The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Patty Magubira
26 January 2008
Mwanza — Tanzania has pressed the government of Burundi to implement the contract it signed with Palipehutu FNL in a bid to expedite the country's peace process.
Briefing reporters after about one-hour talks he held in camera with his Burundi counterpart here late on Thursday, President Jakaya Kikwete said President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi heeded the call to implement the contract.
President Kikwete said Tanzania was willing to continue facilitating talks between the Burundi's two conflicting sides to ensure peace resumed in the tiny war tone East African country emerging from the devastation of more than a decade of civil war in which 300 000 people have died.
President Nkurunziza assured reporters here that Burundi was peaceful save trivial skirmishes, which could not be avoided in any country.
His government envisages forming a reconciliation commission to find a lasting solution for the remaining skirmishes, he promised.
"Conflict resolution is a long process, others will take over the government and proceed with it" he stressed. His government had pardoned about 7,000 political prisoners and shortened punishment for others, he said.
Briefing reporters on two other agenda discussed during the talks, President Kikwete said Tanzania was pleased with the agreement it signed with Burundi on repatriation of Burundi refugees.
He, however, said a more efficient procedure ought to be put in lace to speed up the process without exerting much pressure on Burundi.
"We also discussed on Kenya post-election skirmishes, we're pleased and believe that the ongoing talks mediated by the former UN Secretary General, Mr Koffi Annan, are the only way to end the standoff," he said.
He called on the government of Kenya and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) to accord Mr Annan and his entire mission due cooperation.
Flanking Mr Annan in the talks are Africa's veteran politicians Mrs Graca Machel, the wife of the former President of South Africa Mr Nelson Mandela, and Mr Benjamin Mkapa, the former President of Tanzania.
Mr Kikwete said Burundi was, as a result of the ongoing violence in Kenya, facing an acute shortage of essential commodities, which were currently being sold at exorbitant prices.
"Tanzania is ready to assist the neighbouring country to use the Dar es Salaam port instead of the violence marred one of Mombasa," he said.
The two heads of state directed the Tanzanian Minister for Infrastructure Development, Mr Andrew Chenge, and his Burundi counterpart to meet immediately in a bid to chart out ways of implementing the resolution, he said.
Burundi's war erupted with the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by officers in the minority Tutsi-dominated army in 1993.
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