Burundi peace deal tentatively set

ARUSHA, Tanzania – Burundi’s government and the country’s last rebel group tentatively agreed to end hostilities and sign a comprehensive cease-fire deal in two weeks, Tanzania’s presidential spokesman said Sunday.

Burundian Home Affairs Minister Brig. Gen. Ernest Ndayishimiye and Agathon Rwasa, leader of the rebel National Liberation Force group, signed the agreement after more than two weeks of negotiations, said Peter Kallaghe, spokesman for President Jakaya Kikwete.

Kikwete, Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza and South African President Thabo Mbeki were witnesses to the signing in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital of Tanzania, Kallaghe said.

The National Liberation Force, or FNL, is the only Hutu rebel group to reject a series of peace deals trying to end Burundi’s 12-year war between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, who have dominated the central African nation’s government, economy and military since its 1962 independence from Belgium.

The conflict has killed more than 250,000 people, most of them civilians dying from conflict-induced disease and hunger.

The agreement was to be signed Saturday, but that was delayed by “some technical hitches,” Kallaghe said.

Officials familiar with the talks said the delay was caused by a disagreement between the Burundi government and rebel negotiators over whether to sign a comprehensive cease-fire agreement or open up earlier peace deals for renegotiation. The officials spoke on condition of ano-nymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Both the government and FNL have declared cease-fires before, only to violate them.

Last week, Rwasa said the rebels had agreed to integrate their fighters into Burundi’s security forces, but negotiators had clashed over other issues, such as what percentage of Hutus and Tutsis should be in the forces.

Burundi’s war started in October 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu.

A series of peace deals led to democratic elections last year and the formation of a power-sharing government between members of the two communities.