Category: Politics

Representatives of five parties that participated in Burundi’s general election boycotted a second round of peace talks in the northern Tanzanian city of Arusha on Tuesday.

Burundi has been mired in crisis that has killed more than 450 people since President Pierre Nkurunziza pursued and won a third term last year. Opponents said his move violated the constitution and a peace deal that ended a civil war in 2005.

Dialogue in Bujumbura last year between the government and opponents failed to bridge differences, and talks mediated by Uganda earlier this year also swiftly stalled.

The five parties were unhappy over the decision of the mediator, former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, to invite Burundians accused of human rights violations and involvement in an attempted coup against Nkurunzinza in May 2015.

The five parties, FNL, FROLINA, PIEBU ABANYESHAKA, RADEBU and FRODEBU are concerned by the inclusion of Pacifique Nininahazwe of FOCODE party, Armel Ningoyere from ACT party in Burundi and Minani Jean in the dialogue.

“We are very surprised by their inclusion in the dialogue after all the humanitarian crisis they caused in Burundi,” Jean Didier Mutabazi, RADEBU’s president, told reporters at the venue of the talks. “We don’t see the point of continuing with the dialogue.”

The government in Bujumbura also expressed its unhappiness over the inclusion of some participants with Willy Nyamitwe, Nkurunziza’s communications adviser, complaining on Twitter.

“Jean Minani, Nininahazwe Pacifique, Armel Niyongere are being prosecuted and can’t be invited in Burundi dialogue in Arusha,” Nyamitwe wrote.

Earlier in the day, three former presidents of Burundi were seen walking out of a closed session chaired by Mkapa. Domitien Ndayizeye, Sylvester Ntibatunganya and Pierre Buyoya demanded the arrest of Ninihazwe, and the other two wanted in Burundi, a source in the Burundian delegation said.

Arusha was also the location for negotiations that led to the deal to end the ethnically charged 1993 to 2005 civil war in Burundi.

Renewed violence in Burundi has alarmed a region where memories of the Rwanda’s 1994 genocide remain raw. Like Rwanda, Burundi has an ethnic Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority.

Till now, the violence in Burundi has largely followed political rather than ethnic loyalties. But diplomats fear ethnic wounds could reopen the longer violence continues.

Hours into his temporary freedom Opposition leader, Dr Kizza Besigye remained defiant urging his supporters not to give up the fight for a better Uganda.

Hours into his temporary freedom Opposition leader, Dr Kizza Besigye remained defiant and urged his supporters, who turned up at his Kasangati home, not to give up the fight for a better Uganda.

“We are fighting to put our country in our own hands. Until we achieve that, there is no turning back. If they think that putting us in prison will demoralise us, then they are wrong,” Dr Besigye told a crowd of about 200 people who managed to beat the police siege outside his farm and accessed his home.

Dr Besigye who had been on remand since May on treason charges assured his supporters that they were not breaking any law in defying a “dictatorship”. He instead blamed a section of “criminals” within the Police Force for slapping trumped up charges against him.

“It hurts that police has been infiltrated by criminals but these are just a few individuals. Most of those in police are not criminals but there is a group of kifeesi who have tarnished the image of the Force. They are led by Mr Kale Kayihura (IGP) and his colleagues,” he said.

Urges police to be strong
Dr Besigye urged police officers and members of other state security organs “who want our country to go forward and who overwhelmingly voted for us” to be strong.

Musician Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine equated Dr Besigye to South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and former president Nelson Mandela.
“We the youth are very lucky. We used to just read about freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela but we have had an opportunity not to just see you but also learn from you,” Bobi Wine said.

This singer also unveiled another artiste Ronald Mayinja who he said had joined the “struggle”. Mr Mayinja was one of the artistes in President Museveni’s 2016 election theme song Tubonga Naawe. However, both artistes are known for releasing songs laden with political overtones.

He said he had been overwhelmed by Dr Besigye’s resoluteness. “In school, I studied about Nelson Mandela but very few times did I read about him having food in a hotel, most of the times I heard about him, he was incarcerated in prison but in the end he won,” Mr Mayinja said.

The journey
Immediately after leaving the court premises, Dr Besigye defied the heavy police and military presence and stood through the open-roof compartment of his car waving to his supporters that had been blocked along roads such as Kampala Road, Lumumba Avenue and Nakasero Road.

He then proceeded to Ternan Avenue past the entrance to State House Nakasero connected to Yusuf Lule and then Gayaza Road.
Police was compelled to fight off his supporters’ procession which kept growing by the minute.

