At least seven people have been killed this week in attacks near Burundi’s capital by the country’s lone remaining rebel group as efforts continue to cement a shaky tentative truce, the army said on Wednesday.
Two civilians, two government soldiers and three fighters from the rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) were killed during two FNL attacks around Bujumbura on Monday and Tuesday, said army spokesperson Adolphe Manirakiza.
On Tuesday, the FNL launched an attack in the village of Mpanda about 12kms north of Bujumbura in which one soldier was wounded and three rebels were killed, he said.
On Monday, the group ambushed an army patrol on the northern outskirts of the capital in which two soldiers and two civilians were killed, Manirakiza said.
The attacks came as government and FNL representatives were meeting in neighbouring Tanzania in a bid to cement the fragile ceasefire and begin formal peace negotiations.
Those talks ended on Tuesday in Dar es Salaam with the issuance of a joint communique in which the two sides agreed to respect the May 15 truce and committed themselves to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
They also agreed to resume the ceasefire talks, which had focused on accusations of truce violations which both sides have made, at an unspecified date.
The government has accused the rebels of attempting to disrupt the June 3 local elections while the FNL has said it has only responded to attacks on it by the military.
The FNL is the only one of Burundi’s seven rebel groups not to have signed onto the peace process aimed at ending a devastating 12-year-old civil war in which 300 000 people have been killed.
Zuma praised as peace maker
Meanwhile, the Burundi government on Wednesday paid homage to Jacob Zuma, who was fired as South African deputy president on Tuesday, for the ”crucial role” that he played in the peace process in this tiny central African country, struggling to emerge from 12 years of war.
”We pay homage to Mr. Zuma for his crucial role in the Burundi peace process, for his availability and the way he understood all the actors in this conflict”, said Burundi’s governement spokesman Onesime Nduwimana.
Zuma took over from former South African president Nelson Mandela as chief mediator in the Burundi process in 2002.
He succeeded in getting the government and what was the country’s main rebel movement, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), to sign an agreement in 2003 that brought peace to 16 of Burundi’s 17 provinces.
”The peace process is today sufficiently advanced for Mr Zuma’s departure not to cause any problems,” declared Nduwimana, emphasising that the ”peace process does not depend on one person alone”.
Burundi has embarked on a marathon series of elections destined to get it out of its transitional period by August 19.
South African President Thabo Mbeki announced to Parliament on Tuesday that he was firing Zuma after he was tainted by a corruption scandal. – Sapa-AFP