A Hutu rebel group in Burundi has refused to join Burundi’s peace process unless it can negotiate directly with Tutsis, a spokesperson for the National Liberation Forces (FNL) said on Monday.
”Those who love Burundi should call the Tutsis so that they can open up and confess the wrongs they have done against Hutus,” rebel spokesperson Pasteur Habimana told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
During the country’s 10-year-old civil war, Tutsis killed and abused many Hutus, while the government stood by and did nothing, he said.
Burundi’s government and the country’s main rebel group, a faction of the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), signed a peace accord at a summit in Tanzania on Sunday.
Under the accord, the FDD faction becomes a legitimate political party with representation in Burundi’s government. Its fighters are supposed to be integrated into the country’s armed forces. The accord also grants temporary immunity to both sides from prosecution.
But absent from the summit was the FNL, which in recent weeks had waged attacks against government and FDD troops in the country’s capital, Bujumbura.
The majority of people in Burundi are ethnic Hutus. The country’s president is Hutu, while the army is dominated by Tutsis.
Burundi has been ridden by ethnic conflict for much of its history. Civil war between Hutu rebel groups and the government, made up largely of Tutsis, has claimed more than 250 000 lives since 1993. — Sapa-DPA