Unpacking the Mystery of Mediation in African Peace ... - Swisspeace

Unpacking the Mystery of Mediation in African Peace Processes
rebel groups were not signatories of the Arusha
Accord, signed in 2000.
Mediation Style and Third-Party
Coordination
The regional African states’ most significant initiative
– economic sanctions against the Burundi
government and mediation under the auspices of
Nyerere – suffered, at least initially, from lack of
sufficient Western support. The regional states
clearly pushed the Burundian conflict parties in
the direction of political negotiation. European
and US reservations were based on their belief
that it was necessary to work through moderate
political leaders and that a relaxation of sanctions
would strengthen moderate forces for peace. But
the Burundi government’s military-oriented policies
indicated that relative extremists were largely
in control. This suggested the need for more
rather than less outside pressure, carefully orchestrated
to bring the radical rebel groups into
power-sharing negotiations that could protect
their essential interests. 21
A plethora of non-state mediation organizations
were active in Burundi, including the Carter Center
22 , the Community of Sant’Egidio 23 , The Center
for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) 24 , and Synergies
Africa 25 . Some of these efforts helped to
keep the peace process moving while the official
Arusha talks were stalled, e.g. efforts of
Sant’Egidio in 1997 or by the Swiss Federalism
Institute and Synergies Africa in March 1998.
21 Weissman (1998): op. cit.
22 The Carter Center sponsored talks in 1995 and 1996, cochaired
by Julius Nyerere and Jimmy Carter. Hara (1999): op.cit., p.
146.
23 Sant’Egidio had contacts with the parties since 1995, and held
secret talks in Rome leading to an outline agreement in 1997
(Ibid., p. 147). Don Mateo Zuppi, a member of St. Egidio, had
the office of the president of the commission for the "ceasefire
and disarmament" in the official Arusha talks under Nyerere
and Mandela. Sant Egidio website: (http://www.santegidio.org/en/pace/pace6.htm)
24 HD was involved in 1999 in efforts to establish communication
channels with the armed groups. In Feb 2000 HD hosted a
seminar in Geneva to start a dialogue on humanitarian issues. It
ended these efforts in August 2000, however, so as not to distract
from the then-ongoing political negotiations in
Arusha. HD website: (http://www.hdcentre.org/projects/burundi/activities?hd-centre-ends-its-involvement-burundi)
25 Synergies Africa helped set up a conference in 1997 and seminar
in 1998. Hara (1999): op. cit., p. 147-150.
24
However, parallel efforts by non state mediators
also posed the danger of giving certain splinter
groups some form of legitimacy while not being
at the table, or giving the parties an excuse to exit
the Arusha process. 26 This was also why HD
stopped its efforts to establish a dialogue on humanitarian
issues in August 2000. 27 Thus the Burundi
case shows the potential of various third
parties, but also that too many actors can threaten
a process if they are not well coordinated.
Arusha Process
The Arusha process was structured into five
committees dealing with the following topics: 1)
nature of the conflict, 2) democracy, good governance,
and constitutional arrangements28 , 3)
peace and security, 4) reconstruction and development,
5) guarantees to support implementation
of the accord. Besides the chief mediators
Nyerere and later Mandela, there were some two
dozen people in the facilitation team between the
Tanzanian Facilitation and the International
ones.
The mediators of the second committee structured
the agenda by getting the parties to talk
about the 1992 constitution, which had been very
widely accepted in a referendum. The parties
were set the task of making three columns: 1) acceptable
points that they agreed with, 2) problematic
points that could, however, be dealt with
once the main hurdles had been overcome, 3) unacceptable
points, which were absolutely “no-go”
areas. The agenda was set following the second
and third points. In this process, the mediators
were looking for institutional settings and constitutional
principles that would help bring Burundi
out of its actual crisis and start solving the political
crisis through power sharing mechanisms.
A working draft document presented by the mediators,
based on the 1992 constitution and the
talks that had taken place so far, was rejected by
all the parties. This is in fact better than if it is accepted
by some parities, but rejected by others, as
the mediator is then viewed as being biased. The
26 Hara (1999): op.cit., p. 150.
27 (http://www.hdcentre.org/projects/burundi/activities?hd-centreends-its-involvement-burundi)
28 Chaired by Nicolas Haysom and Julian T Hottinger.