GENERAL NEWS

Former congressman Perriello named U.S. special envoy to Africa Great Lakes

NEWS STORY

Source: Reuters World Service

Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Will Dunham

Washington, 6 July 2015 - Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday named former Virginia congressman Thomas Perriello as U.S. special envoy for Africa's Great Lakes region.

Perriello replaces former senator Russ Feingold, who stepped down in February. Perriello, a Democrat who worked on Kerry's 1996 Senate campaign, will help oversee U.S. policy for a region that includes Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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BURUNDI

Burundi’s Ruling Party Considers Delay of Presidential Vote

NEWS STORY

Source: VOA

7 July 2015 - Burundi’s ruling CNDD-FDD party has indicated it will conditionally accept the call by East African leaders to delay the July 15 presidential election two weeks to July 30.

Party chairman Pascal Nyabenda said any decision to delay the vote must ensure that the constitution, which mandates that presidential elections cannot go beyond July 26, is not violated. The constitution also states that the president-elect must be sworn in by August 26.

Leaders of the East African Community, who met Monday in Tanzania, also named Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to mediate a dialogue between the Burundian government and the opposition.

The decision came after the ruling party told U.N. mediator Abdoulaye Bathily to stop his work because he began without first being received by the government.

“It has been taken a decision to delay this presidential election, but what we can say in our party is that everything we have to do, even if we respect the decision by these heads of state, we have to respect also our constitution. So, we will see. We will sit down and see what can be done by respecting our constitution,” he said.

Nyabenda commented on the constitutional mandate that the presidential election cannot go beyond July 26.

“It says that the presidential election can’t be beyond 26 July because 26 July will be the last date which is mentioned in our constitution, because from there it is one month at the end of the term of the actual president, which means that we can’t go beyond [July 26]. If they talk about 30th July, it would mean that we will go beyond that date,” he said.

Nyabenda said the ruling CNDD-FDD is also ready to work with Uganda President Museveni’s mediation efforts.

“He is a wise man who knows very well what is happening in Burundi. He knows very well Burundians. We hope that he will do well,” he said.

The opposition said President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term violates the constitution and the 2005 Arusha Accord that ended the country’s civil war.

Nkurunziza said the election will be his second term because, when he was first elected in 2005, he was elected by parliament, not the people.

Meanwhile, the general who staged a May 13 failed coup announced Monday that he and others will launch an armed resistance to force Nkurunziza to drop his bid for a third term. General Leonard Ngendakumana said Nkurunziza is trying to drag Burundi into a civil war.

Nyabenda said Ngendakumana failed the first time and he will never succeed because the Burundian people are unified behind the president.

“He failed on 13th May, he can’t succeed this time. Our population is very determined to fight [for] the country,” Nyabenda said.

Burundi leader campaigns as region calls for poll delay

NEWS STORY

Source: AFP

By Ephrem Rugiririza

6 July 2015 - Burundi's embattled president skipped key regional talks Monday to campaign for a controversial third term amid renewed rebel threats and international calls to delay the vote.

The crisis in the central African nation revolves around President Pierre Nkurunziza's third-term bid, which his opponents say is unconstitutional and violates a peace deal that brought an end to a dozen years of civil war in 2006.

Leaders of the five-nation East African Community (EAC) had been due to meet Monday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but Nkurunziza instead sent his foreign minister.

Kenya and Rwanda were also represented at the ministerial level, leaving host Jakaya Kikwete and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni the only presidents in attendance.

The bloc called for elections to be delayed by two weeks, from July 15 to July 30.

EAC Secretary General Richard Sezibera said Museveni would now lead regional efforts to strike a deal after weeks of unrest, and a delay would allow him time "to lead the dialogue".

Nkurunziza has previously dismissed all previous calls for postponements, but Foreign Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe said the EAC request would be referred to "highest authority."

The EAC said it would deploy observers for the polls and called on Burundi to disarm armed groups, including the Imbonerakure, or youth wing of Nkurunziza's ruling CNDD-FDD party.

It urged Burundi's rival factions to bury the hatchet and form a government of national unity "irrespective of whoever wins the presidential election."

- 'Widespread fear' -

Meanwhile rebel General Leonard Ngendakumana, who took part in a failed coup in May, vowed to carry out further attacks until the government is overthrown.

"After we saw that we could not succeed our coup on May 15, we found it was necessary to keep fighting," Ngendakumana told Kenya's KTN news channel in an interview aired late Sunday.

"All those actions that are going on in the country, we are behind them and we are going to intensify them until Pierre Nkurunziza understands that we are there to make him understand by force that he has to give up his third term."

General Ngendakumana, a top intelligence officer, is an ally of coup leader General Godefroid Niyombare, who has been on the run since their attempt to seize power was thwarted.

Over 70 people have been killed in more than two months of protests, with almost 144,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries.

