Buyoya in direct talks with FDD leader

Burundi’s President Pierre Buyoya on Tuesday held direct talks with the leader of rebel Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD), Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, in Libreville Gabon, for the first time since the civil war in Burundi began in 1993, news organisations reported. The meeting, hosted by Gabonese leader Omar Bongo and also attended by DRC President Laurent-Desire Kabila, lasted more than three hours, AFP reported.

“President Kabila is at the origin of today’s encounter,” the agency quoted DRC Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu as telling reporters in Libreville. “He has always believed that peace in Burundi is inseparable from peace in the DRC. We cannot hide the fact that Burundi is among the aggressors in the DRC. It cannot deny that it has troops there. Burundi recognises it has forces on our territory,” he added.

Okitundu said the Libreville meeting was an important event to get “beyond the impasse of the Arusha accord”. “The two parties have made considerable progress,” he said. Some 19 Burundi parties signed a peace and reconciliation agreement in August last year, but two armed rebel groups, the FDD and the Forces nationale de liberation (FNL), did not.