Burundi, last rebels agree to cut deal in two weeks

By George Obulutsa

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) – Burundi’s government and its last
remaining rebel group agreed on Sunday to stop fighting and
return in two weeks to sign a comprehensive ceasefire.

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza and Agathon Rwasa,
leader of the Hutu forces for National Liberation (FNL), were
joined by regional leaders and representatives of the
international community at the signing of the agreement.

“An important agreement has been made to stop hostilities
and reach a comprehensive agreement in two weeks. I believe it
will not take us longer than two weeks,” South African
President Thabo Mbeki told both sides. “Let’s stop these guns.”

South Africa is the mediator in the talks, and Tanzania has
worked hard for more than a year to bring Rwasa and his
leadership to negotiations.

Originally, the two sides had been due to sign a final pact
on Saturday, but talks went late into the night as assembled
dignitaries pressured both sides to reach a deal.

“We’re asking the other delegation to be really determined
to move toward this agreement. As a government we are ready to
implement whatever agreement we sign,” Nkurunziza said.

During the talks, the rebels twice shelled the capital
Bujumbura, killing one and wounding at least 15 others. The
Burundian army regularly hunts the FNL in their bush hideouts
with attack helicopters.

One of the sticking points of the talks was reform of the
police and military, Rwasa said. Under Burundi’s peace plan,
the FNL’s soldiers should be integrated into those
organisations but the rebels have refused.

“We have seen a dictatorship institutionalised in all
forms. In these circumstances, the army, police have continued
to intensify ethnicity,” Rwasa said after signing. “We have to
uproot ethnicity.”

A pact with the FNL is seen as one of the final hurdles to
stability in a nation recovering from more than a decade of
civil war pitting the Hutu majority against the politically and
economically dominant Tutsi minority.

At least 300,000 people were killed in a series of ethnic
reprisals sparked by the 1993 assassination of the first
elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, by Tutsi
paratroopers.

Earlier talks failed to produce a deal, although Tanzania
brokered a May 2005 ceasefire which was broken within days.

Burundi, a coffee-growing nation of 7 million on the shores
of Lake Tanganyika, has been lauded as a model on the continent
because of its progress and relative stability in following a
U.N.-backed peace plan drawn up by regional leaders.