"They are trying to move towards an open civil war just to find a way to protect themselves," Ngendakumana said.

Parliamentary and local elections held last Monday were boycotted by the opposition.

The UN electoral observer mission said the polls took place "in a climate of widespread fear and intimidation". The results are yet to be released.

There is apprehension that the current crisis could plunge the impoverished, landlocked country back into civil war.

During an EAC summit on May 13, army officers staged a failed bid to unseat Nkurunziza while the president himself attended the talks. Nkurunziza did not attend a second summit on May 31.

Burundi coup general says force only way to oust president

NEWS STORY

Source: Reuters

6 July 2015 - A Burundian general who backed a failed coup in May threatened that he and others would launch an armed resistance after President Pierre Nkurunziza refused to bow to opposition and international demands to abandon a bid for a third term.

General Leonard Ngendakumana, a deputy to the leader of the aborted uprising, accused the president of dragging the central African country back into civil war, comments that will alarm a region with a long history of ethnic conflict.

"The next (step) is to organise ourselves just to resist, to make Pierre Nkurunziza understand that he must leave and then that we are prepared to do it by force, by organising a military force," Ngendakumana said, adding coup leader General Godefroid Niyombare was still in Burundi.

The government told Reuters that any such move would be confronted. "Anybody threatening the security of Burundi, either inside or outside, will meet the full force of our defence and security forces," presidential spokesman Gervais Abayeho said.

Opponents say Nkurunziza's bid for a third term - which triggered weeks of violent clashes between protesters and police in Burundi's capital - violates a two-term limit in the constitution and a peace deal that ended an ethnically charged civil conflict in 2005.

Nkurunziza says a court ruling allows him to stand in the vote scheduled for July 15.

The general's interview with Kenya's KTN channel was recorded on Sunday, before Monday's meeting in Dar es Salaam of east African states plus South Africa as they seek to end the crisis.

"They (Burundi's government) want to engage the region in that civil war, based on ethnic (issues)," Ngendakumana said. "They want to start by breaking the constitution, by breaking the Arusha reconciliation and peace agreement."

The Arusha accords ended a 12-year conflict that pitted rebel groups of the majority Hutus, including one led by Nkurunziza, against minority Tutsis, which commanded the army at the time. The army and other institutions are now mixed.

He said followers of the coup leaders were behind a spate of grenade attacks, which often targeted police, in the run up to a parliamentary election on June 26. "We are behind them, and our intent is to intensify," he said when asked about the incidents.

U.N. observers said the June vote was not free or fair, a charged the authorities dismissed. The opposition has said it will boycott all the polls.

Burundi government kicks out UN mediator as regional presidents meet over crisis; Nkurunziza skips talks

NEWS STORY

Source: AFP

6 July 2015 - BURUNDI’S ruling party and its allies on Sunday told a United Nations mediator to step down, just two weeks after he was sent to help resolve the central African nation’s political crisis.

This came as Burundi’s president skipped regional talks Monday aimed at brokering a deal to end weeks of unrest in the country, choosing instead to campaign for his controversial third term.

Senegal’s Abdoulaye Bathily was told to “resign from his post because he seriously lacked respect for the country’s sovereignty,” a spokesman for the ruling CNDD-FDD party, Gelase-Daniel Ndabirabe, told news agency AFP.

Bathily was sent to Burundi last month to replace UN mediator Said Djinnit, an Algerian diplomat, who quit after being branded as too pro-government by civil society activists.

According to Ndabirabe, the new envoy angered the government side by allegedly having failed to present himself to the authorities, including President Pierre Nkurunziza, and to have instead focused on meeting diplomats and the opposition.

Another party allied to the CNDD-FDD also complained of what it said was an “international conspiracy” in support of the opposition and civil society groups, who have been behind weeks of deadly protests in the country.

The crisis in Burundi surrounds President Nkurunziza’s bid to stand for a third consecutive five-year term in office, a move branded by opponents as unconstitutional and a violation of a peace deal that brought an end to years of civil war.

More than 70 people have been killed in more than two months of protests and a failed coup attempt, with almost 144,000 refugees fleeing into neighbouring nations.

There are fears the current crisis could plunge the impoverished, landlocked country back into civil war.

Parliamentary and local elections were held on Monday despite an appeal by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to postpone the polls after months of turmoil.

The UN electoral observer mission said the elections took place “in a tense political crisis, and a climate of widespread fear and intimidation”, which also angered the government.

Increased pressure

The results of the parliamentary polls have yet to be released, but former colonial power Belgium has said it will not recognise the outcome and the United States has also ratcheted up pressure, calling for presidential elections on July 15 to be delayed.

Members of the East African Community—which groups Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda—are discussing the crisis in Tanzania’s economic capital Dar es Salaam on Monday, where two regional summits on the crisis have already been held.&