Burundi: Beyond Nkurunziza's Third Term Bid

"The masses have decided to take into their own hands the destiny of the nation to remedy this unconstitutional environment into which Burundi has been plunged.

"The masses vigorously and tenaciously reject President Nkurunziza's third-term mandate... President Pierre Nkurunziza has been relieved of his duties. The government is overthrown.".......Maj Gen Godefroid Niyombareh

These statements signalled a purported Coup d’état in which former Burundian army chief, Major General Godefroid Niyombareh announced the overthrow of the government of Pierre Nkurunziza in May 2015. This came at a time of heightened political tension amid waves of massive protests following the declaration of intent by the Burundian leader to seek another term in office.

Pierre Nkurunziza’s first ascent to the helm of affairs in Burundi was in 2005 following the promulgation of a power sharing constitution. He was elected by a two-thirds majority of the legislature for a five year term as the Country’s first post transition president. Under the terms of the Constitution, subsequent presidential elections were to be decided by Universal suffrage.

Upon the expiration of his term in 2010, President Pierre Nkurunziza sought re-election for another term in office. This time, he was elected by universal suffrage and then in 2015 as his term in office expired, he sought another term following a declaration of intent in April 2015. This ignited a coup de theatre; starting with mass protests against the President’s decision in which over 70 people lost their lives and  about 500 wounded as demonstrators clashed with police in the weeks following the President’s declaration. 

Burundian's Protests President Nkurunziza's Third term bid
Source: bbcnews.com

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), over 100,000 fled across the Burundian border to neighbouring countries in anticipation of more unrest to come. Their fears are not farfetched as the deal that brought Pierre Nkurunziza to power was upon a peace deal long started since 1995 and brokered by late former Presidents Nyerere of Tanzania and Mandela of South Africa following years of civil conflict and genocides between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. In fact, not until 2005 did the last of the rebel factions sign the peace accord that calm returned to Burundi though there were skirmishes between government forces and FNL rebels in later years before their final disarmament.

Backed by a favoured ruling by the Constitutional Court, though there were reports of judges being intimidated President Nkurunziza asserted his claim that he had only served only one term and that his first five year tenure in office did not count as he was not elected by Universal suffrage. Following initial mass protest against the president’s decision, the army seized the initiative to seize power in a coup d’état which ultimately failed.

Undeterred by mass protests, opposition boycotts and condemnation from the international community chiefly among which was the African Union who for the first time refused to send observers to monitor elections in a member country, President Nkurunziza merely approved election postponement by a few weeks from the scheduled dates but went on to contest, winning by 70% of votes cast.

President Nkurunziza enroute the polling booth to cast his ballot
Source: bbcnews.com

The last Burundian elections reverberated fears of another simmering unrest in an already conflict laden Great Lakes region. Ever since the 2005 accord which brought Pierre Nkurunziza to power, there has been a clamp down on the opposition and media restriction on political matters. Like the 2015 elections, the 2010 Burundian Parliamentary Presidential elections was boycotted by the opposition. The only difference this time was the opposition to President Nkurunziza’s bid from his own party men and loyalists; Vice-President Gervais Rufyikiri had to go on exile after opposing President Nkurunziza's plans for a third term; Intelligence chief, Major General Godefroid Niyombareh, himself a right hand man to the President during the hey days of the CNDD FDD rebellion attempted to overthrow the government following his opposition to the president’s bid and his subsequent sack from his post in the Army.

President Nkurunziza set for another term in office
Source:bbcnews.com

Amidst opposition, President Nkurunziza has been sworn in for another term in office and Burundians face an uneasy calm. Though most of the dissenting voices against the President from and without his circles are either in exile or behind bars, a rebellion led by them against the government is very unlikely given the wariness of all international actors to the continuing conflict in the Great lakes region. However, President Nkurunziza might not have a smooth ride at manipulation should he seek another term upon the expiration of this current term. That will entail a constitutional amendment which might tamper with the fragile peace the Country currently enjoys. Judging from the mass protests that greeted the president’s current term bid, another tenure elongation will ignite another conflict which might set the Tutsis who have now been long out of power against President Nkurunziza’s Hutu ethnic group which has been in power since 2005 and will continue till 2020.

Turkey and the fight against the Islamic State

Turkish policy is "to pretend that it is waging a war against IS, while at the same time following up on another goal, which is to destroy the PKK"-----  Kerem Oktem, (Professor, Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz Austria).

Amidst the throes of neighbours enmeshed in the resultant troubles of the Arab Spring, Turkey has remained an island of stability in the volatile Middle East. Despite its secular pro-Western stance, and its membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Turkey’s neutrality and stability has been called to question following the current Syrian conflict.

