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Preventing Genocide in Burundi Lessons from International Diplomacy

The United Nations and Humanitarian Military Intervention

On December 29, 1995, UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali warned the Security Council, “There is a real danger of the situation in Burundi degenerating to the point where it might explode into ethnic violence on a massive scale,” even “a repetition of the tragic events in Rwanda.”²⁴ This statement marked the beginning of his campaign for UN-authorized “contingency planning” for the deployment of a multinational force in Burundi. Boutros-Ghali was convinced that existing “preventive diplomacy” to foster a political dialogue had to be complemented by “a credible threat of force.” He hoped that this would “improve the chances of convincing the parties in Burundi to show more flexiblity, thereby obviating the need for more direct military involvement.” But if a worst-case scenario of full-scale civil war and genocide developed, the international community should be prepared to dispatch a 25,000–50,000-person force to deter massacres; provide security to refugees, displaced persons, and civilians at risk; and protect key installations.²⁵

      After the trauma of Rwanda, it is difficult to quarrel with the notion that the international community needs to be better prepared to intervene militarily against Hutu-Tutsi violence in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Indeed, President Clinton recently apologized to Rwandans for the international community’s failure to act during the 1994 genocide. Yet the secretary-general’s proposal foundered, largely because of lack of adequate support from two key permanent members of the Security Council: France and the United States. The Burundian government’s cautious reaction to mere discussion of an international military option partially confirmed Boutros-Ghali’s premise concerning the political utility of a threat of force. However, the subsequent counterreaction of various Burundian political groups validated some of France’s and America’s concerns about the dangers involved. The whole episode suggests that international military pressure is appropriate in the Burundian situation but that it needs to be more closely synchronized with the political track of engaging Burundian groups in negotiations.

The Secretary-General’s Proposal

In UN parlance, the secretary-general wished to invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which deals with “peace enforcement.” Unlike Chapter 6 “peacekeeping,” this includes military intervention without the consent of the warring parties. Unfortunately, recent Chapter 7– type operations in Somalia, Rwanda, and Bosnia have demonstrated that the UN’s planning, rapid deployment, and command and control structures are not yet able to manage such activities effectively. Also, the organization has become something of a scapegoat for its members’ failures to back up approved missions with adequate resources.²⁶ Hence Boutros-Ghali suggested a “contracting out” approach for Burundi, along the lines of the UN–approved “coalitions of the willing” that had gone into Korea, the Persian Gulf, the initial U.S.–led operations in Somalia and Haiti, and the French-led Operation Turquoise in Rwanda. A multinational force—including some African units—would be planned, organized, and led by a state or group of states possessing a “recognized rapid-response capacity.” The force would receive a broad humanitarian mandate from the Security Council, which might even authorize its deployment on a contingent basis.²⁷

Western and Other Reactions

As with other risky UN military initiatives, the key determinant of success or failure was the political will of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Russia, China, and Great Britain did not have strong diplomatic interests in Africa; France and the United States did.

      The French formally opposed contingency planning, arguing that preventive diplomacy was the best course, at least for the moment. As one French official remarked, “There are two schools about what would happen if the UN went in: It would either fight the Tutsi army or encourage attacks by the Hutu [insurgents].” France feared that even public discussion of possible intervention could trigger preemptive massacres, yet it was not willing to kill the idea by vetoing it in the Security Council. In fact, the French government told the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations that it would “consider” providing financial and logistical assistance if a contingency force were established. France’s position reflected a subtle balancing of interests. As Burundi’s primary bilateral military and economic aid donor since the 1970s, France tended to identify its political interests with those of the Tutsi elite it had supported. Yet the French had been greatly embarrassed by their alliance with the genocidal Hutu political elite in Rwanda and were disinclined to go it alone again in this volatile region.²⁸

      This left the initiative very much to the Americans. At first the United States strongly supported Boutros-Ghali’s recommendation, using its influence to get a broad endorsement through the Security Council. Although the language of this March 1996 resolution was somewhat weaker than the United States would have preferred (for example, encouraging the secretary-general’s continued “consultations” with concerned states on contingency planning rather than approving it outright), it did provide the necessary legitimacy for a “coalition of the willing” in Burundi.²⁹ But here was where American support flagged.

