AU urges Burundi to implement peace deal
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The African Union urged Burundi's feuding parties on Tuesday to stop delaying the implementation of a ceasefire agreement signed almost two years ago.
Government troops and the last rebel group, the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), have clashed sporadically despite the deal signed in September 2006, which became stalled over the issue of how to deal with demobilized fighters.
"The Peace and Security Council is deeply concerned over the procrastination and delaying tactics that continue to affect the implementation process of the Comprehensive Ceasefire Agreement," the AU said in a statement.
"The patience and generosity of the international community have limits. Parties must place national interest above any other consideration and demonstrate patriotism required to meet the aspiration of the Burundi people for peace, security, stability and national reconciliation."
A final peace agreement between the government and the FNL is seen as a crucial step to lasting stability in the coffee-growing nation of eight million, to end more than a decade of ethnic conflict that has killed over 300,000 people.
FNL leader Agathon Rwasa, who returned from exile in neighboring Tanzania in May, has said his forces are ready to demobilize and want peace with Burundi's ethnically mixed, Hutu-led government.
But tension between his fighters and government troops has continued despite a second deal signed at the end of May to cease hostilities.
"The council is deeply concerned over the delay in implementing the peace process, despite the return to Bujumbura of the representative of FNL and Agathon Rwasa in May 2008," the statement said.
President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former Hutu guerrilla, was elected in 2005 as part of an African-brokered peace pact backed by the United Nations. FNL was not part of the pact.
(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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