Buyoya comments on the Pretoria talks

Burundi’s President Pierre Buyoya at the weekend said that his delegation achieved its aim, which was to “make progress in the talks” despite the fact that the summit of the heads of state failed to take place. “As you already know, there was supposed to be a summit between the heads of state of Gabon, DRC and Burundi. This summit did not take place but the work went ahead,” Burundi radio quoted him as saying. “I met South African vice-president who was charged with chairing the negotiations on the ceasefire. He briefed us on how the work was organised and the objectives being aimed at,” he said. Buyoya said that the work of the technical experts committee “stumbled on the issue of mediation”. “The FDD delegation stressed on the fact that President Omar Bongo should be recognised as a co-mediator. Of course it was not possible for us to designate somebody as a co-mediator since the mediator is designated by regional countries and accepted by Burundians and the international community,” Buyoya explained. “In short, the issue was a stumbling block. The meeting of experts resumed on the following day [Friday]. The difficulty was not solved,” he said. Buyoya said that it was after the intervention of the South African mediator and the Gabonese foreign minister, who was assisting in the mediation, that the discussion “moved forward”. The delegates finally agreed on the commitment to negotiate and the objective of the negotiations. “We agreed that the mediator was Mandela and that the negotiations should start as soon as possible,” Buyoya said. “We fixed the next date as 13 August. In general, we agreed on the talks timetable since we had already agreed on in Libreville [Gabon],” he said. He, however, noted that two questions remain to be clarified: Whether President Bongo is co-mediator or not, and that of the venue of for the negotiations. He said that Mandela had said he would “do everything possible” to clarify the question of co-mediation after consulting with the regional heads of state before 13 August. “Therefore, I think we did not achieve all what we were seeking. However, as you can see there are some clarifications on the ways to carry out the negotiations,” Buyoya added.