European aid for guerrillas hailed by report

Date: 06/03/03

AN EU decision to feed a warring faction in Burundi after it declared a ceasefire has been hailed as a novel step in using aid to underpin a peace process.

In a new report, conflict resolution advocates the International Crisis Group (ICG) describe the allocation of €500,000 in EU aid to provide food to guerrillas - who signed a peace accord with the country's president Pierre Buyoya in December 2002 - as an "unprecedented engagement between donors and rebel groups, using aid as incentive for peace".

Distribution of the aid began on 29 December to 14,000 fighters from the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie - Forces de la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD).

Leaders of the group have argued that some 85,000 combatants need to be assisted in reintegrating into Burundian society to deter them from resorting to crime as a means of survival.

More than 250,000 lives were lost in the inter-ethnic strife sparked by the assassination of Hutu President Melchior Ndadaye in October 1993, just five months after he was elected.

But the ICG warns that the international donor community should seek to avoid mistakes made in the past.

It says that because donors, including the EU, dealt only with state authorities before the war broke out, "international aid reinforced control over the economy and indirectly supported the unbalanced distribution of resources".

The European Commission announced this week that it is granting €1.2 million to an African Union (AU) mission in Burundi, due to monitor the ceasefire.

It is intended that the mission will pave the way for a fully-fledged AU peacekeeping force in the country.

An EU decision to feed a warring faction in Burundi after it declared a ceasefire has been hailed as a novel step in using aid to underpin a peace process.