EDITORIAL: Oh no, they’ve let Burundi’s people down again

African leaders have let down the people of Burundi by abandoning their earlier resolution to send troops to Burundi to stop the continued targeted killings and the flow of refugees to neighbouring countries.

Their reasoning, as it unfolded at the recently concluded African Union Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa, was that since President Pierre Nkurunziza has refused to allow the deployment of peacekeepers, the AU needs to first send a high-level delegation to continue consultations on possible deployment.

Due to the indecisiveness arising out of shared guilt that a number of other African leaders have also bulldozed their way into third terms, the AU missed the opportunity to prevent a possible genocide.

Now that the African leaders have failed to authorise the deployment of 5,000 troops, the world will have to wait till the next summit in June while the people of Burundi continue to suffer.

As it were, the rest of the world has been waiting for Africa to take decisive action on Burundi since the crisis began in April when President Nkurunziza announced that he was going to contest for a controversial third term.

So when the African Union Peace and Security Council resolved in December last year to send 5,000 African peacekeepers to stop the killings, hope surged that for the first time, the continent was going to be proactive.

Those expectations turned into a mirage as African leaders went back to what they know best — protecting one of their own. However, it is expected that the new AU chairman, Chadian President Idris Deby, is likely to put pressure on his peers to intervene in Burundi.

While the rest of the leaders were busy protecting their vested interests, President Deby came out strongly to remind his fellow leaders that Africa cannot continue to allow the people of Burundi to die in their thousands before responding.

Unlike his predecessor, Robert Mugabe, who did not bestir himself to address the many conflicts in the continent, President Deby has indicated that he is going to be an active chairman. It is also a positive development that the diplomacy on Burundi has moved from the regional to the continental level.

The Burundi government has consistently opposed the idea of a peacekeeping mission on the grounds that the deployment of troops without its express permission would be tantamount to an “invasion force.”

While it makes diplomatic sense to get the consent and co-operation of the Burundi government before deployment, there are indications that the government has no capacity or willingness to stop the killings.

The latest report by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs released at the end of January reveals that there have been a total of 439 deaths since the crisis started in April, 262 arbitrary arrests, and 263 cases of torture and ill-treatment. A total of 239,754 Burundian have sought refuge mainly in Tanzania and Rwanda, while the internally displaced reached 25,081 by the end of January.

The United Nations has also expressed concern that the situation if left to fester could lead to a repeat of the 1993-2005 civil war that killed thousands of civilians.
Africa must help Burundi before it is too late.