Opening Statement by President Benjamin William Mkapa of Tanzania at the Regional Summit Meeting on Burundi Arusha, 25th June 1996

Your Excellency Mr. Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Chairman of the OAU, Your Excellency Mr. Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi President of the Republic of Kenya, Your Excellency Mr. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni President of the Republic of Uganda, Your Excellency Mr. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya President of the Republic of Burundi, Your Excellency Mr. Pasteur Bizimungu President of the Republic of Rwanda, Your Excellency Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere Facilitator in the Burundi Peace Process, Your Excellency Antoine Nduwayo Prime Minister of the Republic of Burundi, Your Excellency Salim Ahmed Salim The OAU Secretary General, Honourable Jean Marie Kitiwa Tumangi Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs of the Republic of Zaire, Honourable Ministers, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have limited time to deal with an important, urgent and complex issue- an issue that holds in balance the lives and well-being of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. As your host I should like, therefore, to set an example of brevity in my welcoming address. I do so in the hope that this will inspire all of us to quickly go to the heart of the matter before us, rather than make long formal statements.

But first of all I wish to warmly welcome you all to Tanzania and to Arusha, a town that has hosted many meetings in our regional efforts to find sustainable peace, security, and stability in this region. I am in particular glad that all of you could manage to come despite the very short notice. This, indeed, is an expression of your well-known commitment to peace, stability and development in our region, and in this instance, in our neighbourly and brotherly country of Burundi.

Your coming is equally a manifestation of your commitment to give practical expression to the OAU desire that we, ourselves, should take a leading role to prevent, manage, and resolve confliscts in our beloved contintent. Africa must vow to end, once and for all, its unfortunate image as a continent synonymous with endless conflict, and anarchist tendencies. Our motherland Africa deserves more respect. The OAU has an important and critical role to play in this matter. That is why I have found it necessary to have the highest level OAU representation at this regional Summit Meeting.

Your Excellencies,

I am glad that all of you personally, and your countries, have never spared any effort to deal with our regional problems. You have been associated with many initiatives in the search for a peaceful resolution of the political and security problems facing Burundi. It has been a long and arduous road to travel fraught with many disappointments, let-downs, and frustrations. But you have all pereseved because frankly there is no other option for us. I thank and commend you for your tenacity on such a noble cause.

Other countries can afford to shut their eyes to this problem, as they did on Somalia, but as neighbours we cannot have that detachment. We attach supreme value to the sanctity of human life, to human rights, and to the satisfaction of the basic human right to live in peace and security. We cannot, therefore, ignore what is happening in Burundi, and what might happen, if the situation remains unchecked. In addition, we in Tanzania who are hosts to hundreds of thousands of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi, must contribute whatever we can towards promoting a conducive environment in these countries that will enable the refugees to return home. We certainly cannot countenance a situation that will lead to another influx of refugees or perpetuate the refugee status of those already here.

Your Excellencies,

I think we also need to thank the negotiating facilitator in Burundi, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere, as well as those Governments and institutions that support in many ways his work. On our behalf he has undertaken a seemingly impossible task of getting all the parties and groups in Burundi to choose the path of peaceful negotiations. For sure, this is the best way to create a political and constitutional dispensation that will guarantee democratic rights to all groups, while safeguarding the security of the groups.

In pursuit of this mandate, Mwalimu has visited Bujumbura several times. He has also convened two meetings in Mwanza with the major parties to find a common framework and common pronciples to guide the peace process. If anyone has any trace of hope to help our brothers in this way, it is Mwalimu. His acceptance to perform this role had filled us with hope. But we were not so naive as to think that Mwalimu had a kind of magical wand with which to sweep the slate clean and allow that country to start afresh.

The task of encouraging our Burundi Brothers to break out of their ingrained fears and mutual suspicion is crucial to the entire process. That is precisely why it constitutes such a delicate and difficult phase in the negotiation process. During his visits to Bujumbura, and in the previous two meetings in Mwanza, Mwalimu tried to help them understand that they had the key to their problems in their own hands. They must, therefore, co-operate to unlock the door to sustainable peace and development in their country. Unfortunately, Mwalimu's efforts have so far resulted in an impasse. This meeting is to try to give his initiative and the negotiating procss additional momentum and encouragement. We need also to issue a fresh and urgent appeal to all parties to refrain from further violence and agree on immediate cessation of armed attacks against each other and against innocent civilians. Cessation of violence is a necessary condition for successful negotiations. If violence continues the wider international community might even feel obligated to intervene. One might then point a finger at us for not having done enough to prevent the necessity for such an intervention.

As we are all preparing for our next OAU Summit Meeting in Yaounde, I thought it wise that we should all meet to review the situation and thus be able to interact with our OAU colleagues from a point of view of greater knowledge and deeper insight.

For this reason, I have invited Mwalimu Nyerere to this meeting so that he can brief us collectively and in detail on his efforts thus far in his task. Perhaps we can pool our collective wisdom to find ways to help Mwalimu overcome these obstacles, or at least create conditions favourable to further progress in his mediation and facilitation.

It is incumbent upon us as neigbors of Burundi to be in the lead in assisting Mwalimu in his efforts, and out Barundi brothers in their quest for peace. We must encourage them and we must never give up. The willingness to find a peaceful solution by the Barundi themselves is a sine qua non to the success of any efforts or intiatives anyone else might wish to initiate. At some point we have to ask them to give practical expression to their declared willingness to find a peaceful resolution of their political and security problems.

I am constrained to say this on account of the reports we get of increased tensions, fear, insecurity, death, and widespread militarisation of all groups and factions. These is an almost frantic amassing of weapons of all kinds by each group as though peace can be obtained by the acquisition of arms. We must not let a replay of the 1994 Rwandan tragedy take place in Burundi. We do not want any more violence in this region. We want our brothers and sisters to stop killing each other. We want the refugees to be able to go home. Our people need to be taught how to improve their lives, not how to hate and kill each other.

It is in pursuit of this goal that I repeat my words of welcome to all of you and kindly request you rededicate yourselves to the resolution of the Burundi crisis before it is too late. In this we assure you that we in Tanzania do not have any ulterior motives-except the restoration of peace, security, stability, democracy, human rights, and dignity for each and every person in our region. And we will continue to seek and facilitate the resumption of negotiations in Mwanza, the cessation of violence and the restoration of security in Burundi.

Thank You.