23 October 2007
Bujumbura — The truce monitoring commission has resumed its activities without FNL-PALIPEHUTU.
The commission started on October 20th in the presence of the mediator of Burundi's peace process, Charles Nqakula. During this meeting that was attended only by delegates of the government of Burundi, Charles Nqakula regretted that the activities of this commission resumed without the participation of FNL delegates, but said that their place remains open.
He, however, surprisingly stressed the need to provide food and medical assistance to the so-called FNL dissidents who surrendered their weapons since FNL walked out of the truce commission in July after the South African peacekeepers accused FNL members of the FNL delegation of stealing their weapons. Mr. Nqakula indicated that this must be done in order to prevent any troubles that these dissidents might cause to the population in case of food shortages.
Mr. Nqakula surprisingly agreed with the government of Burundi which has already asked the UN Security Council to assist the dissidents. The leader of Frodebu, the main opposition party in Burundi, Hon Léonce Ngendakumana, has already announced that any move to continue talks with dissidents would be suicidal.
FNL leaders have already indicated that they still fear for their security if they were to return to the truce commission, claiming that this meeting is null and void. They, however, also indicate that these so-called dissidents are rather CNDD-FDD combatants who were left in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The South African facilitation team and the regional initiative for Burundi have already set December 31st as the deadline for the implementation of the deal signed last year by the warring sides.
In the meantime, the activities of the truce monitoring commission are stagnating. The leaders of FNL, whose demands for another mediator and a change of the facilitation team have been rejected, still demand talks with the mediator and facilitation team in order to find a solution to security issues which hamper FNL's return to the truce monitoring commission.
Donors have conditioned disbursing funds to Burundi on the improvement of the country's security situation. In this regard, instead of looking into ways to bring back FNL leaders to talks, the Head of State has began a campaign in Bujumbura rural province this week aimed at explaining the content of the deal that was signed in Dar es Salaam, a year ago.
Burundi is struggling to emerge from about three decades of social conflicts that have claimed countless victims.
Civil unrest reached its climax with the murder of Burundi's first democratically elected President, Ndadaye, on 21 October 1993.
The international community that failed to stop genocide Rwanda started to fund Burundi's peace process in hopes of preventing similar horrors from taking place in this tiny country of central Africa. Charles Nqakula is the fourth facilitator after Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela and Jacob Zuma.
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