Elections, disarmament top on mission's priorities, UN envoy says

Despite the presence of uncooperative powers, democratic elections in Burundi could be held and the disarmament of an estimated 70,000-armed people could be accomplished, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General to Burundi, Carolyn McAskie, has said. "Frankly, I think it is doable," McAskie, who is also the head of the UN peacekeeping mission - known as ONUB - said on 26 October in an interview with IRIN. "There are a lot of forces working positively to make it happen. "There are negative forces as well who would like to disrupt it, but I think they are very much in the minority," she said. "It is very important that the Burundians be given this chance now to put in place a properly elected government." She did, however, recognise that she was not entirely sure that everything was realistically possible. McAskie said there was a "chance" of disorder by dissenting voices. She expressed both optimism and caution. Regarding disarmament, McAskie told IRIN that although the programme was the responsibility of the government of Burundi, ONUB was supporting the government's efforts. The mission deployed troops around the country in order to supervise the cantonment of former rebels, the barracking of soldiers and is also assisting in the verification process former rebels are counted, disarmed and then demobilised. She said up to 15,000 could be quickly demobilised when the process begins at the end of November; as this figure represented children soldiers, the handicapped and those who had attained retirement age, but had not left the army because of the war. She added that the total number of those targeted for disarmament was still being verified. "There are 66,000 people now, either in the army, in the CNDD-FDD [Conseil national pour la défense de la democratie-Forces pour la défense de la democratie] or in the cantonment areas," she said. "We've been given lists of other people still that are out [of the process], but nobody has proven that those people exist." She said the programme would target a probable 70,000 people in total, including 45,000 for the army. "We've got about 21,000 [people] in the cantonment areas," she said. "Plus, there are a few thousand of the CNDD-FDD on the ground." The full IRIN interview with Carolyn McAskie