Former president to return home

A leading Burundi opposition politician, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, told IRIN on Wednesday he was preparing his return home but wanted to ensure that there would be no assassination attempts on him and members of his party.

"We are still negotiating with government about security," he said. "There is a problem here that Burundians do not want to talk about. We want to be guarded by the Burundian army, but the government wants to give us South Africans. We will be forced to accept it if we want to return home."

Bagaza, a one-time president of Burundi is now leader of the Parti pour la reconciliation du peuple (PARENA). He said he was planning on negotiating his party's entry into the power-sharing transitional government, installed 1 November 2001, and in all state institutions such as the National Assembly and the Senate.

Parena signed the Arusha peace accord in August 2000, but did not commit itself to implementation of the agreement. For this reason, the party is not represented in the current government and nor does sit on the Implementation Monitoring Committee which oversees the implementation of the accord.

Referring to Parena's possible entry in the government, Bagaza said: "The transitional government was not negotiated at Arusha, but in Johannesburg between Buyoya and Minani of FRODEBU [Front pour la democratie au Burundi]. I will negotiate with them to enter the transitional government."

He added that the important thing was that he had signed the peace accord.