Burundi gov't officials absent from Tanzania peace talks

Burundi government officials were absent from peace talks held on Wednesday in Tanzania's northern town of Arusha under the auspices of the East African Community (EAC).

Officials organizing the dialogue said there were no representatives from the Burundi government.

However, some opposition leaders and some Burundi members of the East African Legislative Assembly were present at the talks.

Augustine Mahiga, Tanzania's Minister for Foreign Affairs, East African, Regional and International Cooperation, said the process to end the months-old political crisis in the tiny east African country was " up and running" despite several hitches.

"The Burundi peace process is still on track despite some signals to the contrary in the media," he said when opening the talks that will lay down the entire process to end the bloody chaos that has claimed hundreds of lives since April last year after President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to extend his tenure for the third time.

The talks were being spearheaded by Tanzania as the current Chair of the EAC, Angola which has a similar capacity in the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) and Uganda which was tasked by the EAC in June last year to mediate various parties involved in the crisis in Burundi were also taking part.

Mahiga said the EAC was keen to see the Burundi crisis tackled through dialogue among the conflicting parties.

"Our deep commitment is to work with Burundi leaders from different political groups to bring peace, stability and security to their country," he said.

He added that the turmoil in Burundi, an EAC member state, has impacted heavily on EAC integration issues largely because of insecurity and displacement of over 200,000 who have fled their country to seek refuge in Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

"The humanitarian consequences were big," he said as he pleaded to all warring parties in the conflict to come to the negotiation table to end the turmoil which has brought the tiny country closer to a civil war of the 1980s and 1990s and also genocide as the violence has lately taken an ethnic dimension.

EAC secretary general Richard Sezibera said the regional body was keen to see Burundi stabilizing, adding that all efforts would be made to ensure that the dialogue which was facilitated by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni came to fruition. Endit