January 29, 2008, 20:15
The mandate of around 1 000 South African soldiers deployed in Burundi under an African Union (AU) mandate is to be extended as efforts to get the last remaining rebel group to rejoin the peace process gain momentum, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said.
He said South African Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula, who is the facilitator of the Burundi peace process, was to meet regional leaders on the fringes of the AU Summit taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss his progress.
"The discussion will focus on the renewal of the South African mandate as the facilitating country as well as a renewal of the mandate of Minister Nqakula as facilitator," Pahad said.
He said the mandate of the AU Special Task Force, manned solely by South Africa, would also be on the agenda of the regional leaders. "We are concerned that it has taken so long but hope these discussions will move the process forward," Pahad said.
The Palipehutu-FNL is the last remaining rebel group in the central African country. It signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in September 2006 but its implementation was halted when the FNL pulled out of talks in July last year. They had rejected Nqakula as facilitator in Burundi's peace process and accused him of bias in favour of the government of Burundi.
The SA National Defence Force first deployed troops to Burundi in November 2001 to provide a small VIP close protection force for parliamentarians, while the rest of the battalion served as support in case of renewed hostilities.
SA was the first country to commit troops to an African Union peacekeeping force trying to quell the civil war, which started in 1993 and saw ethnic killings of Hutus and Tutsis.
In June 2004 the AU troops, to which South Africa was the largest contributor, donned blue helmets when the UN took over peacekeeping duties.
In December 2006, following a successful election the year before, the UN ceased its operations, but the South Africans stayed on. - Sapa
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