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BURUNDI: No peace without prosperity – analysts

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:46:53 GMT

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Poverty, selfish political interests and inadequate economic development are the underlying causes of the political crisis gripping Burundi, according to political analysts.

"The whole thing is almost Darwinian: too many people, too little land, an antiquated economy, a runaway demography and no prospects for economic growth," Gerard Prunier, a historian on eastern and central African affairs, told IRIN via e-mail.

Prunier, author of a respected book on Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (C Hurst, 1998), also derided the "narrow-mindedness, selfishness and self-centredness of the political class".

"In such a situation, massacres have played a role of economic, if not demographic, regulation. The same is true of Rwanda."

Burundi’s Hutu majority and Tutsi minority spent most of the 1990s on opposite sides of a devastating civil war when large numbers of civilians were massacred.

Although the conflict is now officially over, the process of bringing in Burundi’s last rebel group, Palipehutu-Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) is deadlocked.

A crackdown on the opposition also bodes ill for Burundi’s prospects of imminent political stability.

"The Tutsi-Hutu conundrum is only the surface of the deeper economic limitations," Prunier told IRIN. "The real problem is poverty … The only thing that matters is power … outside of government there is absolutely nothing in Burundi you can make money out of … Out of power, you do not eat."

Frederic Ngoga Gateretse, a regional security analyst and member of the opposition National Union for Progress (UPRONA) party, accused the government of putting all its energy into winning elections due in 2010 “at all costs".

"For the alternative will be disastrous to the current leadership, which has a lot to answer for in terms of corruption, mismanagement of public funds, human rights violations and the scrapping of political freedom," he said, citing the detention of politicians such as Alexis Sinduhije.

"Political opposition is vital for a country that is coming out of a decade-long civil conflict like Burundi," Gateretse said.

All in a name

"It is in the ruling party's interest to reach the elections without the FNL," Gaspard Nduwayo, a political analyst and university lecturer, said. "It [the government] counts on the Hutu electorate and the FNL also knows its strength lies in the name PALIPEHUTU."

It is a name – a contraction of the French for the "party for the liberation of the Hutu people" – that the government insists is prohibited by the constitution because of its ethnic reference and one the FNL refuses to abandon.
Nduwayo said the FNL might deem an association with the mainly Hutu Front for Democracy in Burundi, an opposition party, more advantageous than one with the ruling FDD-CNDD.

For Térence Nahimana, a former member of FNL, the fact that the 2010 elections will essentially be a battle among Hutus, who make up 85 percent of the population, will bode well for Burundi’s fledging democracy.

"Even if the ethnic feeling is still there, people will now ask for more, such as whether or not the candidate has the capacity to pull them out of the misery they are living in," he said.

Sticking points

The FNL has maintained government posts should also be subject to negotiations. After the 6 November meeting with the mediation team, FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana said the government was only offering them "scraps".

The FNL's integration into the security forces is another major issue. The head of the government's delegation in the Joint Verification and Monitoring Mechanism, Brig-Gen Lazare Nduwayo, has said the FNL was demanding more than the government could agree to - the FNL wants the security forces and its combatants merged on a 50-50 ratio.

"It should bring its combatants to get integrated in the army as the accords provide for," Nduwayo said. "In proposing the 50-50 ratio and ignoring the ethnic balance in the army, the FNL simply wants to delay the peace process."

Under the peace accords signed in 2003 between Burundi's transition government and the then rebel CNDD-FDD, the army was to be composed of 50 percent Hutu and 50 percent Tutsi. Integrating FNL combatants and the security forces will therefore break this ethnic balance.

Some analysts believe the two parties are not committed to the negotiations. Joseph Mujiji, a member of the executive secretariat of the human rights group Iteka, said if the regional initiative put pressure on the two parties, they would come up with a solution.

"Put them somewhere, tell them to remain there until they reach a consensus - in five days it will be over," he said.

During his last visit to Burundi, South African minister and chief mediator Charles Nqakula said there would be no extension of the 31 December deadline for the peace process.

IRIN

BURUNDI: One word blocking peace process

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:07:10 GMT

Saturday, November 08, 2008

An attempt by regional mediators to revive the peace process between the government and the rebel Forces nationales de libération (FNL) hit a snag on 6 November after the rebels rejected a name-change proposal.

