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Burundi gov't still supports peace talks: Tanzanian minister

Xinhua, January 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Tanzanian authorities, at the centre of Burundi peace talks, said on Thursday the Burundi government still supported the talks aimed at ending civil strife in the tiny east African country.

On Wednesday the Burundi government boycotted the peace talks in Tanzania's northern town of Arusha facilitated by Tanzania as current chair of the East African Community (EAC).

Augustine Mahiga, Tanzanian Minister for Foreign Affairs, East African, Regional and International Affairs, said Burundi was not against the peace talks initiated by neighbouring states and aimed at saving the country from further bloodshed.

He said: "Information we have is that the Burundian authorities are still preparing to get the process off the ground."

Mahiga told a news conference that the absence of the Burundi government delegations to the Arusha peace talks was no proof that the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza was against peace initiatives by the EAC and other regional bodies.

He said Burundian authorities have requested that full time consultations on the talks be postponed to a later date to allow the government there to weigh the composition and size of the delegates representing various warring parties.

"We are still consulting with the Burundi government and Burundi says it is still consulting within the country on the mediation roadmap," said Mahiga at the end of a five-hour closed door meeting attended by Uganda, Angola and Tanzania, countries spearheading the peace process in the strife-torn country.

Also in attendance were officials from the African Union (AU) and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).

Burundi plunged into bloody chaos from last April when President Nkurunziza announced his intention to vie for the presidency for a third five-year-term which he went on to win during the controversial elections held in July.

His opponents claim that his extension of tenure was not only against the country's Constitution but also contrary to the Arusha Accord of 2000 which brought peace after a civil war dating back to the late 1980s and which claimed the lives of over 300,000 people.

The political upheaval in Burundi, an EAC member state, has left more than 200 dead and displaced over 200,000 people who have fled their country to seek refuge in Tanzania, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Endit