MANAGING DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OF EX¬ COMBATANTS IN AFRICA; A CASE STUDY OF BURUNDI

Abstract

Managing Disarmament, Demobilization and Reinsertion of Ex-Combatants at the term of an armed conflict reveals itself to be an imperative step to a strong process in peace rebuilding of a society tom by an internal war. The results of a successful procedure are crucial to recover and consolidate the peace and achieve socio-economic development of both the demobilized persons and the entire society. On the contrary, the failure of a DDR process leads to serious consequences such as a resurgence of violence, a return to hostilities and certainly the annihilation of a peace process already in place. Shortly after demobilization process in Burundi, a number of demobilized personnel became a lour unto themselves, languishing in poverty. This idleness was due to their laziness on the one hand and on the negligence of their former commanders on the other hand. Demobilized persons’ unemployment and poverty was the cause of involvement of some of them in peace breach especially during electoral periods. This research work examines the extent to which DDR programs were conducted in African countries after an armed conflict. It focuses particularly on the behavior showed by Burundian politicians on both sides-the governmental party as opposed to the former fighting parties in the electoral period of 2005, 2010, and 2015; each side threatening to break into violence counting on a military force hanging somewhere in the civil population. The recall to demobilized personnel as a military force was also due to the fact that some politicians doubted of the future management of the public affairs for their proper interest, and that of their either ethnic group or political formation. The research was conducted in the light of the Conflict Transformation theoretical framework because the ultimate finality of a DDR program is to transform a bellicose behavior into a peaceful mindset, conflicts into a world of peace, reconciliation and hope for the future. Apart from secondary data in which this study resourced on the conduct of DDR programs in several African states, the questionnaire was used as a research instrument to collect information from Burundi demobilized Ex-Combatants. Qualitative and quantitative methods were applied to examine the views of the respondents on how they estimated the success and the failure of the program.