Perret

Ex-combatants are airlifted by helicopters from the United Nations Operation in Burundi as part of a disarmament program, 2005

International engagement in Burundi began in force in 2000, after a peace deal signed in Arusha, Tanzania, ended that country’s decade-long civil war. When the fighting was quelled, assistance began to pour in. Aid jumped from just $83 million 1997 to $563 million by 2009—a growth of seven-fold. The results were clear within a matter of years. The population’s health and access to services grew; life expectancy, for example, jumped 10 years between 1990 and 2009. Meanwhile, the United Nations sent 5,600 peacekeepers to monitor the calm, disarm the rebels, and allow the first elections to move forward in 2005.

Simultaneous to the aid, the diplomatic core—particularly the UN mission based there—began an intensive dialogue with the government on everything from human rights to security reform. When even after the blue helmets left in 2006, a special representative from the UN Security General’s office and an independent expert from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights continued to engage. Both representatives briefed the UN Security Council on their findings—good and bad—and publically called for positive change.

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The examples of concrete changes brought about through this diplomacy abound, but perhaps the most intriguing is the formation of an Independent Human Rights Commission that just opened its doors this summer.

As recently as September 2010, the Burundian government looked loathe to pass legislation to create the commission, mandated by the peace accords. In a report back to UN headquarters that month, the independent expert for human rights noted “with preoccupation that the process of creation an independent commission for human rights seems close to death.” That denouncement—and calls on the government to accelerate the process—eventually led to a draft law. At first, the legislation failed to meet international standards and didn’t ensure full independence of the commission, civil society organizations here in Burundi say. By the time it was passed, changes had been made to alleviate these concerns. And the difference again was largely international pressure; the UN and other diplomats didn’t let the issue drop from their discussion—and eventually the changes followed.

The international help hasn’t stopped there. When the commission opened its doors this summer, it had almost no funding (the staff went unpaid for months) and even less capacity to begin the host of investigations awaiting its attention. “The UN helped us a lot because they knew we were starting from zero,” said the Commission’s lead commissioner, Emmanuel Ntakarutimana. “They made a team of experts available to us and that team is still working with us.”

Funding came through international engagement, too. The law creating the commission had stipulated that only government funds could pay for operational expenses like salaries. But when Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International began decrying the implication—that there would be no money for the commission until the next fiscal year—the parliament amended the law, says Ntakarutimana. The European Commission and the Swiss government, among others, sent much-needed funds.

Civil society leaders now hope that the United Nations can pull off a similar feat in amending draft legislation for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “There are specific concerns [about the TRC],” said a Western diplomat who was not authorized to speak on the record. “But these are still early days. The international community had some concerns when the Independent Commission [for Human Rights] was first tabled, and it changed a great deal.”

More broadly, the international eyes on Burundi have also helped keep the civic environment more open than it might perhaps otherwise be, says Bob Rugurika, director of Public Radio Africa (RPA), one of three independent stations in Burundi. Press freedom has been a particular concern in recent years. “We [journalists] have always been in danger…but luckily, [the government] realized that the international community was following the situation.” He continued, “The government doesn’t have very much money—and they know that if they imprison journalists, they will have difficulty with their [international] financing.”

As Rugurika suggests, one of the keys of making international pressure work so far has been the very dependence that Burundi has on donors to help it pays its bills. As the Burundi government begins to collect more revenue and the economy kicks back into gear, diplomats may have to find other ways to catch officials’ attention. For the moment, however, that day seems quite a ways off. About half the government’s budget is now dependent on aid.

In fact, what seems more likely is that the international community itself could lose interest, distracted by economic crises at home and assuaged by the progress Burundi has seen so far. The UN independent expert for human rights’ mandate has just expired, and the UN office is more broadly starting to think about closing its doors. In 2012, the British Department for International Development will cease its operations in the country; other multilateral donors are considering the same. So real is the threat of mass exodus that a group of European NGOs, EurAc, issued a statement in October warning of the possible harm: “Burundi has passed important milestones on the path to peace, but the page of the conflict has not yet been definitively turned. Loyal support from external partners remains necessary.”

Indeed, the road ahead for Burundi looks far from clear. Over the last year, there is alarming evidence that certain members of the opposition have made moves to rearm. Simultaneously, the government has slowly closed the political space, summoning opposition and civil society leaders to court and harassing and imprisoning journalists.

"[Burundi has] continued to make progress in consolidating peace,” said UN special representative Karin Landgren. “[But] there have been recent negative developments—particularly the continuation of arbitrary arrests and assassinations of opposition figures, as well as reliable reports of recruitment, mobilization and training by some opposition groupings—that could threaten that progress.”

These are precisely the sorts of issues where the international community has made a difference in the past—and could do so again. Not just in Burundi, either.