Security Council urges rebels to lay down arms now

The UN Security Council has urged Burundi's warring rebel factions to lay down their arms immediately and enter into ceasefire negotiations due to resume in Tanzania next week. UN News reported that the Council's president, Martin Belinga-Eboutou of Cameroon, had on Thursday called on the rebel movements to refrain from any action that might jeopardise a return to stability in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The hardline Burundi rebel factions, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Force pour le defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) led by Peter Nkurunziza, and the Parti de liberation du peuple hutu-Forces nationales de liberation (Palipehutu-FNL) wing of Agathon Rwasa have so far refused to take part in the ceasefire talks. Two less influential factions of these groups, the Palipehutu-FNL of Alain Mugabarabona and the CNDD-FDD wing led by Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye signed the ceasefire accord with Burundi's transitional government on 7 October, at the Great Lakes summit on Burundi. At this summit, in the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, the leaders gave the recalcitrant wings just 30 days to sign on or face the consequences. UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Carolyn McAskie told IRIN from Burundi on Friday "there are indications" that the CNDD-FDD would join the talks. She is in Burundi to review the development of the peace accord and the humanitarian response to it. In this respect, she said, two issues were important. First, which concerned the present, was that the humanitarian agencies continued to work for greater access to internally displaced persons. With the government trying to defeat the rebels on the battlefield, the difficulty for humanitarian intervention had been the fighting. Second was to prepare for the eventual end of the conflict. When peace was re-established, she said, there was likely to be a mass return of the remaining hundreds of thousands of Burundian refugees, most of them in Tanzania. "It will be extremely difficult to process and settle them back into their hills and their communities," she said. However, she added, the UN had contingency plans and the Burundi government had begun putting in place instruments, such as the National Commission for the Rehabilitation of Returnees, to take charge of the situation. The commission would decide who goes where and gets what land. "That will be an extremely lengthy process," she said.