Police commanded by Geoffrey Kaheebwa, the deputy RPC Kampala South, would occasionally block the road to stop Dr Besigye’s supporters who were mainly running along or riding on boda-boda motorcycles.

Stick wielding uniformed police officers and operatives would occasionally beat them in an attempt to disperse them. Journalists, too, were not spared.
At the dusty road heading to Dr Besigye’s home, Police again blocked people and mounted a road block on the main entrance to his farm.

This, however, did not deter some of the determined supporters. They used short cuts to access the home where they sang, danced and chanted slogans in praise of Dr Besigye. One group even played football in his compound, saying they feel free “when we are in State House with our president”.

Police say

“We don’t want to make a big elephant out of his opinion.That is his opinion, and he is entitled to it. We don’t find insult in what he says because we are doing our job. We hope he will abide by the regulations of his bail, that will make our work very easy,” Polly Namaye, Police Deputy Spokesperson.’

WASHINGTON :Congo’s leading opposition candidate for president said Monday he was poisoned as part of a government plot to kill him, a dramatic claim almost certain to escalate tensions even further over upcoming elections in one of Africa’s largest countries.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Moise Katumbi said he was roughed up by police in May who injected him with an unknown substance outside a courthouse in the city of Lubumbashi.

“Their plan was to kill me,” Katumbi said, “because they are scared about my popularity.”

Katumbi said the directions came from the highest levels of Congo’s government, but he did not provide details about whom he specifically believes was responsible.

Katumbi and other critics of President Joseph Kabila have expressed concern that the election set for November will be delayed so that Kabila will stay in power longer. Kabila is supposed to leave office in December, but he has not publicly declared his intentions.

Congo’s communications minister, Lambert Mende, was unavailable to comment on Monday, but he had previously dismissed allegations Katumbi had been harmed by the police. He noted that Katumbi was allowed to leave Congo for medical treatment elsewhere.

“If the objective was to kill him as he claims, why let him go and vilify us in the press?” Mende said in a recent interview with a radio station.

Since Congo won independence from Belgium in 1960, there has never been a peaceful, democratic transition of power in the country. Kabila has been in office since 2001, taking over less than two weeks after his father, President Laurent Kabila, was shot by a bodyguard in the presidential palace. He was elected president in 2006 and again in 2011. Kabila is barred by Congo’s constitution from a third term.

Congo, which has vast mineral deposits, is nearly one-fourth the size of the United States and has a population of more than 79 million. More than a decade after Congo’s back-to-back civil wars ended, the country’s east remains in discord. Scores of militias and armed groups are blamed for violence against civilians, and nearly 2.7 million Congolese are internally displaced as a result, according to figures compiled by the United Nations.

Katumbi, a former governor of Congo’s southern Katanga and longtime president of the TP Mazembe soccer team, had been summoned to court on allegations he hired mercenaries to be his bodyguards. He called the allegations a “big joke.”

Thousands of his supporters had gathered outside the venue on May 13 and police fired tear gas to disperse them and Katumbi fell ill. He was hospitalized in Lubumbashi with an unspecified ailment when authorities formally charged him.

He was medically evacuated to South Africa and has since sought treatment in London and Germany.

Katumbi hadn’t discussed the circumstances of his illness. He told the AP that he needed oxygen for a week to help him breathe. The substance caused a blood infection, Katumbi said, and he pledged to release laboratory results when tests are complete.

“I’m going to show to everyone, to tell them what is going on in the Congo,” Katumbi said. “This is not anymore politics.”

IBTimes UK speaks to opposition and peace activists about possible outcome of talks.

After stalling on negotiations for months, peace talks on the Burundi crisis are expected to resume on Tuesday 12 July in Arusha, Tanzania.

In April, the UK government called on the Burundian government to protect prisoners’ human rights and stop abuses, after raising concerns about the treatment of prisoners in the African nation that has been rocked by deadly political violence for over a year.

Hopes of any progress were quashed in May when the government of Bujumbura refused to hold talks with key members of the umbrella National Council for the Restoration of Arusha Agreement and Rule of Law (CNARED) and a major civil society movement known as Halte au 3e mandat.

Both were opposed President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third-term in office. At the time, the regime agreed to attend peace talks in Arusha in which only government officials, two former heads of state and a selection of like-minded individuals participated in an exchange with mediators.