As an ex-empire controller which held sway over the Middle East under its Ottoman heritage, despite seeming indifference to the conflict situations in its neighbours, Turkey’s intervention to these conflict case point would always be a question of ‘a matter of time’. After initial fence sitting, the Turkish military has recently been called to action following a suicide bomb attack by the Islamic State (IS) on the town of Suruc close to the Turkish-Syrian border killing about 32 people on 20th July. This aroused a new twist, as Turkish-Kurdish PKK rebels blaming the Turkish government for alleged collaboration with the Islamic State in the Suruc attack, took a break from an existing cease fire, to kill two Turkish Policemen they accuse of facilitating the Suruc bombing. As such, an initial reluctant Turkey in the fight against IS and intervention in  troubled neighbours of Syria and Iraq was forced to call upon the USA to make use of its Southern Incirlik airbase as a launch pad for airstrikes against IS whilst also pursuing its interest against perceived enemies of the Turkish State.

Whilst the IS pose a threat to regional and global stability causing a coalition of regional and Western powers to launch airstrikes to contain the movement in Syria and Iraq, Turkey has until now chose to stand aloof in the fight against the IS despite it being on the receiving end of refugee inflows from neighbouring Syria and Iraq. This apparent indifference has caused suspicions in some quarters as to the real intentions of the Turkish government regarding IS, especially as it now serves a transit for foreigners seeking to join the IS in Iraq and Syria.

On the domestic front, Turkey has been trying to curtail the insurgent activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) since 1974; who have been agitating for independence of Kurdish areas from Turkey, alongside recent anti-government protests against perceived poor economic and political policies by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). Of all Turkish domestic troubles, the Kurdish question generates an unending regional resonance which sends jitters down the spines of the Ankara government.

United by ethnicity and language, the Kurds are spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and they comprise about one fifth the population of Turkey. Failing to get a state of their own following the Treaty of Sevres after World War one, the Kurds of Turkey entrusted their future on the Turkish state that emerged following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which guaranteed the rights of minorities within Turkish borders. With the inability of the Kemalists to provide a sustainable democratic solution to the rights of minority peoples within Turkish borders, the Kurds became the latest group on the receiving end after bitter ordeals of the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks in the face of Turkish Nationalism which ultimately had exterminated their historic presence in what is known as modern Turkey today. The Kurds in Turkey had their identity repressed as they were to be referred to as Turks. The Kurdish language was banned even as a means of learning in Kurdish areas and was not granted official recognition by the Turkish government. This inflamed Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish government, initially calling for secession and recently greater autonomy and recognition of Kurdish rights in Turkey.

Recognizing the spread of the Kurds across its neighbours, Turkey keeps a close watch on the activities of Kurdish separatism across its borders more so as the PKK has found safe haven and unity of mutual kinship amongst its brethren in arms in Syria and Iraq. Turkey has sought guarantees of non-secession from the autonomous Kurdish government of Northern Iraq and pledges to curtail the activities of the PKK in return for mutual friendship and non Turkish aggression against these groups.

Nevertheless, the Turkish government is concerned to the heights following the increased Militarization of Kurdish groups across its borders who are actually seeking to consolidate the fight against IS. The Peshmerga of Iraq and the Kurdish Peoples Protection Unit (YPG) of Syria have both proved potent fighting machines curtailing the spread of IS, aided by coalition airstrikes lead by the USA. Thus, the PKK which has been on a long term cease fire with the Turkish government has sought opportunity to aid their kinsmen in arms against IS much to the chagrin of the Turkish government. As such, Turkey has sought to restrain the flow of Kurds across its borders to Syria and Iraq.

The recent standoff between the YPG and IS in kobane (Just across the Syria-Turkish border) in which the YPG was able to hold ground and ward off IS advance under the watchful eyes of an unconcerned Turkey, who, fearing an intervention could indirectly bolster the PKK, called to question the tendencies and sympathies of Turkey; seeing a common enemy in IS within inches at its borders. This tendency began anti-Turkish inflammation amongst the Kurds which gradually simmered into a fresh PKK insurrection against Turkey.

Source:bbcnews.com

Though Turkey has followed up the latest IS attack on Suruc with joining airstrikes against IS targets in Syria, there are also underlining fears that Turkish airstrikes against the PKK who have joined their brethren in the fight against IS in Syria and Iraq, might in the end sabotage the anti IS efforts.

