Border reopens

Burundi has re-opened its border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which it had closed after the massacre on 13 August of 160 Congolese refugees, a government official announced on Thursday. The border was reopened to facilitate the work of teams investigating the massacre and to allow resumption of trade between the two countries, Burundi's government spokesman and minister for communications, Onesime Nduwimana, told reporters in the capital, Bujumbura. He said the government had realised that the border's closure was hurting trade relations between people in the two countries. He added that the re-opening would allow Burundians to restock supplies of goods such as cement, which had started running out in the local market. Moreover, Nduwimana said, those who threaten the security in Burundi or the DRC do not necessary use legal routes to move between the two countries. "Burundi therefore decided to allow the free circulation of people and goods and to increase security measures for the control of the criminals' routes," he said. He said the reopening would also allow the two countries to exchange information that could lead to the arrest of those responsible for the massacre of the refugees at Gatumba camp, 16 km northwest of Bujumbura. "The inquiry teams need to go from one country to another," he said. Following the Gatumba massacre, President Domitien Ndayizeye said Burundi had been attacked from DRC and announced the border's closure to prevent new attacks. Although a Burundian rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) of Agathon Rwasa, has claimed responsibility for the massacre, various sources have blamed a coalition of criminals, comprising former Congolese militias known as the Mayi-Mayi, a Rwandan militia based in eastern Congo, known as the Interahamwe, and the FNL for the attack. The FNL is the only rebel movement that is still fighting the government; three other groups have signed ceasefire agreements and joined the transitional government. At a regional summit on 18 August in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, leaders of the Great Lakes region declared the FNL a terrorist group and appealed to the UN and the international community to treat it as such.