The former president of Burundi, evacuated from Mali, died of Covid-19 in Paris on December 17. Respected for knowing how to leave power, he leaves a political legacy that is criticized for ambiguity.
Pierre Buyoya did not speak lightly, but as a statesman, weighed his words and spoke them with a serious and deep eye. It was in vain to hammer in 2014 that “the important thing is not how we come to power, but rather how we leave it”, the former head of state had not avoided criticism during his campaign for the successor of Abdou Diouf to the post of Secretary-General of the Francophonie International Organization (OIF).
Twice putschist 1987 and 1996, stressed the press, who then preferred the Canadian Michaëlle Jean before him, Pierre Buyoya embodied the figure “ex-FAB”, Tutsi officer for Burundian armed forces previously dominated by this “ethnic group”. He was described as a formidable former major, rather than as the man who gave birth to Burundi by its democracy and led the country to the first free and transparent election in 1993. Or as the one who had gained peace by negotiating very difficult Arusha agreements 2000, mediated by Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela.
President Buyoya has actually had a double career. On the one hand in Burundi as a soldier and then president and then internationally
Thierry Vircoulon, Coordinator of the Central and Southern Africa Observatory at the French Institute of International Relations
A controversial and feared personality in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya belonged to the relatively ill-fated club in Africa of former heads of state who voluntarily gave up power. He still has ardent defenders at home, including among the Hutus, and harsh critics, even among the Tutsis. In 2014, he was apostrophized by some Burundians, including human rights activist Marguerite Barankitse, for wasting blood in his home.
The Arusha peace agreement
He was suspected – with the rumor without any evidence – of being involved in the 1993 assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, the first democratically elected president of Burundi. However, he bowed to him after the election of his party, the Union for National Progress (Uprona). Still: it was hard to believe that the 1993 coup carried out by the FAB could have been carried out without his approval, as the army was 99% Tutsi.
Violent violence then targeted the Tutsis, who fled to neighboring Rwanda a year before the 1994 genocide. In Burundi, the civil war left 300,000 dead between 1993 and 2002. Pierre Buyoya regained power by force in 1996, Facing the escalating conflict, after death of Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira, killed in the attack on the plane of his Rwandan counterpart Juvénal Habyramina on April 6, 1994 in Kigali.
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“During the second term, I mainly negotiated peace,” he said in 2014. The Arusha agreement has become a fundamental document in modern Burundi. However, some of the Tutsi minority in Burundi criticize him for signing this agreement, after which he withdrew in 2003, as it provides for ethnic quotas of 50% for Hutus in the army.
After the 2005 election, won by former Hutu rebel Pierre Nkurunziza, Burundi experienced ten years of peace. The country fell back into crisis in 2015 with the controversial third term – and condemned by Pierre Buyoya – by Pierre Nkurunziza. The latter, swept away by Covid-19 in June last year, revives the heat of the ethnic conflict and leads a brutal repression against its opponents.
Respected diplomat
From 2004 to 2012, Pierre Buyoya served as Special Envoy for the OIF for Mediation in the Central African Republic and the observation of elections in Mauritania, Benin, Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau … In 2012, he was appointed Top Representative of the African Union (AU) in Mali and Sahel, a position he held until the end of November, with peace talks behind the scenes, with calm and diplomacy.
It was justice in his country that ended his diplomatic career, condemnation in October last year forever, along with other accused, for the murder of Melchior Ndadaye. Pierre Buyoya resigned on November 24 but remained in Mali, where he defended his idea of democracy. “Democratization took place 25 years ago,” he said in 2014. Historically, this is very little. Major countries have made significant progress, and no one can say that, for example, the elections in Nigeria are not serious. ”
When asked about the importance of the “ethnic” factor in politics, his answer was crystal clear. “Political parties in Africa are not yet instruments for bringing people together who can give people an identity. It is the primitive identity reflexes that still prevail. But it will not be forever. ”
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