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Repr
esentatives of Burundi's last active rebel group arrived in
Pretoria yesterday for talks with South African Deputy President
Jacob Zuma, two days before a regional summit on the central
African country's peace process, officials said.
The six-member delegation from the National Liberation Front (FNL),
which is still fighting outside the capital Bujumbura, is led by
Ibrahim Nyongabo.
Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and leaders of former rebel
groups failed during four days of talks in Pretoria this week to
agree on an election date and a progress report to be presented to
a regional summit in Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
The government wants to postpone elections due in October by a year
but the former rebel groups and political parties have balked at
the proposal.
Leaders in Dar es Salaam are this weekend to take stock of progress
since a peace accord signed in Arusha in August 2000 which saw the
establishment of a three-year transitional government the following
year.
Its creation was to pave the way for elections in Burundi, where
some 300 000 people have died since 1993, when war broke out,
pitting rebels from the Hutu majority against the army and
government, run then by Tutsis.
Under the peace accord, the interim power-sharing government was
led for 18 months by Tutsi Pierre Buyoya, seconded by Ndayizeye, a
Hutu, who took over for the second half of the transition period in
May last year.
Six of the seven rebel groups have signed onto the peace process
brokered by South Africa and fighting has cased in 16 of the 17
provinces in the country. - Sapa-AFP
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