Burundi: Envoy pledges UN support for ongoing political transition

With Burundi's just-completed round of elections marking another positive step along its road to stability after decades of ethnic strife, the five-year-old United Nations-backed panel set up to oversee the peace process has wrapped up its work and pledged to support the nascent Government through the end of the electoral process next September.

"We will continue to work alongside the people of Burundi and the new institutions by supporting them in their efforts at consolidating the peace and economic and social reconstruction process," said Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative, Carolyn McAskie, who chairs the Implementation Monitoring Commission of the Arusha Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Burundi (IMC).

The IMC, which held its 31st and last regular session on 8 and 9 August in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, was established in 2000 with the signing in Arusha, Tanzania, of the peace accord, which ended two decades of ethnic fighting between Hutus and Tutsis. Although the signatories agreed on the composition of the ICM at that time, when the Security Council launched the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB) last year, it decided that the panel would be chaired by Mr. Annan's Special Representative and the Mission's chief.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Ms. McAskie urged all Burundian political actors to give strong guarantees by putting in place a reassuring and unifying government and holding broad and constructive consultations. "Now, Burundi has a constitution based on negotiations emanating from Arusha and which lays the groundwork for cooperation between civil society and the political circles," she said.

Similarly, she appealed to the leaders of the Palipehutu-FNL rebel movement to commit themselves resolutely to the search for a final and permanent ceasefire agreement with the new authorities to achieve sustainable peace.

Acknowledging the hard road that Burundians must tread to live together harmoniously, Ms. McAskie said that achieving reconciliation and fighting against impunity are urgent and uphill tasks. "You will never reach a point where there will no longer be crises. All countries on Earth experience crises. What is important is not to get to a situation of violent crises," she stressed.

"We are contemplating the possibility of not only continuing to support but also to protect the new authorities so that those who nurse any ideas of destabilizing them will know that the international community is united in its support of the newly-elected authorities and that people should keep their hands off," she added."