Officials of the Regional Peace Initiative for Burundi, led by South African safety and security minister Charles Nqakula, were in Bujumbura, the capital, to urge the two parties to speed up the process ahead of a 31 December deadline.

"The mandate [of the mediation process] will not be reviewed; everything that needs to be done has to be done before 31 December; this includes the assembly of FNL combatants in the designated areas so that we can begin the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration [DDR]; essentially, that is the message we came to convey to the two parties,” Nqakula said.

Nqakula, who was accompanied by Uganda's Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa, presented a new plan to revive the stalled peace process to President Pierre Nkurunziza and FNL leader Agathon Rwasa.

However, the FNL immediately rejected a proposal requiring it to drop "Palipehutu", which means “for the Hutu alone", from its name.

Its use in FNL's official name and the registration of the group as a political party led to a stalemate in the talks between the government and the country's remaining rebel group.

"We will not change our name, we signed the [peace] accords as the PALIPEHUTU–FNL, they should accept us as such," Pasteur Habimana, FNL spokesman, said.

By proposing the change of name, Habimana said, the mediator had surrendered his responsibility as the guarantor of the peace accords signed in 2006 between the government and FNL.
Saying that the peace process had taken too long and should be concluded, Nqakula stressed: "There is nothing that has no end, we must come to the end of the road in terms of ensuring that all the building blocks for durable peace in Burundi are in place."

FNL posts

At a press conference on 6 November, Nkurunziza's spokesman, Léonidas Hatungimana, said the government was satisfied with the regional initiative's formula to get the peace process back on track.

The regional initiative recommends that the government integrate FNL members into its institutions, in accordance with the constitution.

"A list of places available for PALIPEHUTU–FNL is ready and has been communicated to Agathon Rwasa," Hatungimana said.

However, FNL rejected the offer, saying it was not up to the government to propose posts. "The government proposes [to give] us just scraps; we should sit together and negotiate,” Habimana told reporters.

According to Burundi's constitution, FNL will only get posts that do not require elections, such as provincial governors or posts in public administrations. It cannot get seats in the National Assembly or Senate.

DDR process

FNL said it was ready to have its combatants in assembly areas, but criticised the poor living conditions at the assembly points.

So far, only 2,000 FNL combatants are assembled at Rugazi in the northwest province of Bubanza. The FNL claims it has at least 21,000 combatants waiting to join assembly areas.

The head of the government’s delegates to the joint Verification and Monitoring Mechanism, Brig-Gen Lazare Nduwayo, said preparation for another cantonment site in Bubanza province to host about 8,000 FNL combatants had been delayed but the site would be ready soon.

IRIN

BURUNDI: State cracks down on opposition

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:26:52 GMT

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

The arrest and detention of Burundian journalist and opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije and a stalemate in the peace process between the ruling party and the rebel Forces nationales de libération (FNL) signal a possible return to instability, rights activists have warned.

"It looks like the ruling party is calling in the power of the state to silence the voices of dissent,” Alison des Forges, senior Africa adviser for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement on 5 November.

Sinduhije, leader of the Movement for Security and Democracy (MSD) and founder of Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), and at least 30 other party members were arrested on 4 November for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government, holding illegal MSD meetings and sending Tutsi youth to join rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where a civil war is raging.

Sinduhije denied the allegations. Speaking from his police cell, he told IRIN on 5 November: "The real reason behind my arrest is that they want to get me out of the [2010] presidential race. The claim that I am threatening state security is false. I have no army, I have no militia group; I only want to bring new political ideas to the country and they [the government] are not used to this."

No formal charges have been laid against Sinduhije.

"According to Burundian law, they can hold me here [in detention] for 14 days; after that they will have to take me to prison and it could take months before I am charged in court," Sinduhije said. "I spent about two hours today [5 November] being interrogated by the police; I explained to them that I have nothing to hide; I only want to contribute, politically, to nation-building."

Des Forges said: "Using the police to limit dissent and to discourage peaceful political activity violates the rights of Burundians and weakens the rule of law."

Officials should promptly release Sinduhije and others arbitrarily detained and permit Burundians the full exercise of their civil and political rights, she added.

HRW said Sinduhije's detention highlighted the growing obstacles to the free exercise of civil and political rights in the country, adding that the detentions follow "extensive harassment" of leaders of several parties opposed to the ruling Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD).
Sinduhije's MSD party is not yet registered for political activities. The police spokesman, Pierre Chanel Ntarabaganyi, told HRW the MSD party was illegal and that "therefore the search and subsequent detentions were justified".

