Burundi elections 'impossible'
2004-02-17 08:55
Bujumbura - Burundi's foreign minister said on Monday it would be "impossible" to hold elections as promised in the central African state before the end of its transitional power-sharing period on October 31.
"My conviction is that it will be impossible to respect the planned electoral timetable before the end of the transition," Therence Sinunguruza told a press conference in the Burundian capital.
Sinunguruza headed the national election committee for the last election in 1993. That ballot led to the country's civil war, sparked off when the democratically-elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated during an attempted military coup.
The minister said he feared the forthcoming electoral deadlines would "result in violence, as they have done in the past".
Peace accord
According to the terms of a peace accord signed in 2000, the transitional government shares power between ethnic Hutus, who represent 85 percent of the population, and the minority Tutsis, who have traditionally controlled the all-powerful military.
The power-sharing government is due to be replaced by October 31, following local and legislative elections.
More than 300 000 people have died in Burundi's decade-long civil war.
In the past few years, however, all but one of the Hutu rebel groups involved in the conflict have made peace with the government.
"The experience of multi-party elections has not been good in Burundi. The population ends up getting scared, not because they are against the elections, but because of the violence which results," Sinunguruza said.
He said that elections were always followed by "ethnic violence" in the war-ravaged country, once a German colony and then a Belgian protectorate which gained full independence in 1962.
Sinunguruza was speaking to journalists at the release of his book, "Elections in Burundi: lessons to learn from June 1993".
He argued that in order for the country to hold free and democratic elections, the following conditions would be necessary: a census of the population, the creation of reliable national identity cards, the disarmament of civilians, and the creation of an international monitoring committee "so that tomorrow no one will say that we elected people with blood on their hands".
"Are we capable of carrying out this entire program in the nine months remaining until the end of the transition?" he asked. "Nothing has been done up to now."