The U.S. Institute of Peace hosted a special discussion with Pierre Buyoya, president of Burundi, on the status of the peace process and security in the region.
Image on right: President Pierre Buyoya of Burundi Addresses the United Nations General Assembly during the opening of general debates for its fifty-third session (UN Photo #198620C)
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Burundi is back at the brink. Less than a decade after the end of its civil war, a political conflict over the president’s attempt to stay in office for a disputed third term risks escalating into wider violence, policy specialists say. Police are fighting protesters who say that President Pierre Nkurunziza is violating the country’s post-civil war constitution by seeking a third term. They dispute a court ruling that authorized Nkurunziza’s re-election bid.
The attempted coup in the tiny African country of Burundi, after weeks of unrest that has killed more than 20 people, provided immediate examples of quandaries for peacebuilding during a discussion at USIP this week: how U.S. diplomacy can emphasize prevention to counter threats, and how best to support young people to deter dangerous forms of extremism.
Africa's Great Lakes region is ripe for progress in resolving its deadly conflicts, particularly in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but it will take deeper regional cooperation and the DRC's full implementation of internal reforms that it has already agreed to, Russell D. Feingold, the U.S. special envoy for the Great Lakes and the DRC, said at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) on February 20.