March 29, 2016: The European Union has announced plans to cut back its funding to Burundi’s peacekeeping contingent in Somalia in a bid to force President Pierre Nkurunziza’s arm into talks with the opposition.
Burundi has a 5400- strong contingent is Somalia’s AMISOM earns the country an estimated $13 million a year and its soldiers a combined $52 million. Analysts have sited that the threat to cut that funding could be the fuel Nkurunziza needs to come to the table with his opponents and end the year-long political standoff that has accelerated to violence.
According to the EU, each soldier sent to Somalia, the troop contributing government receives $1000 a month for wages, logistics usually paid from the UE kitty. In Burundi the government keeps $200 a month while the rest goes to the soldiers in Somalia.
The EU is projected to create a formula through which the peacekeepers would be paid seeing as no money would be channeled through the government. This arrangement will see the $13 million that the government receives scrapped off to avoid putting strain on the AU by cutting the entire fund.
European nations and the US have increasing implemented cuts on the funding to Burundi in efforts to pressure the two opposing sides to reach amicable resolution of the standoff.
Over 400 people have been killed since April 2015 with hundreds of thousands fleeing the violence in Burundi to neighboring countries.
