Mandela launches committee to monitor peace deal

Burundi’s peace process mediator Nelson Mandela on Monday inaugurated the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) which will oversee implementation of the Arusha peace accord, signed on 28 August, the Hirondelle news agency reported. He also announced that the chairman of the new body would be the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Great Lakes, Berhanu Dinka. The IMC has 29 members comprising the 19 signatories to the accord, and representatives of donor countries, the UN, the OAU, regional states and Burundi’s civil society. Speaking in Arusha, Tanzania, Mandela stressed that the IMC’s function would be to implement decisions taken by the signatories to the accord, and not to negotiate. The IMC’s temporary seat will be in Arusha, and will meet on Tuesday under Dinka’s chairmanship. “I would like all the outstanding problems solved before the Paris [donor] conference on 11 and 12 December,” Mandela told the delegates, underlining that this would create a good environment for donors to make pledges to Burundi. The main sticking points are leadership of the transitional period and agreement on a ceasefire, and it is hoped these issues will be resolved by the time the Arusha meeting ends on Wednesday, Hirondelle reported. Ambassador Dinka, for his part, urged Burundians “to continue their forward march”.

The Burundian national assembly has still to ratify the Arusha accord. Parliamentary speaker Leonce Ngendakumana told Burundi radio the agreement would be ratified once “material errors” had been corrected and “contradictions eliminated”. Ngendakumana, who is in Arusha, told the meeting that the national assembly did not want to ratify the accord “in a climate of confusion, misunderstanding and tension”, the Hirondelle news agency added. A senior member of the facilitation team, Judge Mark Bomani, has accused Burundi’s political leaders of “dilly-dallying” over implementation of the accord.