The purpose of peace talks is to engage your opponent across the negotiating table. But the Burundi government sees things differently and by picking and choosing whom it talks to, last Tuesday sank the latest mediation effort to resolve the country’s political crisis.

The four days of an “intra-Burundi dialogue,” mediated by former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa, were labelled a “monologue” by the opposition.

They are furious over the government’s decision not to talk to key members of the umbrella National Council for the Restoration of Arusha Agreement and Rule of Law — known by the French acronym “CNARED”.

The government of President Pierre Nkurunziza has been steadfast in its refusal to talk with opponents implicated in a coup attempt last year aimed at stopping his bid for a third-term in office. Instead, the May 21-24 “dialogue” in Arusha, Tanzania, featured only government officials, two former heads of state and a selection of like-minded individuals.

In a limp statement on Sunday, Mkapa’s office regretted the absence of key opposition figures, and said Mkapa would “meet all the stakeholders who were invited to attend the Arusha dialogue and were not able to come due to various reasons … in due course.”

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Some members of the CNARED alliance had been invited to Arusha. But it was in their private capacity, not as representatives of the body, which is recognised by the African Union and the East African Community as the legitimate voice of the opposition.

“The negotiations that exclude the real stakeholders in the crisis, including CNARED, civil society, armed movements, religious representatives, media, women and youth are a waste of time,” said a CNARED statement. “Those who have gone to Arusha know themselves, they have no atom of a solution to the crisis that has rocked Burundi.”

The UN estimates that at least 474 people have died as a result of political violence since April last year. More than 79,000 people have been internally displaced and 250,000 have fled the country. The crisis has crippled Burundi’s economy, worsening already poor development indicators.

CNARED insists it will not accept any post-crisis arrangement that allows President Nkurunziza to stay in office. They argue that his third-term bid was prohibited by the Constitution and also violated the 2000 Arusha Peace Accord that ended Burundi’s decade-long civil war. But in a controversial ruling, the courts allowed Nkurunziza to stand, and he went on to easily win elections in July 2015.

But without the participation of all parties to the negotiations, including armed groups involved in attacks on the security forces and government officials, a political solution to end the 13-month conflict is unlikely, analysts warn.

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The International Criminal Court has opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations of gross human rights abuses, including torture, rape and disappearances.

CNARED’s participation has been a longstanding sticking point for the East African Community-mediated talks, both back when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was facilitator and now under the direction of Mkapa. But given the implacability of the Burundi government, the former Tanzanian leader may have had no option at the moment but to meet CNARED separately in the search for common ground.

“The problem is that the African Union and international community more broadly, has little leverage over Nkurunziza in pressuring his government to include CNARED ,” said Alex Fielding, senior analyst at Max Security Solutions, a geopolitical risk consulting firm.

“Nkurunziza called the AU’s bluff back in December when the regional bloc resolved to intervene militarily with or without his consent, correctly predicting that neither the AU leaders nor the UN Security Council had the political will to intervene militarily against a hostile Burundi,” he said.

Referring to an attempt to bring CNDD-FDD Nkurunziza’s party, then a rebel group, to the negotiating table in the 1990s, Carine Kaneza, spokesperson for the Women and Girls Movement for Peace and Security in Burundi said that the situation requires a whole new level of intervention.

“If CNDD-FDD was resilient and defiant [then] … what will it take today when it controls all national instruments of state power?”

The Arusha Accords, a power-sharing arrangement that merged the army with rebel forces, remains the reference point for a political solution today.

“Nkurunziza must consider political concessions — such as increasing the power of opposition parties over key decision-making areas — that will appease the protesters,” said Phil Clark, a Great Lakes expert at the School of Oriental and African Affairs, University of London.

“Given that Nkurunziza will continue refusing to step down, he must find other ways to respond to protesters’ demands, including ceasing daily violations against citizens, tackling state corruption and delivering development in the Burundian countryside.”

To bring that about, how willing is the international community to consider more robust measures?

“The only feasible solution involves the government agreeing to an external observer mission that ensures an end to the government’s violations — including killings — against opposition leaders and supporters. That must be the first process put in place,” Mr Clark said.

- IRIN