Burundi: Parties Enlarge Peace Pact Monitoring Body

Anaclet Rwegayura
Arusha, Tanzania - Signatories to the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi meeting in Arusha have agreed to enlarge the committee they are forming to monitor implementation of the pact.

The committee was originally proposed to have about a dozen members.

According to sources close to the meeting, the Implementation Monitoring Committee shall comprise one representative from each party to the peace pact, including the government and six eminent Burundians who are not members of any political party.

On the eminent Burundians, the meeting agreed that they should be acknowledged for their moral integrity, patriotism and commitment to peace.

The monitoring committee is being set up to steer Burundi to the attainment of the objectives of peace, democracy, stability, justice, the rule of law, national reconciliation, unity and development as spelt out in the agreement.

Representatives of international, regional and sub-regional organisations on the committee shall be designated after consultation with parties to the agreement.

The parties are the government of Burundi, the National Assembly, Alliance Burundo-Africaine pour le salut (ABASA), Alliance Nationale pour le Droit et le Developpement (ANNADE), Alliance de Vaillants (AV-INTWARI) and Conseil National pour la Defense de la Democratie (CNDD).

Others are Front pour la Democratie au Burundi (FRODEBU), Front pour la Liberation Nationale (FROLINA), Mouvement Socialiste Panafricaniste INKINZO (MSP-INKINZO), Parti pour la Liberation du Peuple Hutu (PALIPEHUTU), Parti pour le Redressement National (PARENA).

There are also Parti Independant des Travailleurs (PIT), Parti Liberal (PL), Parti du Peuple (PP), Parti pour la Reconciliation du Peuple (PRP), Parti Social-Democrate (PSD), Ralliement pour la Democratie et le Developpement Economique et Social (RADDES), Rassemblement du Peuple Burundais (RPB) and Union pour la Progres National (UPRONA).

Enlargement of the monitoring committee however has raised eyebrows of the Burundi peace talks facilitators, who preferred a restricted group that would ensure efficiency and prompt action.

A source close to the facilitation team told PANA that problems that had bogged down the peace negotiations would now be inherent in the implementation monitoring committee.

In a demonstration of what one observer at the meeting described as their "characteristic intransigence", Burundian delegates are said to have told the facilitation team that their decision was not subject to further discussion.

The meeting is due to close Friday, but a pall of uncertainty still hangs over the next move to put the Burundi peace agreement into action.

"It appears some of the delegates want to carry on with argument instead of action," another observer said, adding that the whole process could be forced into a freeze-frame by those fearing to go ahead.

It is believed that Burundian politicians in exile still fear for their security if they were to return home now while Burundi's strongman Pierre Buyoya is still in power.

A general feeling among observers of the Burundi situation is that the facilitator, former South African President Nelson Mandela, should devote more time to pressure the groups into action.

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