Burundi: Emergency meeting
2005-04-20 14:22
Kampala - Leaders from Africa's Great Lakes region are to meet in Uganda this week for an emergency summit on the halting peace process in Burundi, officials said on Wednesday.
The meeting, to be held on Friday in Entebbe, will be hosted by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who chairs a regional peace initiative for the tiny central African country, the Ugandan foreign ministry said.
It aims to extend a transitional period that was supposed to have ended with new elections on April 22.
"The government in Burundi has its mandate ending on the 22nd according to the timetable," said Julius Onen, the ministry's permanent secretary.
"It was envisaged that by that date, elections should have been held but all indications that they cannot be held," he said. "Therefore, we don't want them to be illegitimate and it is only the regional heads of state that can give them legitimacy."
Onen said the leaders of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and representatives from the United Nations, European Union and East African Community had been invited to the meeting.
Not all countries had responded to the invitations which were delivered on Tuesday, but Onen said Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma and UN and EAC representatives had confirmed their attendance.
In Bujumbura, officials said that Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye would also be at the meeting. - AFP
- SAPA