As some of Burundi’s Hutu leaders prepare to take up their seats in a government set up by the newly-installed Hutu president, others are still, after a decade of bloodshed, engaged in hostilities with the Tutsi-led army.
In his first official act since assuming the presidency last week as part of a three-year power-sharing deal, Domitien Ndayizeye on Monday gave cabinet posts to officials from breakaway wings of two Hutu rebel groups that have signed ceasefire deals in this central African state.
Ndayizeye named Cyrilly Hicintuka, of the National Liberation Forces (FNL) as his civil service minister, and Gaspard Kobako, of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) as minister of public works.
A Hutu politician, Rodolphe Baranyizigiye, became minister of youth and sports.
But the main wings of the FNL and the FDD are still effectively at war with the army, even though the latter has signed a ceasefire.
According to UN figures, more than 300 000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed as a result of Burundi’s civil war, which began in 1993.
The most recent casualties were killed in an incessant series of clashes on Monday in a commune northeast of the capital, Bujumbura.
The army said it had preempted a planned attack by the main FDD wing, led by Pierre Nkurunziza, on a military position and that some 23 rebels and two soldiers had been killed.
The FDD claimed to have suffered no casualties and accused the army of killing about 30 civilians in an unprovoked assault.
The fighting, which continued on Tuesday, came less than a week after a landmark presidential handover from Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, to Ndayizeye.
The transition was a key provision of a power-sharing accord signed by politicians — but not rebels — in Arusha, Tanzania in 2000.
”This handover does not concern us. We are fighting against a system and the accession of a Hutu to the presidency changes nothing, because the system stays the same,” said FDD representative Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe.
Nkurunziza’s FDD and the government blame each other for the continuing hostilities.
”If the army stops these offensives against our positions, there will be no problem” he said.
”But that won’t be enough. The government and its army must also come to the negotiating table immediately to discuss the last outstanding political and military points,” he added.
But government representative and Communications Minister Albert Mbonerane insited that Bujumbura had long proffered an olive branch to the rebels.
”The government has always offered its hand (in peace) to Nkurunziza’s FDD, all the more so since the December 2002 ceasefire accord calls for them to come into all the transitional institutions,” he said.
”It is up to the FDD to seize the opportunity to join the peace process,” he added.
The FDD’s Ndabirabe scoffed at this, calling the peace process ”a lie, a diversion, because the army has chosen to go on a general offensive.”
”We are not interested in these jobs. The FDD wants an immediate end to the general offensive that the army has mounted in Bubanza province,” he added.
”A Hutu coming to power changes nothing for the FDD,” mused one diplomat based in Bujumbura.
”The FDD want a new setup which guarantees them a plum role in government and they want to continue fighting until there is a deal that places them at the forefront of the Hutu community,” he added. – Sapa-AFP