BURUNDIAN REFUGEES IN TANZANIA: The Key Factor to the Burundi Peace Process ICG Central Africa Report N° 12 30 November 1999 PROLOGUE The following report was originally issued by the International Crisis Group (ICG) as an internal paper and distributed on a restricted basis in February 1999. It incorporates the results of field research conducted by an ICG analyst in and around the refugee camps of western Tanzania during the last three months of 1998. While the situation in Central Africa has evolved since the report was first issued, we believe that the main thrust of the analysis presented remains as valid today as ever. Indeed, recent events, including the killing of UN workers in Burundi and the deteriorating security situation there, only underscore the need for greater attention to be devoted to addressing the region’s unsolved refugee problem. With this in mind, we have decided to reissue the report and give it a wider circulation, in the hope that the information and arguments that follow will help raise awareness of this important problem and stimulate debate on the best way forward. International Crisis Group Nairobi 30 November 1999 Table of Contents PROLOGUE .......................................................................................................................................... I I. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 II. REFUGEE FLOWS INTO TANZANIA........................................................................................ 2 A. The 1972 caseload .............................................................................................................. 2 B. The consequences of the 1993 crisis in Burundi................................................................. 3 C. From Rwanda to Zaire: the refugee camps as a base for the Hutu insurgency .................. 3 D. Tanzania’s response to refugee crisis ................................................................................. 4 1. The expulsion of Rwandan refugees from Tanzania in 1996....................................... 4 2. Tanzania’s attitude towards Burundian refugees ......................................................... 5 3. The 1997 round-ups of Burundian refugees as a response to international criticism .. 5 III. THE REFUGEE SITUATION ......................................................................................................6 A. Current flows and condition of refugees into western Tanzania .......................................... 7 B. Repatriation and recycling of the refugees .......................................................................... 9 IV. ARE THE CAMPS IN WESTERN TANZANIA MILITARISED?................................................ 10 A. Overview of the Kigoma camps......................................................................................... 11 B. Camp management under UNHCR and MHA................................................................... 11 C. Camp security: the role of Tanzanian police...................................................................... 12 D. The political and military nature of the Kigoma camps ...................................................... 13 E. Maintaining civil order ........................................................................................................ 14 F. The issue of political expression of the refugees............................................................... 15 G. Information flows in the camps .......................................................................................... 17 H. The discussion about their participation to the Arusha peace talks................................... 17 V. THE REBELLION IN WESTERN TANZANIA .......................................................................... 19 A. Military activity outside of the refugee camps .................................................................... 19 B. The rebellion’s resources................................................................................................... 19 VI. BURUNDI-TANZANIA; AN UNEASY RELATIONSHIP ........................................................... 20 A. Tanzania’s security concerns ............................................................................................ 20 B. Tanzania’s ambiguous role in the Burundi peace process ................................................ 22 C. The military option against the Buyoya regime .................................................................. 23 D. Growing tension between Burundi and Tanzania .............................................................. 24 VII. RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................................................. 24 A. Maintain the civilian nature of the camps........................................................................... 24 B. Promote a negotiated and inclusive solution in Burundi .................................................... 25 1. Include all rebel movements in the peace process .................................................... 25 2. Ensure refugee protection .......................................................................................... 26 3. Protect returnees........................................................................................................ 26 4. Improve access to information of the refugees .......................................................... 27 5. Allow political expression in the camps ...................................................................... 28 BURUNDIAN REFUGEES IN TANZANIA: THE KEY FACTOR IN THE BURUNDI PEACE PROCESS I. INTRODUCTION There has been a considerable Burundian refugee population, almost entirely Hutu, in countries neighbouring Burundi, and especially Tanzania, since the 1972 mass slaughter of Hutus when 300,000 are reported to have fled. Several smaller periodic outflows of refugees, in 1965, 1969, 1988 and 1991, augmented the 1972 caseload numbers.1 Though roughly 40,000 refugees repatriated to Burundi in anticipation of the 1993 elections, nearly 240,000 stayed behind. There was another mass exodus of over 400,000 Hutu refugees following the October 1993 crisis. While a large number of refugees subsequently returned, a steady outflow of refugees predominantly from the south continues up to the present day. The refugees are now about 470 000 in Tanzania, which represent more than 7 % of the Burundi population. Since June 1998, the parties to the Burundi conflict have started peace talks in Arusha under the auspices of former Tanzanian President Julius K. Nyerere. One of the negotiating committees in the talks, Committee IV on Reconstruction and Development, was specifically tasked to find a solution to the refugee plight and allow them to return safely to Burundi and to be restored in their citizen rights. Both the Facilitator, the late Julius Nyerere, and the chair of the Committee IV have visited the camps and supported their participation in the talks. Following those visits, a delegation from the camps attended the June session of the talks. Prospects for a solution to the plight of the refugees are closely linked to a political settlement in Burundi and now the resolution of the 1998-99 DRC war. The Burundian refugee camps in Tanzania are stigmatised for being highly militarised and for harbouring rebel movements, including CNDD, Palipehutu, and Frolina2. This accusation is partly a result of a well waged propaganda campaign by the Buyoya government in Burundi, which claims that Tanzania is not a neutral host for the Arusha peace process; partly a result of Tanzania’s own duplicitous policies - Burundi has, since last year, become more insecure with a series of attacks partly staged from Tanzania unleashing new rounds of violence in Southern Burundi between the army and the rebel groups and new influxes of population into Tanzania; and partly a result of the humanitarian community’s own chequered past in the region, particularly its experience of the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire between 1994 and 1996, which included3 perpetrators of the genocide. 1 For a brief history see, Transition in Burundi: The Context For A Homecoming, U.S. Committee for Refugees, Washington, D.C., September 1993. 2 CNDD: Centre for the Defence of Democracy, with its splinter group CNDD-FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy). Palipehutu: Party of the Liberation of the Hutu People; Frolina: Front for National Liberation. 3 When genocide occurred in Rwanda in 1994, nearly two million refugees fled into Eastern Zaire. Those refugees included the ex-Far and Interahamwe, and former Rwandan officials involved in the genocide. Burundian Refugees in Tanzania: A Key Factor in the Burundi Peace Process ICG Central Africa Report N° 12, 25 November 1999 Page 2 Refugees themselves are also exposed to a situation of high tension and insecurity at the border between the two countries and as a result of the cross-lake military activity due to the Congo war. The FDD rebels have been fighting on Kabila’s side since the war broke out in August 1998. With the Agreement for a Cease-fire in the DRC - which includes a commitment to disarm armed groups, including the Burundian rebels, it is feared that a lot of the rebels have returned to Tanzania from the DRC. II. REFUGEE FLOWS INTO TANZANIA A. The 1972 caseload The 1972 caseload of Burundian refugees fled predominantly to Tanzania, Rwanda and eastern