AFRICA/BURUNDI - IS PEACE IN BURUNDI CLOSER? LAST RESISTING GROUP OF REBELS SITS AT NEGOTIATING TABLE WITH GOVERNMENT

Monday, 19 January 2004

Bujumbura (Fides Service)- “If an agreement is reached between the FLN and the government Burundi’s dream of peace will come true” say local church sources in Bujumbura, where hope grows now that peace talks have started again. In fact on Sunday, 18 January in Holland peace talks began between a Burundian government delegation led by President Domitien Ndayizeye and representatives of the Forces of National Liberation rebel group which has so far refused to sign any agreement which would put an end to decade of civil war in Burundi.
“The talks are only preliminary, nevertheless they are an important signal that FLN has changed its mind attitude after refusing point blank to sit at the negotiating table” the sources told Fides. “This explains the atmosphere of reserve in which the talks are taking place: no one wants to jeopardise the outcome”.
The FLN was blamed recently by President Ndayizeye for the deadly December 29 ambush in which the Papal Nuncio in Burundi Archbishop Michael Aidan Courtney was murdered. “We may suppose that the FLN leaders, feeling ever more isolated, considered on various sides responsible for the Papal Nuncio’s death, have decided to talk. However this is only a conjecture. But of one thing we are certain, Archbishop Courtney’s sacrifice will not be in vain: the peace for which he worked so hard is now within reach” local sources said.
Civil war exploded in Burundi in 1993. The conflict is between the army commanded by officers belonging to the Tutsi ethnic minority and different groups of rebels belonging to the majority ethnic tribe in Burundi, the Hutu. The root of the conflict is the Hutus demand for more representation in state institutions. On 8 October 2003 in Pretoria, South Africa Burundi’s President Domitien Ndayizeye and Pierre Nkurunziza leader of the largest rebel group FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy), reached an important agreement which put en and to hostilities between the army and the FDD. Now it is up to the FLN. (L.M.) (Fides Service 19/1/2004 lines 28 words 355)


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