Ex-rebel leader back home after 10 years in exile

Former rebel leader and founder of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Leonard Nyangoma, returned to Burundi on Saturday after 10 years in exile. Upon arrival, Nyangoma told reporters at a news conference in the capital, Bujumbura, that he was back because the main objective of his armed struggle had been achieved. "We started the struggle to restore democracy," he said. Burundi, he said, had taken a "significant step" towards democracy as it prepares for elections in 2005, while the army undergoes drastic reforms with the formation of a new defence force that incorporates former rebel combatants. The army has in the past been accused of being dominated by the Tutsi minority. Nyangoma founded the CNDD-FDD after the 1993 assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye. The movement later split in three factions, with the largest being led by Pierre Nkurunziza, now the minister of state in charge of governance in the transitional government, and the other two by Nyangoma and Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye. Following ceasefire and power sharing agreements, all the CNDD-FDD factions have since been registered as political parties. Nyangoma said the splintering of the original CNDD-FDD could not hinder them from forming an alliance of all who fought for democracy, including the Hutu dominated party, the Front pour la démocratie au Burundi, his party of origin. Asked whether or not he would contest the presidential elections scheduled for April, Nyangoma said he would offer himself as a candidate if "Barundi people ask me to do so". Nyangoma is the last of Burundi's former rebel leaders in exile to return home.