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Leaders of Great Lakes Region to Meet on Burundi Peace
Leaders of the Great Lakes region will meet in Arusha, northern Tanzania, on July 23 to try to push the stalled Burundi peace process, a senior aide to the peace facilitator Nelson Mandela said Wednesday.
Mark Bomani told reporters in Arusha that Mandela will report the progress to the leaders at the meeting which is also to be attended by the 19 signatory parties to the Burundi peace agreement signed on August 28 last year.
The agreement has still not been implemented mainly due to the lack of consensus on the transition leadership and of a cease-fire between the government and the Hutu rebels.
However, Mandela predicted last Friday that the peace process is on the verge of a breakthrough after meeting with Burundian President Pierre Buyoya in South Africa.
He also met with Burundian army leaders and the country's two main political parties: Buyoya's UPRONA party and the main opposition party FRODEBU (pro-Hutu).
Mandela said that he will meet on July 7 in South Africa with Hutu rebel leader Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye of the CNDD-FDD, a main rebel group, before his briefing on Burundi to the summit of the Organization of the African Unity in Lusaka, Zambia.
The CNDD-FDD and another rebel group, the FNL, have not been part of the peace process and have not laid down their arms.
Burundi has been wracked by civil war since 1993 when the first democratically elected President Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi troops.
More than 200,000 people, mostly civilians, died in the fighting.
The peace talks were initiated by former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere in June 1998 and have been beefed up by Nelson Mandela since he succeeded Nyerere as the facilitator in December 1999 following the latter's death of leukemia.
However, fighting has been intensifying between government forces and the rebels in many parts of the country even after the signing of the peace and reconciliation agreement last August.
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