Conflict and Coffee in Burundi 115protocols on which agreement was not reached are those on peace and secu-
rity, including a ceasefire, and guarantees for implementing the accord.
Despite the promise of a serious resumption in the talks during August 2002
in Tanzania, including the government, the FDD-CNP, the CNDD-FDD and
possibly the PALIPEHUTU-FNL several reasons remain why the agreement as
it was signed may not be fully implemented as intended or may even become
the reason for renewed fighting. There is, firstly, a lack of real political will
among elite leaders; secondly, the ambivalent position of international influ-
ence on the peace process, and finally, the failure to adequately integrate civil
society in the official peace process.
The negotiations of the peace processes have become another arena for
Burundi's elite to compete for control over the state. The negotiations are an
extension of the struggle among competing individuals and factions within
Burundi's small governing elite to obtain or retain wealth and power - poli-
tics as war by other means, to invert Clausewitz's famous phrase. This is
illustrated by the continually shifting alliances and strategic partnerships
among groups and individuals. With 19 signatories to the Arusha Peace
Accord prior to the start of the most recent initiative, the cross-ethnic
alliances of the parties are as important as their ethnic divisions. For exam-
ple, the G7 group of Hutu parties which often formed a negotiating block,
and the G6 group of moderate Tutsi parties who are opposed to the present
military government led by Major Buyoya, joined forces in March 2001
to back Hutu Domitien Ndayiyzeye - the opposition FRODEBU party candi-
date - as president with 'lbtsi Colonel Epitace Bayaganakandi as vice-presi-
dent. This proposal was rejected by other groups, but serves as an example
that ethnic lines as well as regional and ideological lines are porous in these
negotiations. There are certainly differences among the politicians. The gen-
uine desire of some to bring about democratic rule and peace should not be
trivialised, but the main dynamic driving the negotiations is not program-
matic but strategic.
The questions of army reform and the structure of the transition govem-
ment directly affect which groups can retain or gain power. Therefore they
have been the most difficult on which to reach agreement. Furthermore, the
ruling Tutsi elite which currently controls both the my and the government,
is in a stronger position to veto any suggested reforms by threatening
to exit the negotiations. This has reduced the scope of the discussion to the
creation of conditions which retain enough veto power (military and politi-
cal) for the ruling ntsi elite minority so that they feel able to protect them-
selves from the perceived threat of the Hutu majority. The acceptance that
the peace process will provide this security is by no means a given, as the
repeated coup attempts by militant Xtsi against the negotiating government
attest. As long as minority security is the priority, and as long as the Tutsi
elite interests retain the bargaining chip of the army, there can be very little