A ministerial ordinance issued in October requires political parties to obtain official authorisation for meetings rather than simply informing officials of their intent to meet, as previously.

HRW said Burundi's Interior Minister Venant Kamana had declined to register MSD, claiming that a party cannot include "security" among its goals as security was the exclusive province of the state.

According to HRW, other parties have also faced harassment.

"Since late September 2008, police have arrested at least 25 members of UPD-Zigamibanga, a party opposed to the CNDD-FDD," the agency said. "Most were arrested in Ngozi province on charges of participating in an unauthorised meeting and released after paying a fine, but two others were detained in Kayanza province on charges of insulting President Pierre Nkurunziza after they criticised his education policy during a private conversation."

Burundi has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

Sinduhije said: "President Nkurunziza should understand that I am not his enemy; fighting in politics involves the competition of ideas, not brutality against citizens using state funds and resources."

Meanwhile, the peace process with the FNL is deadlocked over the group’s determination to keep the word “Palipehutu” as part of its full name, an ethnic reference prohibited by the constitution, and over its demands for a greater role in national decision-making.

According to Henri Boshoff of the Institute for Security Studies, these issues “militate against the speedy gathering-in of rebels in the assembly areas and the finalisation of the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration programme”.

Regional mediators are due to travel to Burundi this week in an attempt to break the impasse.

IRIN

BURUNDI: Human rights record "shows no improvement"

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:20:10 GMT

Friday, July 25, 2008

At least 400 people were killed in the first quarter of 2008, which indicates that Burundi's human rights record has failed to improve this year, according to Iteka, a rights group.

All the country's provinces were affected by violence, particularly Bujumbura Rural, Bubanza and Cibitoke, where the rebel Forces nationales de libération (FNL) have been active, Iteka stated in its report for 2007 and the first quarter of 2008.

Addressing a news conference on 21 July, Iteka chairman David Nahimana said the "killing is mainly blamed on the armed banditry, which claimed 223 victims”.

However, Nahimana said: “The police and the army also account for 31 and 48 cases respectively, while FNL is blamed for 47 cases.”

On 22 July, Lt-Col Adolphe Manirakiza, the army spokesman, rejected Iteka's allegations, saying the army was not killing civilians.

"The author of the report is the only one responsible for its content,” Manirakiza said. "Whenever a soldier is held responsible for a killing, whether by indiscipline or misconduct, he is seriously sanctioned before the military jurisdictions."

Iteka also deplored the fact that sexual violence remained rampant. The group registered some 455 women and girl victims of rape, the majority younger than 12.

According to Nahimana, sexual violence was on the increase because perpetrators were not punished sufficiently. He added that victims' fear of reporting rape crimes and lack of support from the community were contributing factors.

Among other recommendations, Iteka urged the government to speed up the disarmament of the civilian populations and establish protective measures for vulnerable groups and to enact severe punishment for sexual crimes.

IRIN

IMF Approves US$75.6 Million PRGF Arrangement for Burundi

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 09:00:42 GMT

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved a three-year SDR 46.2 million (about US$75.6 million) arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) for Burundi, to support the implementation of the country's poverty reduction program and its efforts to consolidate macroeconomic stability. It takes into account the financial impact of rising world food and oil prices in 2008.
The Executive Board's approval enables Burundi to draw an amount equivalent to SDR 6.6 million (about US$10.8 million) under the PRGF arrangement.

Following the Executive Board's discussion, Mr. Murilo Portugal, Managing Director and Acting Chair, said:
"The Burundian authorities are to be commended for the progress they have made in implementing Burundi's first PRGF-supported program in a difficult post-conflict environment. Though structural reforms have been slow, most monetary and fiscal reforms have progressed well. However, despite the progress made, poverty remains widespread, and the challenges for Burundi in meeting the MDGs continue to be significant.
"The new three-year PRGF-supported program, anchored in Burundi's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, is designed to reduce inflation to single digits; ensure fiscal sustainability in the face of heavy debt; improve the composition of spending; strengthen public financial management and enhance governance; and accelerate structural reforms to stimulate growth and reduce poverty.

