Former president returns from exile

Former Burundi President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza returned home on Saturday after four years of self-imposed exile, saying he wanted to take part in the nation's political life, news organisations reported.

"I am delighted by this opportunity offered to me to return to the country where I was born," he said on Burundi Radio. "What will I do? I will just do what you are doing. I will make my contribution, at my own level, to the betterment of life."

Under the Arusha agreement of August 2000, a Burundi analyst said, all former presidents are de facto members of the Senate, the higher chamber of parliament. The analyst, who asked not to be named, told IRIN on Monday that the timing of Bagaza's return constituted an advantage for this former military ruler.
"He is very good at exploiting difficult situations," he said.

These include an almost collapsing economy, nationwide teachers' strike, and increasing rebel attacks along highways and on the eastern and southern border with Tanzania, the analyst added. Tutsis, frustrated by the war continuing to be waged by two Hutu rebel groups - the Forces national de liberation, and the Force pour le defense de la democratie - would like a strong leader like Bagaza, the analyst said.

"If Buyoya does not remain in power and the war continues, it will provide the hardline Bagaza with a very good opportunity to rally all Tutsis, especially the frustrated ones," he added.

Pierre Buyoya heads the current three-year transitional power-sharing government between Hutus and Tutsis inaugurated on 1 November. He is to serve as president for the first 18 months, after which a Hutu will take over the presidency for the next year and a half.

Bagaza seized power in a bloodless coup on 1 November 1976 and ruled until 3 December 1987, when he was deposed in a coup Buyoya, then an army major, instigated while the president was on a visit abroad. Bagaza lived in exile in Libya, and again in Uganda in 1998 after Buyoya put him under house arrest for allegedly plotting another coup. Now back in Burundi, he will be guarded by South African troops.