Nyangoma warns CNDD will not take part in Arusha talks

The leader of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD), Leonard Nyangoma, has said his rebel movement will not take part in next month’s round of the Arusha peace talks. In a letter to the facilitators of the Burundi peace process, a copy of which was received by IRIN, Nyangoma said two of the five representatives he intended to send to Arusha had been “unjustly detained and imprisoned” in Ngara, western Tanzania. Unless the two - Zacharie Munyakazi and Selemani Said - were freed, the CNDD delegation would not go to Arusha, it said. Nyangoma also stressed that CNDD members had, since February, been concerned by their personal security in Tanzania and that this constituted a “permanent obstacle” to the CNDD’s “optimal participation” in the Arusha process.