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The process of security transition in Burundi: Challenges in security sector reform and combatant integration

par Nimubona, Julien;Birantamije, Gérard ;Nkurunziza, Joseph
Référence Post-War Security Transitions: Participatory Peacebuilding after Asymmetric Conflicts, Taylor and Francis, page (143-159)
Publication Publié, 2012-01

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Résumé :

Since Burundi gained independence in July 1962, the country has suffered recurring cycles of ethno-political violence (Lemarchand 2006), partly at the hands of a largely mono-ethnic army dominated by the Tutsi minority - specifically from the southern Buriri province - that excluded all other ethnic and regional groups. With the assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye on 21 October 1993, the army became even more antidemocratic, thus significantly increasing political instability and insecurity. The Tutsi political elites used security arguments to justify the army’s ethnic imbalance, which was said to be necessary to protect them from the risk of a genocide that the Hutu majority could organise, as in neighboring Rwanda. Violence erupted between the army and various ‘armed political parties and movements’ (APPM), born out of the national army’s legitimacy crisis and its anti-democratic manoeuvres. The split along ethnic lines was obvious, which is why the Burundian conflict is not defined as an ‘insurrection’ or ‘subversion’, but rather as a ‘civil war’, a violent armed conflict involving fellow citizens (Derriennic 2004). In 1998, a process of multi-party negotiation between Burundians was initiated under the mediation of the former presidents of Tanzania (Julius Nyerere) and South Africa (Nelson Mandela) and later, Jacob Zuma, the current South African president, and was supported by a Regional Peace Initiative on Burundi.1 In August 2000, the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi (known as the ‘Arusha Agreement’) was signed by the government of the Republic of Burundi, the National Assembly of Burundi and 17 political parties of two tendencies: one Tutsi, composed of ten parties known as the ‘G10', and one Hutu, made up of seven parties known as the ‘G7'. However, the main APPMs were not parties to the Arusha Agreement and subsequent negotiations thus followed, leading to ceasefire agreements with the National Council for the Defence of Democracy - Forces for the Defence of Democracy (Conseil National pour la Defense de la Démocratie - Forces de Defense de la Démocratie, CNDD-FDD) in 2003 and finally with the Hutu People’s Liberation Party - National Liberation Front (Parti pour la Libération du Peuple Hutu-Forces Nationales de Libération, Palipehutu-FNL) in 2006. In this study, we focus on the transformation of the defence and security forces, which was a major issue of conflict and was thus at the heart of the peacebuilding process. We start with an analysis of the reforms of the political and institutional framework and the modalities of security sector integration for former rebel fighters before outlining the need for a holistic approach to security transition and highlighting implementation challenges with regard to performance, coherence, ownership, coordination and gender sensitivity; we then conclude with some lessons learnt from the Burundian case. Our methodology is based on the analysis of primary and secondary sources (background documents concerning the reform, international conventions and academic publications) as well as on the direct experience of one of the co-authors as a senior member of the CNDD-FDD, a former armed political movement that has been at the heart of the conflict transformation process and has been running the country since 2005.