“Little headway” in Arusha

The 19 sides taking part in the Arusha peace process ended talks in the Tanzanian town on Friday with little headway made on crucial issues, the Internews press service reported. However, they did agree on the composition of the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC), set up to oversee implementation of the 28 August peace agreement. The IMC will have 29 representatives drawn from regional governments, the UN, the OAU and the Burundi parties, and an 11-person permanent executive council will be set up within the committee. But key issues such as leadership of the transition period and ceasefire arrangements remained elusive.

At the close of a weeklong session of talks on Friday, four parties had refused to sign a document pledging their commitment to the peace deal, the Hirondelle news agency reported. The pro-Hutu CNDD (of Leonard Nyangoma), the main pro-Tutsi UPRONA party, the radical Tutsi PARENA party and the pro-Tutsi RADDES party did not sign, despite a warning from a senior member of the facilitation team, Judge Mark Bomani, that they would be excluded from future meetings. Bomani also said a meeting to discuss the ceasefire would be called this month. At around the same time, the facilitator, Nelson Mandela, would also tour the Burundi refugee camps in Tanzania and pay another visit to Burundi. Burundi’s Peace Process Minister Ambroise Niyonsaba described the Arusha meeting as successful, according to the private Umwizero radio.