Stalled peace talks aimed at bringing a final end to Burundi’s 13-year civil war resumed on Monday but prospects for progress remained unclear with mediators silent on the matter.
After a weekend of separate closed-door meetings with both the government and the National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebels aimed at ending a stalemate that led to a suspension of the talks, mediators reconvened the two sides.
”The talks have started,” said Dineo Khama, an official with the South African-led mediation team that has struggled to resolve differences that have jeopardised chances of forging a permanent ceasefire agreement.
The negotiations had been set to resume last week in Tanzania’s commercial capital of Dar es Salaam after a one-week suspension called by South Africa, but failed to do so with both sides holding to their initial positions.
The FNL had been under heavy international pressure to drop a demand for the dissolution or at least major reform of the government army, which Bujumbura said should not be an issue in discussions to secure a truce.
It was not immediately clear if the rebels had conceded that point to allow the talks to begin again on Monday, but the government had said it would not return to the table unless the FNL revised its position.
Khama said the negotiations resumed shortly after the arrival in Dar es Salaam of the lead mediator, South African Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula, who had called the week-long break after the two sides failed to meet a self-imposed July 2 deadline for a permanent truce.
After reaching a temporary ceasefire agreement on June 18, the two sides had given themselves two weeks to finalise it and pave the way for formal peace negotiations, but as the talks foundered hostilities had continued.
The FNL is the only one of Burundi’s seven Hutu rebel groups to have refused to sign onto a 2000 peace process that last year saw the election of a new power-sharing government headed by a former Hutu guerrilla chief.
Burundi’s war has claimed about 300 000 lives since it erupted in 1993 with the assassination of the country’s first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by members of the minority Tutsi-dominated army. — Sapa-AFP