"The authorities' fiscal program for 2008 targets a substantial increase in capital spending, while accommodating additional spending to boost agricultural output and help alleviate the impact of increasing food and fuel prices on the poor.
"The success of the authorities' PRGF-supported program will depend, in part, on strong and coordinated assistance from the international community. Accelerating structural reforms, most notably on governance issues, will also be critical," Mr. Portugal said.

The approved PRGF arrangement for Burundi succeeds an arrangement that expired earlier this year. The PRGF is the IMF's concessional facility for low-income countries. PRGF loans carry an annual interest rate of 0.5 percent and are repayable over 10 years with a 5½-year grace period on principal payments.

ANNEX

Recent Economic Developments
Economic growth decelerated in 2007, while inflation increased, mostly driven by rising food and energy prices. Higher grants disbursement from international donors contributed to an improved fiscal position and helped build international reserves.
After an upturn in 2006, real GDP growth decelerated from 5 percent to 3.6 percent in 2007, mainly because of a poor coffee harvest. End-period inflation increased to 14.7 percent, from 9.3 percent in 2006, owing to higher international commodity prices and exchange rate depreciation. In the first four months of 2008, domestic prices of fuel and basic staples rose on average by 23 percent, pushing the overall inflation rate to 11.7 percent during the same period. Excluding food and oil, the inflation rate would be about 3.5 percent.
The overall fiscal position improved in 2007. The overall fiscal balance (on a commitment basis and after grants) shifted to a surplus of 0.5 percent of GDP from a deficit of 1.8 percent in 2006. Social spending was estimated to have increased from 8.7 percent of GDP in 2006 to 9.2 percent in 2007. The authorities have implemented a number of measures with a view to ensuring fiscal discipline and improving transparency in public finances.

Program Summary
The purpose of the new PRGF arrangement will be to consolidate macroeconomic stability, further reduce the heavy debt burden, and help the government of Burundi pursue implementation of its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. It will also support the government's efforts to obtain debt relief under the enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

The main objectives of the new three-year PRGF program will therefore be to:
• Return to single-digit inflation. An independent central bank with price stability as its principal mission will be essential for this purpose. Better budget and monetary policy coordination will also be essential, especially during this period of increasing inflationary pressures.
• Improve the composition of public spending to the benefit of the priority sectors, while preserving fiscal sustainability. To that end, the wage bill will have to be controlled. It will also be important to rely mainly on grants and highly concessional loans to avoid unsustainable debt.
• Strengthen public financial management (PFM). The program will seek to stabilize the existing PFM system, with particular attention to two ongoing initiatives: (1) the passing and gradual implementation of the new budget organic law; and (2) consolidation of a single Treasury account and an effective cash flow management plan; and
• Strengthen the internal control systems of the central bank. Emphasis will be placed on parliamentary passing of the draft central bank law and on the implementation of a number of financial safeguard measures to strengthen internal controls and risk management systems.
Provided that the public security situation continues to improve, the macroeconomic objectives are as follows for the period of the PRGF program: (1) GDP growth should average 5 percent over the medium term, up from the average of 3.6 percent in 2004-07; and (2) inflation would slow to about 6 percent by 2011.

The projected growth pattern, which resembles those observed in other post-conflict countries, is predicated on three factors: (1) continued removal of major economic distortions, especially in the coffee sector, which will boost total factor productivity; (2) a substantial increase in investment, driven by international aid and largely consisting of infrastructure renovation, which will help relieve major supply bottlenecks; and (3) further advances in trade liberalization with accession to the East African Community, which will help diversify the economy, stimulate competition, and attract more investment.

The International Monetary Fund

BURUNDI: Fatal chicken disease a blow to food security

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:09:33 GMT

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Food security in Burundi’s Kayanza province is under threat because of an untreatable disease that has killed more than 1,000 chickens in one commune, according to a senior official.

"The disease has also been reported in other parts of the country but total numbers of dead chickens are not [yet] available," the director of the Animal Health Department in the Ministry of Agriculture and Stockbreeding, Pierre Bukuru, told IRIN.

"With the pandemic among the chickens, the population will face a significant lack of animal proteins and many people will suffer from the shortage, as chicken is widely raised and consumed in Burundi," he added.

Bukuru said the illness, which has similar symptoms to Newcastle Disease, was affecting the economic lives of people raising chickens or trading in meat and eggs.

"Egg production has dropped by 80 percent," he said.

He added that the meat of infected chickens did not pose a threat to human health as long as it was well-cooked.

