South Africa agrees to facilitate peace talks

South Africa has announced that it would take over peace talks between the government of Burundi and the country's only remaining rebel group, the Forces nationales de libération (FNL).

"South Africa was approached by the president of Tanzania and the government of Burundi to take over the facilitation process," Mdu Lembede, South Africa's ambassador to Burundi, said on Thursday on state-owned Radio Burundi.

He said South African President Thabo Mbeki agreed to take on the role after consulting with the chairman of the Regional Initiative for Burundi, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

The South African government has designated a chief facilitator for the talks, Lembede said, but he did not give the name. Technical teams representing Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa "will meet next week in Dar es Salaam and consult the FNL and the government of Burundi to fix the agenda and timetable for the talks," he said.

The Tanzanian government had agreed to facilitate the talks in early April but they were postponed in the last minute. The head of the Burundian delegation and former Interior minister Salvator Ntacobamaze denied reports that the Burundi government had boycotted the talks. Ntacobamaze said it was the Tanzania government that had cancelled the talks.

The FNL split into two factions in 2005, one headed by Agathon Rwasa and the other by Jean Bosco Sindayigaya. Sindayigaya's faction has stopped fighting and is ready to negotiate with the Burundian government. In March, Rwasa said he would also negotiate and since then he and his negotiating team have been in Dar es Salaam waiting for the talks to begin.

However, Rwasa's FNL is still active in the Burundian provinces of Bujumbura Rural and Bubanza with reports of skirmishes taking place with the army at least every two weeks.

The Burundi government is preparing a demobilisation camp for FNL combatants near the Congolese border. In early April, it announced that security had improved in most of the country and lifted a curfew in the capital, Bujumbura. It has, however, maintained security roadblocks connecting the city with the countryside.