South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, chief mediator in attempts to end Burundi’s 11-year civil war, warned the country’s president on Wednesday not to try to amend a provisional Constitution to allow himself to run in upcoming elections.
Zuma said any such changes would be contrary to a peace accord signed in Arusha, Tanzania, in 2000 and could endanger Burundi’s delicate peace process.
”The position of the region is clear; let us not change any thing, as the process is on a good track,” Zuma told journalists after meetings with President Domitien Ndayizeye, government officials and other participants in the peace process.
Ndayizeye was not present at the news briefing and his spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.
Zuma, who arrived in Burundi on Tuesday, also welcomed a decision by the government and rebel holdouts to resume talks.
Negotiations between Ndayizeye and the ethnic Hutu rebel National Liberation Force in the Netherlands collapsed a year ago amid clashes that continue in the north-west of Burundi.
African and European leaders declared the insurgent group a terrorist organisation after it claimed responsibility for an attack on unarmed Congolese Tutsi refugees in August.
But Zuma said if the rebels were ready to talk, ”the doors of the region are open for them”.
The two sides said on Tuesday they will meet soon in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The conflict broke out in October 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu. Hutu rebels took up arms and the fighting has left more than 260 000 people dead, mostly civilians.
The country’s main rebel group joined a power-sharing government in 2003, but the National Liberation Force has so far refused to lay down its arms.
A referendum is scheduled for February 28 on a new Constitution, paving the way for fresh elections.
Ndayizeye has sought amendments that would allow him to run in a presidential vote due in April. He also wants the post decided by popular vote, rather than by members of a new Parliament to be elected in March.
Nearly 20 political parties — including Ndayizeye’s own Front for Democracy in Burundi — have rejected the proposals, citing the 2000 accord that bars Ndayizeye and his predecessor Pierre Buyoyo from serving again for at least five years. — Sapa-AP