- A Black Pope for Rome - 22.10.2003
- Stay or Die :Analysis and memory of refugees - 26.06.2003
- Noen tanker fra en freelans forfatter som jobber i Utrop - 26.05.2003
Burundi has got a new president since last April, After more tha 10 years of civil war, this African Land still troubled by inter-ethnical violences.
Fighting between government troops controlled by the Tsutsi minority and rebel forces from the Hutu majority still hot in the surrounding mountains of Bujumbura, a day after the designation of President Domitien Ndayizeye, a leader from the Hutu majority.
Ndayizeye (left) took officially his presidential office the 23th April 2003, after Pierre Buyoya (right), a Tutsi, handed over power as agreed in an accord signed in August 2000 by Tutsi and Hutu political parties.
The African Union countries made up of troops from South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia have Already mobilised several men to protect this fragile transition. But as this forces arrives, technically speaking, there is no accord between the FDD (rebels) and government. The power-sharing agreement led to a three-year transitional government in November 2001, but the rebels never took part in that peace process.
Ndayizeye faces the heavy task of finding a solution for the ending of hostilities, which has done more than 200,000 lost of men, women and children; mostly civilians and peasants. Elections are supposed to be held at the end of his 18-month term.
The new President says: said all institutions, including the army, are open to the rebels if they agree to stop fighting.
The war exploded in October 1993 after soldiers from the Tutsi minority that had controlled the country since independence in 1962 assassinated the first democratically elected president of the country, a Hutu.
The FDD signed a cease-fire in December 2002 that recalled for the integration of 7,000-12,000 rebel fighters into a new-version, ethnically balanced national army. But since then both army and rebels accuse each other of violating the agreement, living the gate open to intensified fightings.
The fighting is now worse than ever; its for Burundians leaders in both part to decide when they have to fulfil the deepest dream of their people, which is not other options but an inspiration to peace and economical development.
