IMC president explains procedures

The president of the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) for the Burundi peace accord, Berhanu Dinka, has explained the IMC’s mandate to the Burundian people. In his first press conference in the Burundian capital Bujumbura last week, he said he hoped more information gatherings would follow. He elaborated the details of the IMC’s work as contained in the peace accord, signed in Arusha, Tanzania, last August. He explained that the IMC would have its headquarters in Bujumbura, as provided for in the accord, but would continue to hold its sessions in Arusha until the conditions were right for its installation in Burundi.

Dinka stressed that the IMC was not an “institution for negotiations”, but would follow up and coordinate implementation of the peace agreement. He said the IMC had now entered its “active phase” and would hold its second ordinary session in mid-May. “The Arusha peace accord is not perfect but it is a good basis from which to build durable peace and reconciliation in Burundi,” Dinka told reporters.