And although the disease itself can be passed on to humans, the only effects are mild conjunctivitis.

Laboratory tests were being carried out to determine the precise identity of the disease, although he ruled out the possibility of it being avian influenza.

"Bird flu has not yet reached Burundi up to now," Bukuru said.

No treatment is available for the disease, and although chicks can be vaccinated, doing so would be impractical in a country where most poultry is kept by individual households.

Source: IRIN NEWS http://irinnews.org

BURUNDI: Displaced civilians back home in Kabezi

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:40:57 GMT

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Thousands of civilians who fled their homes near the Burundian capital of Bujumbura in May following clashes between the army and opposition fighters have returned to their villages, a senior official announced.

"They went back because the situation has returned to normal although there are still some cases of theft," Zenon Ndaruvukanye, the governor of Bujumbura Rural province, said on 5 June. "They received aid including blankets, soap and jerry cans from the Burundi Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross."

At least 20,000 people fled fighting between the army and Forces nationales de libération (FNL) fighters in and around Kabezi, 20 km south of Bujumbura.

The FNL is Burundi's last active armed opposition group.

FNL fighters have generally held their fire since the return to Bujumbura, on 30 May, of their leader Agathon Rwasa, who had been in exile in Tanzania.

Rwasa's presence in the capital, which has been widely welcomed as a "significant" development, should speed up the country's hitherto slow peace process, aid workers said.

Most of the displaced civilians were from Kiremba, Mena, Ramba, Gitenga and parts of Mwara, close to where the fighting broke out on 7 May. Many had sought refuge at Kabezi health centre, a nearby primary school and the market.

Some of the displaced had told IRIN earlier that they would not return to their homes until the army, which was deployed against the FNL fighters, was removed.

"The military positions are still there; the ones who were refusing to go home were FNL supporters," Ndaruvukanye told IRIN.

The returning civilians, he added, had received some rice from the ministry for national solidarity. But they still needed more food aid.

The fighting followed earlier clashes in April, which the FNL carried out in violation of a September 2006 ceasefire agreement, prompting the army to shell the group's positions in Bujumbura Rural.

In a report on 30 May, Human Rights Watch criticised the Burundian government for detaining at least 300 people "solely as suspected members of a movement long opposed to the government". Many of them were civilians arrested after the FNL bombardment.

The army eventually pushed back the FNL into the hills. The FNL agreed to a new ceasefire with the government on 26 May, halting the clashes. Three days later, the police released 102 of the detainees in a "gesture of good faith from the government".

The Tanzania-based FNL leadership returned to Bujumbura to discuss implementing the 2006 ceasefire, and expects that a law guaranteeing them "provisional immunity" from arrest will be adopted when parliament eventually meets.

Welcoming their return, the European Union urged them to "pursue the peace process in a constructive manner in order that the provisions of the comprehensive ceasefire agreement and its various annexes can be fully implemented as rapidly as possible."

Should the guns remain silent, aid workers in Bujumbura said, many more of the estimated 100,000 Burundians who were displaced by conflict over the years, could return to their homes.

In Magara, Bugarama commune of Bujumbura Rural province, about 500 families have returned home following the May ceasefire, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. However, in Gitwaro, returnees found their homes looted, crops harvested and domestic animals eaten by the armed groups that had occupied the area

Source: IRIN NEWS http://irinews.org

BURUNDI: Shelling resumes in Bujumbura

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:02:48 GMT

Thursday, April 24, 2008

The resumption in the violence in Bujumbura is causing panic in the country. Outside the capital, residents spend their nights in the bush for fear of being attacked, as the death toll rose to 33.

A bomb destroyed part of the Vatican embassy compound and a dining hall in the Kiriri University campus on 22 April.

"We call on the army to remove its heavy arms from our campus," a student said, reacting to the installation of rocket launchers aimed at rebuffing attacks by the rebel FNL.

On 18 April, attacks were launched on military positions in Gihosha, Kanyosha, Kamenge and Musaga areas. At Gihosha, an MP’s residence was hit.

The spokesman for the Burundi defence force, Lt-Col Adolphe Manirakiza, condemned the FNL for having "violated the ceasefire accord" signed in 2006. However, the FNL’s Pasteur Habimana rejected the accusation, blaming the army for provoking its combatants.

