ONAPITO EKOMOLOIT TO THE POINT:

Dec 12, 2002

WHEN the latest peace deal between the Burundi government and a key rebel group does bear fruit, as it looks likely, its architect, President Yoweri Museveni, will deserve his prize.

The Peace Deal For Burundi
WHEN the latest peace deal between the Burundi government and a key rebel group does bear fruit, as it looks likely, its architect, President Yoweri Museveni, will deserve his prize.
The chairman of the Great Lakes Initiative on Peace on Burundi left observers at the negotiations venue in Arusha, Tanzania, amazed when it all happened on December 2.
Piecing the deal took 30 hours of marathon negotiations and two sleepless nights. To the President’s aides, used to his mid-night candle burning routine, it was business as usual. But for the rest — other heads of state, delegates, multi-national observers and journalists — it was a first-hand lesson in the untiring ways of the Ugandan leader.
On paper, the negotiations, featuring Burundi President Pierre Buyoya and another Pierre — Nkuruzinza, leader of the rebel Forces of the Defence of Democracy (FDD-CNDD) — were supposed to be wrapped up in six hours (10am - 4pm), Sunday, December 1. Museveni, a master at sideline deals at negotiations, set out to expedite the process early in the day. He knew that for the 19th Summit on Burundi to be concluded fast enough, key actors needed to iron out contentious issues before hand.
Time check: 10.00am. Place: Arusha Novotel:
Chairman Museveni kicks off informal consultations with key actors.
At issue is making the intransigent FDD-CNDD see wisdom in it signing a ceasefire agreement with the Buyoya-led national transitional government, leading to power sharing, as per the earlier Arusha Accord among Burundi groups.
Time check: 5pm: The official hour for concluding the one-day summit is past, but there is no agreement yet. Chairman Museveni decides the endless summits without a concrete deal must stop, so the negotiations must continue.
The scene of action shifts from Novotel to the Arusha International Conference Centre. As the heads of states file into the conference centre, a ripple of hope sweeps through the assembled audience that the signing ceremony will be before nightfall.
But alas! Behind closed doors in the consultation room at the AICC, chairman Museveni takes on the Buyoya side and the rebels, first separately, then later jointly, in the presence of other heads of state.
Both sides are digging in over various issues, some flimsy, but others pretty serious, such as whether both the rebels and Buyoya side should demobilise their armies, paving way for a united national army?
Meanwhile, the anxious audience in the main hall waits eyes fixed on the VIP entrance, hoping for the chairman and his team to come and announce a deal. But as the hours wear on, people start shuttling in and out of the hall, fatigue and hunger setting in.
One Tanzanian observer bitterly complains about all Burundians being up to no good, wondering how they can waste the time of a President like Museveni, who has more important things to do, such as ending terrorism in northern Uganda.
But inside the
consultation hall,
chairman Museveni is neither desperate in body nor in mind. He remains fresh as sleep starts claiming others, one by one-including other heads of state.
Out in the main hall too, sleep is becoming public enemy No 1. Heads are jerking back and forth, as the assembled slowly but steadily succumb, some sprawling down on the carpet for a nap.
Time check 2am: Finally word comes through that there is no deal and it has to be called a day. The talks will continue during daylight of Monday, December 2. By this time, all the other heads of state, except Mkapa, Zuma and chairman Museveni, have singed off from the talks all together.
Daylight negotiations begin in earnest, at around 10.00am at the AICC, with the assembled hoping all will be done by lunchtime. Indeed by around 12 noon, the chairman, other heads of state and the two Burundi sides finally troop into the main hall for the agreement signing ceremony.
But just as everyone is breathing a sigh of relief, the rebel side drops a bomb! After reading through the agreement, Nkurunziza decides what is in the text is not what they agreed to, so he cannot sign!
Subsequently, chairman Museveni announces to the audience that there are complications so the proceedings are adjourned to allow further consultations. Gloom falls on the room, as people walk out, murmuring and cursing the Burundians.
The adjournment becomes so indefinite that by 8pm all hope of a settlement seems to have dissipated from the minds of others except chairman Museveni.
Time check 10pm: The jostling at the AICC gives way to private, one on one, consultations at the chairman’s suit at Novotel.
As the vigil by the crowd of journalists, observers and delegates that has significantly thinned goes on at Novotel, it is only at about 1am that word comes through that it is finally going to be a deal!
Still, it is not until 3am that the protagonists finally pen their
signatures to the historic ceasefire agreement, which will officially
come into effect on December 31.
It is possible that some elements among the protagonists had wanted to fail the Arusha talks by time wasting. But in Museveni, the master of protracted struggles, they met their match. Ends

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