Global Policy Forum

By Alex Duval Smith

Nelson Mandela's controversial plan for ending the war in Burundi came close to being permanently derailed yesterday when extremist Tutsi soldiers attempted a coup in the ethnically-riven country just hours before a ceremony to enshrine a power-sharing government with the majority Hutus. Two soldiers were killed and a senior officer wounded in the short-lived take-over attempt in the capital Bujumbura.

The former South African president's latest move, at a summit in Arusha, Tanzania, endorsed the Burundian president, Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, as the leader of the country for the next 18 months, when a Hutu is scheduled to take his place. Hours earlier in Bujumbura, troops opposed to the deal staged their second unsuccessful coup this year.

More than 200,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since 1993 when Tutsi soldiers assassinated the country's first democratically-elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, who was a Hutu. The dynamic of Burundi has parallels with neighbouring Rwanda, which was the scene of genocide by Hutus in 1994.

Last night, one of the leading experts on the Great Lakes region, Jan van Eck, said the power-sharing deal "does not bring us a centimetre closer to a ceasefire''. The analyst, based at the Centre for International Policy Studies in Pretoria, South Africa, said: "There is a major problem because there is substantial resistance amongst the Tutsi community who are against this process. If they are excluded they will continue the war.''

The approach taken by Mr Mandela – who succeeded the late Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere as mediator – has been widely criticised as hurried and for being too narrowly inspired by the South African transition model. Earlier this year, the respected International Crisis Group (ICG) said the Arusha peace agreement was flawed because the leaders of the main rebel groups were not involved in negotiations that led to it, and so are not bound by it.

The Brussels-based ICG also said that Mr Mandela had pushed Tutsi and Hutu leaders to sign the agreement last August even though considerable disagreements remained between them. Mr Mandela chose Mr Buyoya as the first transition president, even though the majority of a group of Tutsi parties (known as the G10) backed a Tutsi officer, Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi, for the role.

The Arusha agreement provides for President Buyoya to govern the country for 18 months from November with a Hutu leader, Domitien Ndayizeye, as his deputy. The two would swap roles at the end of the period for 18 months, after which elections would be staged. The agreement also calls for elections and the creation of an ethnically-mixed army and police force.

In Burundi, leaders of six Tutsi-led parties say Mr Buyoya is soft and will hand too much power to Hutus who will abuse it. Yesterday, the chairman of the pro-Tutsi Raddes party, Joseph Nzeyimana, said: "We do not want a coup. We want to talk. But there is a problem in the Burundi army.''

Last night, in Burundi, rebel troops who were understood to have staged the attempted coup in the early hours of yesterday were reported to be on the run. One report said their principal objective had been to free the leaders of a previous failed coup on 18 April. Speaking at the Arusha summit, the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, one of four African leaders at the one-day summit, said the agreement should prompt Hutu rebels, who have played no part in the peace process so far, to lay down their guns and negotiate. "The groups that are fighting should stop the fighting and join the process," he told a plenary session of the summit.

The Hutu rebels rejected the power-sharing deal between Hutus and Tutsis brokered by Mr Mandela in August last year, and vowed to fight on.

The other parties who endorsed the pact in Arusha were Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, the Tanzanian President, Benjamin Mkapa, and Burundian political parties.

Mr Buyoya said last week that South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal were ready to send peacekeepers to Burundi once a ceasefire had been established. Mr Buyoya, a Tutsi officer, took power in a 1996 coup.