Rebel leader says peace deal “a long way off”

The leader of the rebel Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD), Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, said on Thursday that agreement was still “a long way off” in the Arusha peace talks on Burundi. “I don’t believe Mandela can ask us to sign any peace deal in July... It would be very dangerous to sign a peace agreement which would be very volatile and fragile - it would be a terrible risk,” he said in an interview with Reuters news agency. Ndayikengurukiye said he was going to Arusha principally to argue that years of repression by “mono-ethnic Tutsi army” had created a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

Regional analyst Jan Van Eck agreed that it was difficult to envisage an “implementable” peace deal emerging soon. The rebels [FNL and FDD] were not in the process for the past two years, he noted. “The fact that they were excluded, we don’t just expect them to agree to join the process now,” Van Eck told IRIN. “It is like telling them, ‘You weren’t part of it, but just sign’,” he added. So far, Burundi peace facilitator Nelson Mandela did not seem to have won the “total commitment” of the armed rebel groups to the Arusha process, he said.

Much more needs to be done to get the rebels “fully involved”, and that “might need a change of strategy or the Arusha peace process as a whole”, Van Eck added.