Background Briefing

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Demobilization, Recruitment, and Children in Military Service

According to several ceasefire and power-sharing agreements between the government and different rebel groups, government troops are to return to their barracks and rebel combatants are to gather in various sites where those fit for further military service will be separated from those to be demobilized. Children, the elderly, the ill or injured, and others not continuing in military service are to be reintegrated into their communities while remaining combatants are to join government soldiers in a new integrated force that may number as many as 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers. Gradually this new national army is to be reduced to a far smaller size with 14,000 troops demobilized each year for five years. As yet there is no indication who will pay the cost of this huge army in the interim. The Joint Ceasefire Commission (JCC)76 composed of representatives of the various Burundian parties and chaired by General Samba, appointed by the U.N. Secretary-General, oversees assembling and demobilizing the forces under the supervision of a joint Burundian-international Implementation Monitoring Commission (IMC).77 Despite regular assurances of progress, the JCC has not completed the first steps in the process: defining the term “combatant” and determining the number and rank of combatants in each rebel force. General Samba has abstained from using his power as president of the commission to impose a decision if the parties cannot agree.78

The Arusha Accords, the first of the agreements under which the current government functions, provides for excluding from the new army any government soldiers or rebel combatants known to be guilty of “genocide, violations of the constitution and of human rights, as well as of war crimes.”79 The parties have not yet developed a vetting process to implement this provision, particularly important given the relative lack of progress in investigating and prosecuting crimes committed by all parties to the conflict.

Rebel leaders seek to claim the largest number of combatants possible: The number indicates not just the immediate military power of the group, but is likely to influence its eventual political importance. It also determines the amount of food aid delivered to the force as well as the amount of money to be available later for distribution to its adherents. The rush of new adherents to the CNDD-FDD in the legislature described above resulted in part from its success as the largest and most powerful rebel military group. When observers of the African Union peace-keeping force began investigating claims about the size of several rebel groups, they found the numbers seriously inflated; soon after the observers were directed by their superiors to halt the effort.80

The process which is meant to decrease the number of combatants is in effect contributing to its increase because rebel movements all engage in recruiting to swell their ranks, despite the prohibition against this in ceasefire agreements.81  An unknown number of ordinary people are joining the rebel forces, all of them expecting to be well paid and rapidly sent home again. Some have been told they will receive as much as $3,000 for their brief participation as “combatants.” As one said pragmatically, “It’s not about becoming a soldier…it’s the money that interests me.”82

According to Desirée Gatoto, head of a national program for demobilizing children in military service, “many former armed groups continue to recruit combatants and most of those recruited are under seventeen years old.”83 Reporting that the program had demobilized 964 child soldiers since January 2004, she identified continued recruitment by rebel groups as the “main obstacle” to efforts to end military service by children.

The only plan that currently provides for the demobilization of Gardiens de la Paix is one for child soldiers, applicable to Gardiens de la Paix who were born before 1985. No plan covers members of this paramilitary group who are older. These young men, who number in the thousands, are trained to use arms and many of them have easy access to weapons. The government recruited a certain number into the regular army, but thousands of others have no immediate prospects for employment or further education. Hundreds have left to join various rebel groups in hopes of assuring their future. Some express bitterness against a government that has failed to recognize and reward their years of unpaid military service. “If the government does nothing to reintegrate us to civilian life with the honor due after ten years of work, some will think of going elsewhere, that’s for sure,” said one young man.84 Some fear returning to their communities after giving up their firearms because they anticipate reprisals from the civilians whom they once abused.85

Under the demobilization plan, the rebel forces are to gather at sites determined by the JCC but the FDD has also assembled its men at places of its own choosing, including Mubimbi, where it has approximately 4,000 combatants, and in the eastern province of Ruyigi where it has installed its forces at Karindo, nearbyKinyinya. In addition, FDD combatants have established themselves in the Kamenge and Kinama sections of the city of Bujumbura and at Gihanga in Bubanza province. They have also set up outposts along the border between Bujumbura rural and Bururi province where another rebel leader, Leonard Nyangoma, has a base. The FDD and Nyangoma’s forces have skirmished several times, with dozens of combatants killed. The toll on civilians from this military activity is not known. In company of government troops, the FDD have also fought against another small rebel group, Frolina, along the eastern frontier of Burundi.



[76] Known in French as the Commission Mixte de Cessez-le-feu (CMC).

[77] Known in French as the Comité de Suivi de l’Application des Accords (CSA).

[78] Human Rights Watch interview with General Samba, Bujumbura, February 25, 2004.

[79] Arusha Accords, protocol III, article 14 e.

[80] Human Rights Watch interviews, Bujumbura, February 24 and March 22, 2004.

[81] Human Rights Watch interviews, Bubanza, March 25, 2004; Bujumbura, March 4 and April 1, 2004; Kayanza, April 14, 2004.

[82] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, April 1, 2004.

[83] Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), “Burundi: 964 children demobilized since January, official says,” April 29, 2004.

[84] Human Rights Watch interview, Rumonge, March 6, 2004.

[85] Human Rights Watch interview, Rumonge, March 6 and 7, 2004.


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