Burundi rebels granted immunity
2006-11-03 14:26
Bujumbura - Burundi's parliament on Friday passed a law granting provisional immunity to members of the country's last active rebel group, easing a standoff that had hobbled a landmark truce.
Parliamentarians voted 109 to zero with two abstentions to adopt legislation endorsed last week by the cabinet to bolster the cease-fire with the National Liberation Forces (FNL), boosting hopes for an accord to end Burundi's 13-year war.
The law granted the rebels provisional immunity for political crimes, but not for genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes and fulfills one of two demands the FNL had made to end the stalemate over the September 07 truce.
Burundi's justice minister Clotilde Niragira said the government "wants this immunity enshrined by law to allow the cease-fire to be implemented".
Signing of the cease-fire
She said the immunity offered to the FNL would remain valid pending the findings of a United Nations-backed truth and reconciliation commission that would be set up as part of a lengthy peace process to refer cases to a special court also to be created.
Burundi had been discussing the creation of the two bodies with the UN since 2005.
Since the signing of the cease-fire at South African-mediated talks in Tanzania's commercial capital, the FNL had boycotted a truce monitoring panel, saying it would not attend until its demands were met.
One of those demands was for immunity, while the other related to the release of all political prisoners it said Bujumbura had incarcerated.
FNL demands release of prisoners
After the cabinet endorsed the immunity legislation on October 26, the FNL appeared less than enthusiastic about the move, accusing the government of delaying implementation of the cease-fire provisions.
Rebel spokesperson Pasteur Habimana also renewed the FNL demand for the release of prisoners.
The FNL was the only one of Burundi's seven Hutu rebel groups to remain outside a peace process that began in 2000 and led to the election last year of a new power-sharing government headed by a former Hutu guerrilla chief.
The war erupted in 1993 with the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, a member of the Hutu majority and the country's first democratically elected president, by elements of the then minority Tutsi-dominated military.
The conflict had claimed some 300 000 lives in the tiny central African nation and shattered its already poor infrastructure.