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Arusha — Talks aiming at ending political violence in Burundi will resume next week under retired President Benjamin Mkapa with exiled politicians not likely to attend.
Sources close to the Office of the Facilitator of Inter-Burundi Dialogue said some opposition leaders, who fled the country after being implicated in the May 2015 coup attempt against the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza had not been invited.
A statement issued yesterday by the Office of the Facilitator through the East African Community (EAC) announced the commencement of formal dialogue scheduled for February 16-18 at Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC).
The convening of the session follows what is described as “rigorous consultations” the facilitator made with various stakeholders within and outside Burundi after, which Mr Mkapa and his team identified an eight-point agenda raised by all stakeholders and agreed to be the main sticking points, which he reported to the Summit of the EAC Heads of State in September last year.
“This eight-point agenda, which will form the thrust of the dialogue and subsequent negations, is no particular order of importance,” the statement says.
The main sticking points include security and commitment to ending all forms of violence, commitment to the rule of law and an end to impunity, status of the implementation of the Arusha peace and reconciliation agreement, strengthening of a democratic culture and opening up of political space and social and humanitarian issues.
Others are implementation of the EAC summit decision of July 6, 2015 on the formation of the government of national unity, impact of the crisis on the economy and the relationship between Burundi, its neighbours and other international partners.
In this initial phase of this dialogue, which is by and large a political process, the facilitator will invite some of the political parties and important political actors to whom he will introduce the eight-point agenda to determine areas of convergence and divergence.
It is the expectation of the facilitator that, in this initial dialogue, inputs from participants will draw up an outline of the would-be agreement to be continuously refined until, when it is fully agreed upon by all stakeholders and can be signed as the final agreement hopefully in June this year as he envisaged.
On January 16, Mr Mkapa met some Burundian opposition politicians and other stakeholders involved in the dialogue, but who could not attend the session in Bujumbura last December.
Source: All Africa
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