{UN Security Council envoys will press Burundi’s government to agree to talks with the opposition under a new mediator when they travel to Bujumbura this week, a UN envoy said Monday.}<\/p>\n
Diplomat Jamal Benomar said the dialogue must be impartially-mediated and have a clear timeline after Uganda’s failed bid to broker a deal to end months of violence in Burundi.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the 15 council ambassadors will be making their second trip to Burundi in less than a year, hoping to avert what some fear could be a return to all-out war.<\/p>\n
“There is a window for the Burundians to come together and work out a way on how they can move forward,” Benomar told reporters.<\/p>\n
“For them to do this, they would need an inclusive process that is impartially-mediated.<\/p>\n
“One that has a timeline that is clear, an agenda, an agreement on who will participate, and this is exactly what we don’t have.”<\/p>\n
The envoy did not say that the United Nations should take on that role, but the world body is beefing up its presence in the country with the dispatch of a 20-member team this week.<\/p>\n
Burundi descended into bloodshed in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to run for a controversial third term, which he went on to win in July.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people have died in the violence and some 70,000 have fled to neighboring countries.<\/p>\n
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein last week said “all the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red.” He called for an urgent rights investigation.<\/p>\n
Zeid cited allegations that Burundi’s security forces had gang-raped women, dumped bodies in mass graves and were increasingly resorting to torture.<\/p>\n
Describing the conflict in Burundi as complex, Benomar said rights violations were taking place “in the context of an insurgency and counter-insurgency.”<\/p>\n
Council envoys are to arrive in Bujumbura on Thursday for two days of meetings with the opposition, civil society and with Nkurunziza.<\/p>\n
The diplomats are also planning a stopover in Addis Ababa for talks with the African Union on its proposal to send a peacekeeping force to Burundi after the government rejected the offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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