Turkey occupies a strategic and indispensable bridge between the West and the Muslim Middle East; therefore, its concerns cannot be ignored by Western powers. Thus, the PKK (which Turkey has made to be seen as an outlaw and terrorist group in the eyes of the West) might just be sacrificial pawns in the latest fight against the IS.

However, with the seeming unabated military power of the IS and the potency of Kurdish groups in its curtailment, diversionary airstrikes against PKK positions already embedded with the Syrian YPG and Iraqi Peshmerga might prove disastrous on the long run.

Seeing the complexities of the diversionary trend of anti PKK airstrikes by Turkey, it will be in regional and global interest for a one and united effort against IS devoid of diversionary aims, whilst Turkey settles Kurdish differences at the negotiation table. Not even the creation of an IS free safe zone in Northern Syria patrolled by ‘moderate Syrian rebels’ will help the cause for peace in troubled Syria. Rather, a renewed and increased Turkish involvement in tandem with regional and global powers will do to help the Syrian cause.

Now that Turkey has deemed it fit to intervene in the conflict situation within its region, it must be done for a common good rather than for selfish aims.

WORLD WAR TWO 70YEARS ON

“We no longer demand anything, we want war. - Joachim von Ribbentrop (German foreign minister in August 1939.)

These words were barely uttered when German Wehrmacht tanks rolled across the German-Polish frontier on the 1st of September 1939, signifying the commencement of the most catastrophic war in human history. Pitting Germany and then Japan and Italy (Axis Powers) against Great Britain, France and later the United States (Allied Powers); the Russians had to switch sides to guarantee their survival after coming under attack from a supposed allied Germany.

Regenerating from the ashes of the First World War ending twenty one years back, it took the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to effectively bring  the war to an end on 14th August 1945, as Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced an unconditional surrender; though Germany had surrendered earlier in May 1945.

Atomic Bomb Smoke Capped by Mushroom Cloud Rises More Than 60,000 Feet Into Air over Nagasaki
Source:www.allposters.com/-sp/Atomic-Bomb-Smoke-Capped-by-Mushroom-Cloud-Rises-More-Than-60-000-Feet-Into-Air-over-Nagasaki-Posters_i3592149_.htm

"Japan has today surrendered. The last of our enemies is laid low.”.......Clement Attlee (British Prime Minister 1945)

Though Seventy Years back from the time, the World still has significant lessons to learn from the resultants, impact and outcome of the war, viz:

§  Belligerent Germany was demobilized of Military hardware and sanctioned on the size of its fighting machinery by the treaty of Versailles following the end of the First World War. Yet, its army took the world by a storm, capitulating the French army in days and it took a coalition of Allied Countries to subdue its might.

§  The German fighting machine was built up by rhetoric fascist leader—Adolf Hitler, despite existing sanctions against its military expansion.

§  World leaders frenzied from the First World War experience preferred to appease Hitler with territorial expansion rather than confront his ambitions with force.

§  The resultant ensuing conflagrating warfare resulted in the arms race for weapons of mass destruction, a product of which was the atomic bomb.

§  The end of the Second World War ushered an established bipolar World order between Western/Capitalism and Eastern/Communism.

Wary of Nuclear warfare, World powers rather than confront themselves, sponsor belligerent groups/ governments in attritional conflicts as seen especially in the Syria and Ukraine currently; thus, buoying several complicated pockets of conflicts around the globe.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein

Seventy Years on from the end of the Second World War today, the international polity still simmers from the same effect that precipitated World War Two in these forms:

§  Ever since the end of the Cold war and Warming of tensions between the Eastern and Western Blocs, never has tension being heightened between these two passive belligerents as it currently plays out in the Ukrainian conflict.

§  Leaders of some countries still render unwholesome violence filled rhetoric not hiding their desire to destroy some other Country and perceived allies. Such examples abound in Iranian rhetoric against Israel and North Korea against USA

§  Despite the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,, more countries outside the permanent five members of the United Nations have acquired Nuclear weapons whilst the permanent five are reluctant to disarm.

§  Owing to failed resultants of Western Military interventions in the Afghanistan and Iraq, Western powers are reluctant to execute full military force especially against belligerent groups in the Middle East (e.g the Islamic State) favouring instead limited intervention of airstrikes and dialogue with Iran with regards to its nuclear activity.

“Anyone who fights, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy who dominates the air, is like a primitive warrior who stands against modern forces, with the same limitations and the same chance of success”. - Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

No doubt, Military Ordnance has become more sophisticated and deadly than what obtained during World War Two; one thing is assured in case of any belligerence betwixt world powers----‘Mutually assured destruction’.

