The majority of Burundian parties early on Friday signed a power-sharing deal brokered by South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma to pave the way for elections in the central African nation which has been ravaged by war.
Twenty parties inked the deal in Pretoria but 10 did not sign — a fact which did not faze either Zuma or Carolyn McAskie, the head of the United Nations mission in Burundi.
”This is a decision taken by the majority of parties and therefore a decision taken for the Burundian people,” Zuma said after the parties signed the deal in front of him and South African President Thabo Mbeki.
”Some make history. Some write history. We are busy making history in Burundi,” Zuma said. ”In time to come, generations will read about what we did and how we took cardinal decisions …”
More than 300 000 people have died in Burundi since rebels from the Hutu majority took up arms in 1993 against the Tutsi-led government and army.
The Arusha peace accord signed in 2000 set up a transitional government whose mandate ends on October 31 and provided for elections to be held to choose a president, Parliament and local councils.
A major bone of contention has been the allocation of seats in the first Parliament between the two ethnic groups with the Tutsi Union for National Progress (Uprona) party arguing that it should get the full 40% set aside for Tutsis.
Uprona maintains that Tutsis who have defected to Hutu-led parties should not be eligible for those seats.
A copy of the pact obtained by AFP said that the council of ministers will be 60% Hutu and 40% Tutsi while Parliament would follow the same make-up apart from three lawmakers from the Twa ethnic group.
Thirty percent of the lawmakers would have to be women.
The pact stipulated that the Senate would be 50% Hutu and 50% Tutsi with three Twa members.
It said the president would name two vice-presidents whose candidature would have to be approved by the two houses of Parliament. The two deputies would come from different ethnic groups and political parties.
The agreement committed to ”including minority ethnic parties in the system of governance” as well as the ”protection and inclusion of ethnic, cultural and religious minorities”.
It pledged to install a national security and judicial system to ”guarantee the security of all minorities”.
Zuma said Friday’s pact ”allows the parties in Burundi to begin the process of drawing up a Constitution, electoral law, communal law and establishing an independent electoral commission.
”That commission will say whether we are ready or not to hold an election … We will make a report to the regional summit headed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, given that we have very little time left until the Arusha process runs out and we must have elections.”
Zuma said that summit would chart the way forward.
McAskie, the United Nations head of mission in Burundi said the pact was an ”important step” but warned that the road ahead was long.
”Progress has been made where diligence and leadership have inspired all involved in the process to keep going. This is another important step on Burundi’s long road to peace. There are many more steps to travel down the road …”
Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye added: ”Everyone knows the work we must do to organise elections. It is important that we keep together. We need to reconstruct our country together.”
Although Zuma did not specify which parties did not sign the pact, the largest former rebel group to join in the power-sharing arrangement, the CNDD-FDD (Forces for the Defence of Democracy) group, did not attend the talks in Pretoria.
The National Liberation Forces of Agathon Rwasa has meanwhile rejected the entire peace process. An AFP correspondent at the ceremony noted that Uprona’s leader Jean Baptiste Manwangari did not sign the pact.
Friday’s agreement came after gruelling talks and a series of deadlocks.
Earlier this week, Zuma said that the talks in Pretoria to which 31 parties were invited were a last opportunity for Burundi’s leaders to reach an agreement before the transitional government ends its mandate at the end of October. – Sapa-AFP