CNDD-FDD rejects "villagisation" idea

Spokesman for the rebel CNDD-FDD, Jerome Ndiho, has rejected the idea of "villagisation", mooted recently by President Pierre Buyoya. In an interview with the BBC Kirundi service, he described them as "extermination villages" where citizens would have no freedom. He claimed the idea was a plan to "take land" from the local citizens. Presidential spokesman Apollinaire Gahungu told the radio that the villages would be inhabited on a voluntary basis by those people who still felt in need of
protection. He said some people in the current regroupment camps did not want to go home for reasons of safety and also because they had set up businesses in the camps.