      Still smarting from its 1993 military and political debacle in Somalia, the Clinton administration declined to pledge any ground troops, although it did offer other military support, including “urgent and tanker airlift” that would place 150–300 military personnel in the region. Moreover, in contrast with its performances in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Haiti, the United States declined to wield its full diplomatic influence with other countries to help assemble a strong multinational force. Responding to appeals from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, several African states—Malawi, Chad, Zambia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Egypt—indicated that they could provide ground troops. And a few European countries and Japan promised to furnish, or consider furnishing, logistical or other support.³⁰ The key to success was not simply more troops but specialized personnel and equipment in such areas as command and control and mobile deployment. Potential sources of these contributions included such Third World countries as South Africa, India, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe and possibly some of the smaller European countries and Canada. However, while the United States did make inquiries of some of these countries, it was unwilling, officials acknowledged, to invest the high-level diplomatic capital that might have produced important results.

      Within the American government, the push to back Boutros-Ghali was led by the the White House National Security Council (NSC) staff, which feared a Burundian version of the Rwanda genocide, possibly during the upcoming U.S. presidential campaign. But the NSC did not have strong presidential support for preventive military contingency planning. As one official explained, “It never got to the presidential level of lining up countries. The crisis was not developed enough to sell this, and we had no clear concept of action.” Moreover the Defense Department, under the reigning “Powell Doctrine,” which linked the use of force to the prospect of a clear military victory, shared France’s concern that messy political tensions could tie down a humanitarian expedition. And the Pentagon worried that the United States would get increasingly drawn into such a conflict, generating new demands on resources already stretched by commitments to Bosnia. At the State Department, many officials sympathized with the military’s reticence. For one thing, France’s views on Africa and Burundi counted with the diplomats in Foggy Bottom. For another, the newly appointed regional African “facilitator” for Burundi, former Tanzanian President Nyerere, indicated that the UN resolution was making it harder for him to coax the nervous Burundian government into political negotiations. Nothing was more consistent with the State Department’s characteristic bureaucratic style than to listen closely to traditional allies and grasp at any opportunity for negotiation.

      In the absence of strong presidential involvement, the divergence in agency views was resolved by the illusion of action. The NSC pushed the Pentagon to prepare a contingency plan for submission to the United Nations and key Western allies. But without being able to identify real military units from specific countries, the Pentagon could only come up with a series of “planning assumptions” involving a Chapter 6–type mystery force of 20,000 troops that could, with “the acquiescence of the parties,” enter Burundi within six months to establish three “safe havens” for humanitarian relief. Left unanswered were key questions concerning potential sources of hostility to the force, who would perform command and control, and strategies to protect vulnerable civilians throughout the country.

      By the summer of 1996, the notion of a Chapter 7 contingency force had become academic, although this was not publicly acknowledged. “Let me be frank for once,” confided one of the “Perm 5” ambassadors in September, “The contingency has superseded the contingency planning. ¥Contingency planning’ is something that is being done because we are not really ready to intervene yet.” Since there were no leading states ready

      to organize a humanitarian force, the United States and other nations suggested that the United Nations itself could lead the operation. Given the organization’s admitted weaknesses in peace enforcement, this was a most unlikely proposition. Out of 31 governments solicited for military contributions, only five sent replies. Of these, just one (Ethiopia) was positive.³¹

Evaluation

Aside from the lack of international support for humanitarian contingency planning, how well did the secretary-general’s proposal match up with the requirements for preventing genocide and advancing peace in Burundi? Certainly his initiative was generally consistent with the need for strong international pressure against violence in Burundi. Not even the reluctant French could bring themselves to deny that, if worse came to worst, the world might have to intervene to prevent another Rwanda. Furthermore, there is little doubt that the mere threat of international contingency planning had a sobering effect on Burundian government leaders. This was apparent as early as January 1996, when the government, reacting to Boutros-Ghali’s recent statements as well as visits by high UN and U.S. officials, clamped down on violent demonstrations by extremist groups in the capital.³² Even more important, Western and African diplomatic sources believe that fear of UN Chapter 7 intervention played a major role in the government’s June 25th decision to invite a substitute regional African peacekeeping force into the country, temporarily boosting African efforts to promote a political settlement.

      On the other hand, the UN initiative complicated efforts to engage the Burundian parties, including the extremists, in the peace process. The emphasis on humanitarian intervention gave the appearance of neglecting the political elements of a comprehensive solution. This provoked particular resistance on the Tutsi side, because Hutu politicians had recurrently called for UN military intervention after the assassination of Ndadaye. Nyerere complained that controversy over the proposal was impeding his effort to bring Tutsi leaders to the negotiating table. As further confirmation of the need to develop a political framework for anticipated military intervention, the July coup fostered by Tutsi extremists led to the withdrawal of the previous government’s request for regional peacekeepers.

