The outcome of the ANCs long-awaited KwaZulu-Natal conference was a win for the Thuma Mina crowd. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
BUJUMBURA, May 25 (ANA) – A day after the first round of the inter-Burundian peace talks to address the country’s year-long crisis ended on Tuesday, an unknown armed group killed a retired officer of the Burundian army in the capital Bujumbura.
“The car of Colonel Lucien Rufyiri, a Tutsi from the Ex-Burundian Forces Army, was attacked in an ambush by armed persons in front of his residence in Ngagara Zone”, said a neighbour who said he also heard many gunshots on Wednesday.
A family member of the victim told African News Agency (ANA) anonymously that “the group who carried out the attack was travelling in a vehicle with tinted glass”.
Rufyiri had been commander of various military camps before 2005 and also worked for the United Nations security cell in Burundi.
Two persons were also injured in a separate grenade attack on Tuesday in a pub in the Buterere zone of the capital Bujumbura, an official said.
Another attack was carried out against another pub and a meeting house that belonged to the ruling party in the commune of Ndava in the province of Mwaro, in Burundi’s centre.
The attack was confirmed by the communal administrator Aloys Ndenzako.
“Two persons, a police officer as well as a guard at the ruling party meeting house, were killed and another three were injured in the attack”, he told ANA.
The injured persons were immediately evacuated to the Kibimba Hospital in the same province and no armed group claimed responsibility.
The National Police Vice-Spokesman Moise Nkurunziza told ANA that “investigations had been launched”.
Since January this year, “more than 130 persons” including six high ranking Burundian army officers have been killed, according to a report published by the Independent National Commission of Human Rights (CNIDH).
Meanwhile some political groups like the opposition National Council for the Restoration of the Arusha Accords and the Rule of Law, CNARED-GIRITEKA and the armed groups, the resistance for rule of law movement “RED-TABARA” and others, have accused the regional mediators who are trying to resolve the Burundi conflict of excluding them from the dialogue.
RED-TABARA called the official launch of the inter-Burundian Dialogue held in Arusha from May 21-24, 2016 “a false departure”.
In a press release, the armed group said it had, at first, favourably responded to the CNARED coalition’s appeal to cease hostilities as the mediation had promised to organize a “transparent and inclusive dialogue”.
However, it said that it was disappointed to realise that CNARED, the main opposition coalition, was not invited as a coalition to the Dialogue, a mistake it blamed on the Bujumbura regime.
“The exclusion of CNARED from the Dialogue was dictated by the oligarchy of Bujumbura and means that President Pierre Nkurunziza wants to choose his own persons to talk with in order to continue the oppression against the Burundian people”, RED-TABARA pointed out.
It said “only armed resistance will stop the killings, the arbitrary arrests, the imprisonments, the human rights violations and other abuses that Nkurunziza’s regime is inflicting to Burundian people”.
The United Nations and the international community have also appealed for a transparent and inclusive inter-Burundian Dialogue to address the crisis which has claimed the lives of innocent people since May last year.
“Only genuine and inclusive dialogue can provide a way out of [the] persistent violence and political impasse,” said Jamal Benomar, the UN Special Envoy for Burundi.
At a closing session of the inter-Burundian Dialogue on Tuesday, the facilitator, former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, recognized that “the voices of all those who can contribute to a political solution should be heard, including those who could not attend the first round of dialogue”.
Mkapa promised that he would meet all the stakeholders who had not partaken in the dialogue.
“I will continue over the next few weeks to hear from important voices that were not here for various reasons”, he said. Mkapa added that the second round of the inter-Burundian Dialogue would be scheduled for the third week of June.
– African News Agency (ANA)
Disclaimer: This story is pulled directly from the African News Agency wire, and has not been edited by Mail & Guardian staff. The M&G does not accept responsibility for errors in any statement, quote or extract that may be contained therein.