Indeed, it will spell the end of humanity.

Seeing similarly intrigues brooding, such as those that ignited World War Two; seventy years on, it is imperative for global actors to learn from the past else the existence of humanity be plunged into an impending oblivion.

The Extinction of Christianity in the Middle East

Christianity’s Holy Book, The Bible, is replete with the history and stories of the Jews and other peoples and places of the Middle East from the early civilization period to the early Roman times. Amongst several Biblical serial stories are those of the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, the founding the Church in Jerusalem and the tagging of Jesus Christ followers as ‘Christians’ in Antioch. Aside Biblical history, contemporary history also alludes to the origins of Christianity from the Middle East.

The Syrian flag flying in front of the dome of the Syrian Saint Sarkis Church for Armenian Orthodox in Damascus
Source: http://www.hudson.org/research/11072-isis-captures-christians-piece-by-piece-middle-eastern-christianity-is-being-shattered

As home of Christianity, the Middle East was home to four of the five Patriarchate cities namely: Jerusalem (Spiritual capital of the Church), Antioch (founded by Peter), Alexandria (founded by John Mark), Rome (Political Capital of the Western Roman Empire) and Constantinople (Political Capital of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire). As such, only the Patriarchate of Rome existed outside the Middle East.

From humble origins in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, Christianity first spread amongst the Jewish acquaintances of Jesus Christ from Roman occupied Palestine during the first century AD, and then these initial Jewish converts (Apostles) spread their faith in series of evangelistic endeavours around the Roman Empire. By the Fourth Century AD, despite series of gruesome persecutions of the adherents of Christianity, the Faith was firmly rooted amongst the Copts, Berbers and Carthaginians of North Africa (Egypt, Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tunisia and Algeria) and the Arab tribes of the Ghassinds and Lakhmids of Arabia; the Greek and Armenian population of the Anatolian Peninsula (modern day Turkey); and the Assyrians and Chaldeans of the fertile Crescent (modern day Iraq and Iran). At the turn of the 7th Century AD, Christianity was the dominant religion amongst the peoples dwelling in the area spanning West from the British Isles to the foothills Hindu Kush mountains of India in Near East.

The Zenith of Christian domains by the 4th Century AD
Source: http://maryourmother.net/Eastern.html

After the waning threat of persecution from Political authorities especially during the period of the Roman Empire, Christianity flourished at its best though its unity was threatened by doctrinal schisms which delineate Christendom till this day. Starting from the rejection of the outcome the Council of Chalcedon of 451AD mostly by the non-Greek speaking Christians of the Middle East, in which the Monophysite theology of Eutyches was condemned, gave impetus to the founding of autocephalous (self governing) religious communes of the Oriental Orthodox Churches in revolt against the Greek Speaking Byzantine Church. Thus the origins of:

1.     The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria (Egyptian Orthodox)

2.     The Syriac Orthodox Church (comprising the non Greek speaking of the Eastern Mediterranean under the Patriarchate of Antioch

3.     The Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthox Tewahedo Churches

4.     The Armenian Apostolic Church

Yet there were several schisms in Christendom, the grandest of which was the Great Schism of 1054 between the Patriarchate of Rome and Constantinople thus eternally dividing Christendom along the rites of Latin and Greek Liturgy. Whilst the Roman Patriarchate held sway in the Western world and gave rise to the Protestant reformation that branded Christianity in Western Europe, the Americas and Sub Saharan Africa, the Constantinople Patriarchate administered the spiritual needs of Middle Eastern Christianity, Chiefly among the Greek population. As such, the remaining delineates of Middle Eastern Christianity were:

1.     The Holy Apostolic Catholic Church of Assyrian Church of the East

2.     The Byzantine/Greek Orthodox Church (Basically in Asia minor or Turkey)

3.     The Melkite Church (amongst the Greek and Arab Christians of the Middle East in communion with the Patriarchate of Rome)

4.     The Maronite Church (Phoenician/Lebanese Church in communion with the Patriarchate of Rome)

The encroachment of Arab invaders from the Arabian peninsula in series of conquest and Jihadist endeavours in the 7th Century began an epoch of existential threat to Christendom in the Middle East. Though Christians accounted for over 70% of the populace of the Middle Orient at that time till the Middle Ages, they were derided of political power under an accorded dhimmi status and made to pay the Jizya tax despite being accorded the status of people of the books which require special protection from the ruling Islamic Caliphate. The definitive blow of existential threat to Middle Eastern Christianity was delivered by the advance of the Seljuk Turks from Central Asia to the Anatolian peninsula in the 10th Century AD.

