FDD leader reportedly visits Tanzanian camp

Leader of the rebel Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD), Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, has reportedly gone to the Karago refugee camp in western Tanzania on a “recruitment mission”, the private Netpress news agency reported. He was quoted as telling refugees that the FDD was “strong”. Instead of attending the Arusha peace talks, he said, the FDD would “enter Bujumbura as liberators”. According to the Netpress report, he claimed the FDD had “many means”. Ndayikengurukiye has yet to participate in the Arusha process, despite being invited by the new facilitator Nelson Mandela.

UNHCR spokesman Paul Stromberg said the agency had no knowledge about Ndayikengurukiye’s alleged visit to the Karago camp. “UNHCR has certainly not sponsored any visit by Jean-Bosco to the camps,” he told IRIN. He said that with ever-growing numbers in the camps, tension was increasing among the refugees and rebel leaders were able to feed on this. Observers note that “rivalry” in the camps between supporters of the CNDD-FDD breakaway group and those who back Leonard Nyangoma, leader of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD), probably led to the murder last month of Nyangoma’s brother Jean Batungwanayo, a doctor at Muyovosi camp. Tanzanian media reports said the killers were suspected members of an underground Hutu extremist group.