Dar Es Salaam — TANZANIA has asked the United Nations to repatriate all refugees from the country as one of the priority issues in the implementation of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement on Burundi. Over 70 percent of refugees in Tanzania are Burundians.

Information reaching here from United States quotes Tanzanian Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr. Jakaya Kikwete as asking the UN General Assembly in New York to repatriate of the asylum seekers as the only way to heal and normalize process of the troubled country.

He hoped that in the process, UN refugee agency would include not only the 500,000 refugees in the present camps, but also the earlier caseload of 300,000 so as to enable Tanzania manage its resources more effectively. He, however, pledged to continue working towards bringing peace in the Great Lakes region.

His call comes when some signatories of the Burundi peace agreement have asked Tanzania government not to repatriate to Burundi, over 350,000 refugees presently staying in local refugee camps. The request was a reaction to a joint statement issued in Tanzania last week by Parliamentary Committee on Security and Defense as well as Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Speaking to The Guardian here last week, representatives of the four out of 19 signatories said that durable peace was yet to be restored in Burundi.

"Therefore, repatriating refugees back home would be tantamount to subjecting them to possibly persecution upon their arrival," the paper quotes them as saying. They stressed that voluntary repatriation should be predicated upon restoration of peace in the country, which has been rent by civil strife for several years. The apprehensive signatories pointed out that tension was still high in Burundi, in spite of recent installation of a transitional government as a formula for lasting peace conceived by leaders of the Great Lakes Region.

They hinted that even refugees themselves were reluctant to return home, calling for the formation of a special protection unit to protect all Burundians as pre-conditions for doing so. In the joint statement read before the National Assembly in Tanzania last week, Samwel Malecela, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Security and Defense and William Shija, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said refugees should be repatriated soon.