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Depu
ty President Jacob Zuma says the Palipehutu National Liberation
Forces’ (FNL) recent attacks on Burundi’s capital
Bujumbura, will not derail the implementation of the Cease-fire
Agreement signed in December 2002. Speaking in Pretoria after
attending a Regional Consultative meeting on Burundi in Tanzania
over the weekend, the Deputy President said FNL would not be a
deciding factor for peace and asked the rebel group to come for
negotiations. “I have always said that FNL which is outside,
because of its size and because of the area they operate, cannot be
a deciding factor whether the peace process goes forward or not.
They are only operating in one area of the country,” said the
Deputy President. Zuma, the facilitator of Burundi peace process
said FNL would be pursued to get into the process of discussions
and if that failed other measures would have to be taken.
“It means we have to take very specific measures, which I
think everybody feels time has come to do so. But we just feel its
important to talk to them to see if they are serious about wanting
to talk,” said Zuma. The Tanzania meeting was convened by the
Regional Chairperson of the Great Lakes Regional Initiative on
Burundi, Yoweri Museveni, and attended by Zuma, and signatories of
the Ceasefire Agreement. Domitien Ndayizeye President of the
Transitional Government of Burundi (TGB), and the Legal
Representative of the CNDD-FDD Pierre Nkurunziza, also
attended.
The meeting condemned the FNL attacks in Bujumbura and urged the
Palipehutu-FNL to refrain from violence.
All parties called on the FNL to enter into negotiations with the
Transitional Government of Burundi, with a view to concluding a
ceasefire agreement without delay.
Zuma said that the Dar Es Salaam meeting was to iron out all the
outstanding issues between the TGB and the CNDD-FDD on power
sharing and process of cantonment to finalise the cease-fire
agreement. But the issue of FNL was not the centre of discussions
at the meeting, said Zuma. On the issue of the deployment of the
African Union (AU) African Mission Force to Burundi, Zuma said the
lack of resources were hampering the full deployment of the 3 200
troops from South Africa, Ethiopia and Mozambique. “They
(troops) are coming, the problem is resources but the commitment is
there. There’s the first problem we identified but we have
said that the resources are a problem”. – BuaNews.
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