Burundi transition extended
2005-04-22 20:46
Entebbe, Uganda - African Great Lakes leaders meeting in an emergency summit here endorsed a four-month extension of the mandate of Burundi's transitional government that had been due to expire on Friday.
The leaders, including five heads of state, gave their backing to an extension until August 26 of the mandate with a series of elections in the war-torn tiny central African nation to be completed by August 19, officials said.
"The summit endorsed a further extension of the transitional period up to 26 August 2005 in line with the approved elections calendar," they said in a joint communiqué released after the meeting.
That election calendar, presented to the summit by Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye, calls for the election cycle, which was initially supposed to have been finished by Friday, to be completed by August 19, officials said.
"We have agreed that all elections should be held not later than 19 August and the swearing in of a new government will be on the 26th of August," the host of the summit, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, said.
The mandate of Ndayizeye's government had already been extended once, in November, and there was little sign that the region would be willing to renew its mandate for a third time if Bujumbura could not meet the new deadlines.
Officials at the meeting said, however, that the transitional government expressed a solid commitment "to strictly adhere" to the new calendar.
In addition, the leaders endorsed Tanzanian efforts to bring Burundi's lone remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), back to peace talks in a bid to finally end the country's nearly 12-year-old civil war.
The meeting did not, however, lift regional sanctions imposed on the FNL last year nor remove the group's designation as a "terrorist organisation," diplomats said.
"Tanzania was mandated to continue to talk to the FNL but sanctions against the FNL remain and the terrorist label remains," said one senior diplomat involved in the talks.