The FNL called on Burundian troops "to return to their barracks". The army, however, rejected the call. "We cannot do this because we have to protect civilians from the movement's attacks," Manirakiza said.

Habimana called for help in mediation efforts and for the resumption of talks under the Joint Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JVMM).

On 21 April, the government spokeswoman, Hafsa Mossi, urged the international community to impose sanctions on the FNL if it continued to violate the ceasefire accord. She said the FNL was not interested in the peace process.

The attacks follow months of interruption of the JVMM talks aimed at implementing the ceasefire accord.

BURUNDI: Demobilisation hits snag

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:03:14 GMT

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Hundreds of Burundian soldiers scheduled for demobilisation under a donor-recommended programme have refused to complete the process until various financial and selection concerns are answered.

"We cannot go to demobilisation sites before we get an explanation on how our selection was carried out," one of the soldiers, who requested anonymity, told IRIN on 1 April.

The army is in the process of scaling down to 25,000 soldiers by the end of 2008 as part of a series of conditions imposed by development partners for writing off the country's US$1.5 billion foreign debt.

A total of 916 soldiers had been put on a list of those to be demobilised; including 739 privates, 169 non-commissioned officers and 18 officers.

About half of these were due to be taken from a military camp near the capital to a demobilisation centre in the central Gitega province, but refused to board trucks.

Some of the reluctant soldiers said they would end their protest as soon as they received their demobilisation allowance (the equivalent of US$600) and due salary payments, and if they were taken directly home, rather than going to the demobilisation centre.

"We need the entire package now because we have no confidence we will get it later on," one of the soldiers, who also requested anonymity, said. "We can't get our money if it is not given to us now; others who were demobilised earlier have not yet collected their package to date despite organising demonstrations to highlight their case."

They also raised concerns over whether the legal 50-50 ethnic quota in the make-up of the Burundian army had been respected in the process of demobilisation.

"We need to see posted, the list showing ethnic balance, to be persuaded there was transparency," one soldier said. “Those who prepared the lists should come and explain everything to us; until now no one has come to listen to our concerns since the lists were displayed."

Some 200 soldiers who voluntarily went to the Gitega demobilisation site on 31 March expressed their support for those who remained in Bujumbura. They said they would not agree to eight days of training aimed at preparing them for civilian life.

In an attempt to resolve the row, First Vice-President Yves Sahinguvu and Defence Minister Lt-Gen Germain Niyoyankana met senior military officers on 1 April.

He said those with genuine grievances should lodge complaints with the authorities.

Source: IRIN

BURUNDI: Boost for returnees

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 01:29:24 GMT

Friday, December 14, 2007

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) are to run a joint programme to improve the reintegration conditions for returnees, a UNHCR official in Bujumbura said.

The European Union granted 10 million Euros (US$15 million) to the agencies, with UNHCR taking two-thirds to fund the reintegration programme for 2008-2009.

About 125,000 returnees, including 15,000 people expelled from Tanzania, will be assisted.

According to Andreas Kirchhof, UNHCR public relations officer, the agency expects the programme to “encourage voluntary repatriation but also improve the conditions of returnees back home as they will have the possibility of getting a shelter”.

The construction component is the most important part of the project. UNHCR will help 19,600 households build small houses in 2008 and 2009. UNICEF will build 15 schools and 15 pre-school nurseries.

“With 20,000 houses, some 100,000 persons will have a shelter,” Kirchhof said.

About 40,000 Burundians were repatriated in 2007 and the UN agency expects a larger number next year.

In a statement, the UNHCR Representative in Burundi, Bo Schack, said: “The new partnership will improve the conditions for reintegration. It is a signal of hope for all Burundians still living in exile. More persons will receive shelter, will be able to send their children to school, and will have access to healthcare or legal assistance."

The new programme will also enable Burundians expelled from Tanzania to access services so far only available to returnees. Expelled Burundians not recognised as refugees by the Tanzanian government were not normally in the UNHCR mandate.

Kirchhof indicated that under this new programme, the UN agency would help them with identity cards, houses and legal assistance as many returnees are involved in land disputes.

About 120,000 Burundian refugees still await repatriation from Tanzania, with the Tanzanian government threatening to close all the camps by mid-2008. During a tripartite commission of Burundi, Tanzania and UNHCR held in Bujumbura on 4 December, however, Tanzania was requested to extend the deadline for closure of camps until November 2008.

Source: IRIN