Arusha Agreement

Sixteen years after the signing of the Arusha Agreement, opinions differ about the place of the text in the country’s political life.

Frédéric Bamvuginyumvira: “The CNDI aims to bury Arusha”

“The ruling party CNDD-FDD is trying to hide behind the people it cheated. The same people who are paralyzed by fear are used to amend the Constitution which is the emanation from the Arusha Agreement through the exclusive dialogue involving only the followers of the ruling party. “What matters to Nkurunziza, is to arrogate to himself the power to rule for life”, said Frédéric Bamvuginyumvira, the chairman of Sahwanya Frodebu, one of the main opposition parties, on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of the signing of the Arusha Agreement.

Bamvuginyumvira accuses the ruling party of having never believed in the Arusha Agreement. “The CNDD-FDD party never bothered about the reconciliation of Burundians, their equality according to the law …” For him, “the party of the eagle” has never accepted to leave power even at the risk of the country’s implosion.

He recognizes that there are flaws to amend in the Burundian Constitution, “but not right now”, he said.
Bamvuginyumvira suggests as a solution “the fight” for the preservation of the Arusha Peace Agreement and the entire Constitution resulting from it. “Whether we die or not, it is the only medicine that can cure us, for the time being”, he said.

Bamvuginyumvira returned to the statement of Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan president and current chairman of the sub-regional initiative for peace and reconciliation in Burundi. “This Burundian agreement has two main goals. The first one is to allow people from Hutu ethnic group who were discriminated from having access to power while they are the substantial majority in the country. But since the Tutsi ethnic group people are the minority, the Arusha Agreement must protect them, no one has the right to exterminate them for the fact they are the minority. ”

Jérèmie Minani: “Help rescue the Arusha Agreement!”

Jérémie Minani

“We appeal to Burundians, the East African Community, the African Union (AU), the United Nations and all other bilateral and multilateral partners of Burundi who had sponsored this Agreement to intervene and rescue the Arusha Agreement. This alarm call was launched by Jérèmie Minani on behalf of the opposition platform, Cnared (the National Council for the restoration of the Arusha Agreement and the State of Law) on 29 August after sixteen years the Arusha Agreement was signed. “All these actors have to work together to prevent the current regime from giving rise to another dimension with an ethnic conflict that could trigger genocide in the Great Lakes region”, he said.

According to him, this commemoration comes at a time where there is a systematic destruction of the agreement that had put an end to a decade of civil war. He concluded: “By rushing in its plan to bury the Arusha Agreement, Bujumbura has become a threat to peace in Burundi and in the sub-region.”

Tatien Sibomana: “CNDD-FDD wants to shatter the Arusha Agreement”

Tatien Sibomana

The spokesperson of the Union for the National Progress –UPRONA party, a wing which is not officially recognized by the Burundian government regrets that instead of consolidating the achievements of the agreement, which allowed peace restoration, the ruling party wants to do away with that Arusha Peace Agreement.

“The recent results of the National Commission for an Inter-Burundian Dialogue (CNDI) testify the avowed will of the ruling party’s followers to make it obsolete and then change the Constitution at the right time”, he said.

According to Sibomana, besides constituting themselves into a party-state, CNDD-FDD began to practice the “theory of the clean slate»

“Look at what is happening in the army with the abduction of Tutsi soldiers from all sides. This is a purge that has no other purpose than breaking with the equilibrium agreed upon in the Arusha Peace Agreement. ”

He concluded by saying that if nothing is done to end ethno-political differences, no doubt that the whole country will plunge into war with the risk of reliving bereavement periods like before.

Jean de Dieu Mutabazi “The Constitution overrides the Arusha Agreement»

According to Jean de Dieu Mutabazi, the chairman of Radebu, one of the political parties close to the ruling party, “politics is dynamic”. The generations are changing. The Arusha Agreement and the Constitution are different from the Bible.” For him, the national and international opinion must remember that the Arusha Agreement remains an important reference text but that the Constitution adopted by referendum must be more considered than the former.

The Arusha Agreement was signed by politicians while the Constitution was voted by the people. He added that only the political class of the moment and elected officials can influence the laws governing the society.