After an initial definitive victory by the Turks over the Byzantines in the battle of Manzikert in 1071 AD, the Byzantine Empire which was the protector of Middle Eastern Christianity began to crumble in bit and pieces in series of defeats and then perished in 1453 when the Ottoman army swept into Constantinople after months of bombardments. From thenceforth, the Hagia Sophia which was the seat of the Bishopric of Constantinople was converted to a mosque. Though the governing Ottoman Empire was initially benevolent to the plight of subjugated Christians under its domain, Christians were nevertheless subjugated to the worse especially during moments of war with Christian empires from the West. To endure series of targeted purges against their populace, most Christian groups retreated to highlands/mountainous areas e.g the Maronites retreated to the anti-Lebanon Mountains and the Assyrians concentrated themselves in the plains of Nineveh and highlands of Sinjar and Zagros mountains. At their interactive best, Christians aligned and actively participated in regimes of secular Middle Eastern governments such as the Baath Movement of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Syria’s Assad and Egyptian regimes of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarek; who were seen as their protectors from Islamic extremists.

In 1900, most of Constantinople’s residents were Christian; today, of Istanbul’s population of some 14.4 million people, fewer than 150,000 identify with any faith other than Islam. The major account for this trend was the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. From the 19th Century, the non Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire (most of whom were Christian) where decimated in series of targeted killings. The Assyrians (despite being once empire holders in ancient times) were decimated into less than half of their populace in the 13th century following the Mongolian invasion of Mesopotamia by Tamerlane. They suffered worse fate under the Ottomans as they were seen to be siding with the British whilst the Ottomans fought alongside the Germans during the First World War. They were pillaged and faced the same fate as the Armenians. By the early 1930’s Christians who accounted for over 40% of the population of (Anatolia) modern day Turkey were extinct as the Greeks were forced to leave in series of population exchanges between Greek and Turkey, over 1 million Armenians and Assyrians were massacred and deported thus leaving the Christian population of Turkey at a meagre 1%!

The Assyrians who were the major Christian population of modern day Iraq suffered similar fate as their Anatolian kinsmen. Denied of their promised State of Assuristan just like the Kurds by the British following the Sykes and Picot agreement of 1916 which guaranteed Lebanon as the only Christian majority nation in the Middle East (60%), the Assyrian population was decimated in waves of Arab attacks and Arabization after the withdrawal of the British in 1922. Though they still numbered about 1.5 million at the turn of the 21st Century, their population has been heavily decimated after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003. Following series of targeted persecutions and assassinations, an existential blow to what remains of the Assyrian peoples and history is being delivered by the Islamic State following the capture of major Assyrian population centres in Mosul (Nineveh) and Quaraqosh. Accounting for 40% of Iraqi refugees, the current Christian population of Iraq is now a few hundred thousand by estimates.

The ''Nasrani" Arabic symbol for Christians used to mark Christian properties in areas under the domain of the Islamic State

Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/10272014_b3-thomas8201jpg/

Christians in Syria are suffering similar fate under the domain of the Islamic State and are facing an existential threat as the Assad regime loose territory to Islamic extremists. Their population is fast dwindling from 10% of the Country’s 22million pre war population.

In Lebanon, the Christian population is down from the majority 60% in the 1930’s to just over 30% currently.  This was due to the Lebanese civil war between Christians and Muslims and then the influx of Palestinian Arab refugees following the creation of Israel in 1948; whilst low birth rate compared to high birth rate due to the practice of polygamy amongst the Muslim population severed a crucial factor.

Despite the extinction of Christianity amongst the Arab tribes of the Arabian Peninsula following the advent of Islam in the 7th Century, it must be noted that Christianity significantly thrives amongst the indigenous population of Bahrain accounting for 10%. Christian presence in the Arabian Peninsula is driven by the presence of foreign expatriates attracted by the regions burgeoning oil industry.

A damaged painting of Jesus Christ on the ground of Syriac Orthodox Um al-Zinar church in Homs, central Syria, May 12, 2014.
Source: http://www.hudson.org/research/11301-the-plight-of-the-middle-east-s-christians

Though Christianity has faced series of persecutions from its inception in the 1st Century AD, never in modern times has the conscience of the world been pricked to the plight of Christians in Islamic domains as this period. Most saddening is that the fact that Christian adherents of the Middle East constitute the original indigenous populations of these land dating back to over 3000years and their heritage is being wiped out by seeming Arabization and Islamic extremism.

The World owes the indigenous Middle East Christian population a duty to protect their heritage else their extinction.