Belligerents in Pretoria for cease-fire talks

Representatives from Burundi's government and those of the rebel Conseil national pour la défense de la democratie-Forces pour la défense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) are in the South African capital, Pretoria, to start discussions aimed at bringing a cease-fire to Burundi's civil war that has been raging for eight years.

The leader of the CNDD-FDD, Pierre Nkurunziza confirmed to IRIN on Monday that at least five members of his group were attending the meeting in Pretoria. "I think that the meeting is a good start," he said, adding that his future attendance of such meetings would depend on the outcome of this one.

However, the rebel Forces nationale de liberation (FNL) did not send representatives to the Pretoria meeting saying the invitation came in late. "The invitation reached here on Friday. Three days would not be enough for us to prepare and leave for the meeting. We are wanted people, so it takes us a bit of time to move from one point to another," an FNL spokesman, Anicet Ntawuhiganayo, told IRIN.

Besides, according to Ntawuhiganayo, the invitation did not include an agenda for the Pretoria meeting, nor the names of other participants. "This discouraged us from going".

He said the fact that the meeting would take place sometime this month was known to them, but "you can know of a meeting, but before you get the invitation, you cannot know whether you will attend the meeting or not". "At least they should try and send it to get to us a week or two before the meeting. If that is done we might attend the such meetings in future," he added.

Meanwhile, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, Berhanu Dinka, was scheduled to deliver a message to the meeting on the Secretary-General's behalf, urging participants to engage fully in the talks in a spirit of reconciliation, tolerance and compromise, a UN spokesman said in New York on Friday. Dinka is also the chairman of the Implementation Monitoring Committee of the Arusha peace accords.