Rebel group, government sign peace agreement

Burundi's remaining active rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), and the Burundian government signed an agreement on Sunday to end hostilities, effective immediately. Rebel leader Agathon Rwasa signed the agreement for the FNL, while the minister for home affairs, Evariste Ndayishimiye, represented the government during the ceremony in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, where both sides had been engaged in talks for the past three weeks. South African President Thabo Mbeki, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete and Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza attended the signing. The South African government facilitated the FNL-Burundian government talks following a request from a forum of heads of state from Africa’s Great Lakes region, known as the Regional Initiative on Burundi. The two parties had agreed to draw up "a comprehensive ceasefire [agreement] in two weeks," according to a communiqué issued at the end of the talks. However, FNL leader Rwasa said his movement wanted a firmer commitment from the Burundian government. He expressed doubt over the government's commitment towards the achievement of lasting peace. "We want guarantees that the Burundi government is committed to peace and democracy," he told reporters. The agreement, which was to be signed on Saturday, had been delayed because of last-minute disagreements on some aspects of the deal, such as the legal language and the "tone" of the agreement. The accord is expected to end 13 years of civil war in the Central African nation, during which at least 300,000 lives have been lost and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. Conflict between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis erupted in 1993 following the assassination of Burundi’s first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a member of the Hutu majority. Paratroopers of the then-minority, Tutsi-dominated army allegedly killed Ndadaye. Since then, Burundi has been mired in civil strife. Fighting between the army and the FNL continued even after the election in August 2005 of President Nkurunziza, former leader of the main Hutu rebel movement, the Conseil national pour la défense de la democratie-Forces pour la défense de la democratie, which has since become a political party.