      Notwithstanding these weaknesses, if sufficient political support had existed for the creation and eventual deployment of a Western-backed, African and Third World contingency force, its humanitarian mission would have been difficult but not impossible. Burundi was a small country with a 16,000-person military that had never fought an external enemy. Moreover, the army did not have a good reputation for counterinsurgency. Its posture was overwhelmingly defensive, and the customary response to a guerilla attack was to wreak vengeance on nearby civilians. Experience elsewhere in Africa suggests that the kind of force contemplated for Burundi could have largely accomplished its prime mission of deterring massacres. No one has challenged the contention of Major-General Romeo Dallaire, the UN commander in Rwanda in 1994, that an expanded, largely African force of 5,000 could have stopped the Rwandan army and militia from killing hundreds of thousands of people. In Liberia, an undermanned, underequipped West African force was generally able to protect the majority of the resident population during a brutal seven-year civil war. According to a military analysis of Burundi conducted for the International Crisis Group in March 1996 by Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, the Burundian army could have been defeated by a force of perhaps 1,000 to 3,000 top-notch combat forces of the caliber of U.S. Rangers, backed by aerial transport and firepower. On the basis of U.S. experience in Somalia and elsewhere, O’Hanlon estimated that such a force would suffer casualties as low as 100 to 300.³³ Even if the likeliest elite forces were South Africans, Indians, and Pakistani, there seems little reason to doubt the ultimate result. And it is by no means certain that the Burundian army would have chosen to take on a “robust” UN contingency force.

      But while a Chapter 7 force was most unlikely to be militarily defeated, it was apt to face sniping and small-scale attacks from segments of the Burundian army, Tutsi political extremists, and Hutu guerillas trying to get at the army. As the experience of military intervention in Somalia and Liberia showed, the lack of an adequate political framework to accompany military intervention could prolong the stay of outside forces and gradually sap their will to continue.

      Considering both the actual impact of the UN initiative, and the probable consequences of its implementation, it should have been revised to address the political fears of the contending forces in Burundi, especially the Tutsi. Perhaps the best way forward would have been to adapt the proposal to ongoing African and other diplomatic efforts to mount all-inclusive political negotiations. While discreetly maintaining a Chapter 7 option, the United Nations could have placed the emphasis on orchestrating Burun-dian acquiescence to an invited Chapter 6 force with both humanitarian and political confidence-building objectives. This force would have been deployed in the context of developing all-party negotiations for democratic power sharing. Compared with Boutros-Ghali’s formulaton, this military-political alternative would have had the advantage of offering the Tutsi groups a package that (1) was more consensual and (2) took explicit account of their political interests.

      Even an invited Chapter 6 force associated with ongoing political negotiations might have faced attacks by discontented Tutsi and Hutu extremists. And there was always the possibility that the government would withdraw its consent. Still, concerted international pressure for a consensual military presence associated with a credible political framework would have been the best way to minimize these risks.

      Boutros-Ghali’s proposal contained the seeds of the suggested Chapter 6 operation: It contemplated the future transformation of a humanitarian intervention force into a consensual one that could uphold a political settlement. In the spring of 1996, at the urging of the Security Council, the UN Department of Peackeeping Operations quietly prepared a rough Chapter 6 plan for a 15,000-person humanitarian force to open roads and deliver relief to limited “safe areas.” Around the same time, the United States proposed the creation of a separate 5,000-10,000-person, all-African, Western-financed, African Crisis Response Force capable of carrying out a similar consensual mission in Burundi or elsewhere.

      But neither of these proposals was specifically linked to a strategy of fostering political negotiations. In the absence of a political approach to gaining Burundian consent, the UN’s Chapter 6 plan was not seriously pursued. As for the U.S. plan, it was greeted by African and European complaints of lack of consultation and lack of clarity regarding authorization and command of the African force. In the end, the notion of a real and effective force was replaced by one merely of training peackeepers in various African states. The new African Crisis Response “Initiative” had little relationship to the Burundi crisis or to any similar conflict that might develop.

      As the next chapter indicates, even a reformulated political-military approach to peacekeeping would have required additional support from the world community. But it would have constituted an important step toward a more effective international policy in Burundi.

TOC | Summary | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Notes | About the Author

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