As delegations have either arrived in or are on their way to Tanzania ahead of the talks held at the International Conference Centre (AICC), IBTimes UK looks at what can be expected from the negotiations, hosted by former Tanzania President Benjamin Mkapa. Mkapa was appointed as the facilitator for the Inter-Burundi Dialogue by the East African Community (EAC) on 2 March.

Is the government attending?

According to a document seen by IBTimes UK, seven government officials − including Foreign Minister Alain and spokesman Willy Nyamitwe, Interior Minister Pascal Barandagiye and Minister for EAC Affairs, Leontine Nzeyimana − will be attending the talks.

At least eight ruling CNDD-FDD officials will also be present in Arusha.

While former presidents Pierre Buyoya and Sylvestre Ntibantunganya are expected to attend, presidency spokesman Nyamitwe on Monday confirmed former President Domitien Ndayizeye was aboard a flight heading to the talks.

Will the opposition participate?

A number of opposition parties (Uprona, Radebu, Frodebu and Pader) will be represented and leaders were invited by the mediators, including Agathon Rwasa, leader of opposition, National Liberation Forces (FNL) and current deputy head of parliament. However, officials from the MSD party have not been invited.

Following the fiasco of the previous round of negotiations, however, Jeremie Minani, a spokesman for the alliance-in-exile Cnared exclusively told IBTimes UK that progress has been made. IBTimes UK understands that, while the negotiators refused to invite the Cnared as an entity − as previously required by the alliance − to avoid government officials pulling out of the talks, it had instead agreed to extend the invitation to between 15 and 20 members of the Cnared.

The regime describes Cnared as is a “terrorist organisation”.

“There will be a strong delegation from the Cnared in Arusha, whose goal is to tell the mediator what we already told him in Brussels − that we want to negotiate a return to peace,” Minani confirmed. “The entire world needs to understand that we are not in a spirit of sabotage of the negotiations because, despite the mediators’ refusal to take into account our prime demand to be invited as an entity, we still agreed that a Cnared delegation attended without the Cnared label. That is essential.”

Will Burundi’s civil society be represented?

For many Burundians, the participation of a number of members of the Cnared, as well as those of the civil society who were against the third presidential term, including right defender Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa, is a step forward.

It is still unclear whether the presidents of other civil society organisations including Vital Nshimirimana (FORSC), Pacifique Nininahazwe of FOCODE and ACAT will be represented. IBTimes UK understands that Nininahazwe was invited, however.

“We must admit that there has been a spectacular evolution but the regime of Bujumbura remains stubborn and not everyone has been invited to participate,” Minani said.

Are Burundians confident?

The presence of both sides seems to indicate they are willing to compromise a little.

“I think Mkapa and other Burundi partners have done a great job in trying to deal with both the government and the opposition’s picky requirements. Despite the peace talks being postponed (until 11 July), there have been satisfying changes,” Jean Claude Nkundwa, a Burundian peace activist, told IBTimes UK.

According to the peace worker, the fact the government has not changed its commitment to join the talks is encouraging, as it may allow Mkapa to draw up compromise proposals and keep the focus on Burundi. For instance, French ambassador to Tanzania and the EAC, Malika Berak, last week pledged her country’s willingness to provide support to the peace talks.

“With this inclusion, we expect the mediators to have a clearer picture and deeper understating of Burundi’s current crisis… These level talks will also help international community be well-informed about the nature of the Burundi crisis and Mkapa’s report will help international actors decide how to prevent mass atrocities in Burundi and protect civilians from the ongoing killings.”

According to Nkundwa, between 40 and 70 people die every month.

What will be discussed?

According to the invitation sent to members of the Cnared and Bujumbura officials, the facilitators are expected to listen to the different parties involved about a number of topics. On top of the list will be what the negotiations agenda will include, as well as what the negotiations’ priorities should be.

The opposition is expected to outline “urgent preconditions” that it wants the negotiators to cover − the cessation of violence, the reopening of independent media and liberation of political prisoners.

“We will reiterate our position, and hand our immediate road-map to the facilitators. The rest of our demands include freeing up the political space and having a democratic transition that will drive the organisation of free and fair elections for the restoration of constitutional order,” Minani said over the telephone.

The spokesman, meanwhile, insisted the alliance “would not abandoned its principal preoccupation to be considered as an entity” and said it was wary of “being pushed towards a wall or the exit door, or starting the negotiations already weakened by the conditions of the mediators that seem to go in favour of the Bujumbura regime”.