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Talks on Burundi Transitional Leadership in Dilemma
Talks on Burundi's transitional leadership Thursday got off to a bad start when many of the expected participants failed to turn up, reported Burundi News Agency in Kigali.
Only eight of the 10 pro-Tutsi parties (G10) came, while delegations of senior military officers, civil society representatives and churchmen also failed to come.
"If they do not come at all, then this meeting will have no meaning," admitted the peace facilitator's representative Judge Mark Bomani of Tanzania.
Pro-Tutsi parties are sharply divided over who should lead the transition, with a majority of the G10 supporting former Interior Minister Epitace Bayaganakandi rather than current President Pierre Buyoya.
Buyoya's own position is that the transition institutions cannot be put in place before a ceasefire is reached with the rebels.
A peace agreement signed in Arusha last August provides for a three-year transition period. At a summit in Arusha on February 26, regional heads of state recommended that the three-year transition should be split into two 18-month periods, the first to be led by a Tutsi president and Hutu vice-president, who would then swap roles during the second period.
They recommended that the Tutsi candidate should be chosen by the G10 group of pro-Tutsi parties and the Hutu candidate by the group of seven pro-Hutu parties ("G7").
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