Last week, on May 27, The Citizen newspaper of Tanzania carried a story about a “Plot to sabotage Burundi talks” just as The EastAfrican reported that the EAC Secretariat was cutting its budget by $12 million for the financial year 2016-2017 (and an overall cut for EAC of 8.4 per cent).

Now, the two stories might seem unrelated but, as we shall explain, they share something in common: The EAC Secretariat’s diminishing ability to attract funding as well as provide a neutral space for Burundi peace talks.

To explain, the alleged “plot” to derail talks was claimed in a statement released by a group of nine Burundi political parties that attended the preliminary “Burundi dialogue” in Arusha last week. What is common with all these parties, including Uprona, FNL, PMP, PRP and Piebu, is their embrace of Nkurunziza’s “Third Term” and denouncing opposition to it.

The “plotters”, according to the statement, are those opposed to the third term, under a political grouping known as the “National Council for the Restoration of the Arusha Agreement and Rule of Law (CNAREB) as well as, surprisingly, the EU and AU (the latter organisations are accused of partisanship because they met representatives of the former).

The prayer for these parties is for the peace talks facilitator former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa to exclude CNAREB together with the EU and AU from the talks.

And, of course, the Bujumbura government, through its EAC Minister Leontine Nzeyimana reportedly echoed the same demand, announcing that in talks: “There is no room for those who will challenge the legitimacy of the government in power…”

Some could say that their demand might have influenced who was invited because, according to CNARED, it wasn’t. Due to this, it termed the talks a “monologue” warning that, “negotiations that exclude the real stakeholders in the crisis… are a waste of time.”

In other words, the talks weren’t attended by those that have differences that led to the violence in the first place and who, if they so decided, could bring the country back to normalcy. Instead, they are perceived to have been attended by individuals or groups that are in agreement.

Anyhow, while it doesn’t require expertise to know that peace talks only make sense when attended by those who disagree —even violently — rather those who agree or love each other, my point here is that, even the EAC Secretariat, which is supposed to provide support for dialogue seems compromised.

This is primarily because, the Secretary-General, Liberat Mfumukeko is a known Nkurunziza loyalist and, in that sense, incapable of either leading the secretariat in a neutral manner to welcome all protagonists to the conflict without discrimination or persuade development partners who disagree with Nkurunziza to continue supporting the community.

To that extent, one could argue that instead of neutrally providing technical and logistical support for the talks to bear peace, the secretariat is likely to become a centre for Nkurunziza supporters and, in that sense, derail the talks.

And that’s how the budget cutting story relates with the alleged “plot” to kill the talks.

Of course, one could choose to interpret the budget cut as Mr Mfumukeko did by claiming that it represents an efficient way of managing the community’s resources as heads-of-state had ordered. Or one could see the austerity budget as representing a good move towards self-reliance.

However, the reality is, as The EastAfrican reported that the “cost-cutting [is] due to dwindling support from donors”; a challenge likely to deteriorate both due to the (mis)handling of the Burundi crisis and growing perception of mismanagement.

Clarified thus, one could argue that, on Burundi, the EAC heads of state didn’t only make matters worse by failing to agree on a common position when violence broke out nor by taking long to act, but also by appointing a Nkurunziza supporter as SG last year.

And by getting his man to lead the EAC secretariat in Arusha at this point in time, Nkurunziza has once again, quite surprisingly outwitted his opponents. While this might not bring peace to all, it solidifies his position.

Christopher Kayumba, PhD. Senior Lecturer, School of Journalism and Communication, UR; Lead consultant, MGC Consult International Ltd. E-mail: [email protected]; twitter account: @Ckayumba Website:www.mgcconsult.com