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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

BURUNDI: CNDD-FDD appeals to rival faction to work for peace

NAIROBI, 22 January 2003 (IRIN) - A former rebel group, which signed a ceasefire accord with the transitional government, has called on its breakaway faction to stop recruiting fighters and instead work for peace.

"The CNDD-FDD [Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces nationales de liberation] requests the group of dissidents led by Mr Peter Nkurunziza to respect their own commitments as signed in a separate ceasefire agreement in Arusha on the 3rd December [2002]," Jerome Ndiho, the spokesman for Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye faction of the CNDD-FDD, said in a communique on 16 January.

In the communique, received by IRIN on Tuesday, Ndiho said the continuing recruitment of fighters was no longer justified, because the ceasefire would enable the CNDD-FDD to achieve the objectives set out at its creation on 24 September 1994, namely to restore peace and democracy, and set up an integrated national security apparatus and military in which there would be no ethnic and regional discrimination.

The CNDD-FDD, he said, had "never planned" to defeat the Tutsi-led army in the field unless it refused to negotiate an end to the war. Now that the government had signed a ceasefire, Ndiho noted, Nkurunziza's supporters should "change their attitude" and work for the general interest.

Themes: (IRIN) Conflict

[ENDS]

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