Former rebel group suspends participation in cabinet

A former major rebel group in Burundi announced on Monday that it was freezing relations with President Domitien Ndayizeye and that its ministers would no longer attend cabinet meetings. The spokesman for the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Ramadhan Karenga, said the reason for the decision was that Ndayizeye was "unreliable". He said the main issue was that Ndayizeye had refused to endorse CNDD-FDD's candidate for the Interior Ministry following the death, in March, of the minister, Simon Nyandwi, who was a CNDD-FDD member. Ndayizeye has said he had asked the former rebel group, now a political party, to propose three candidates from whom he would choose one. The party only proposed one candidate. Karenga said CNDD-FDD ministers would not attend further cabinet meetings until the dispute was settled. He said the party had requested that the facilitator of the Burundi peace process, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, intervene in the crisis. However, Karenga said CNDD-FDD ministers would continue to do their work and that the party would participate in other government institutions. Earlier in April, the CNDD-FDD leader, Peter Nkurunziza, had threatened to pull out of the transitional government and to tell CNDD-FDD militants to return to armed conflict. Nkurunziza made the threat when authorities in the northwestern province of Kayanza closed the stadium to him. He was in the province on an official visit as minister for good governance. "It was a way of preventing him from working," Karenga said. Last week Ndayizeye also visited Kayanza and, according to news reports, CNDD-FDD militants threatened local residents so that few dared come out to see him.