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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 10 May 2006

BURUNDI-RWANDA: Officials vow to resolve land disputes by June

BUJUMBURA, 10 May 2006 (IRIN) - Burundian and Rwandan government officials have agreed to resolve by June border land disputes involving communities from the two countries.

At the end of a two-day meeting on Tuesday in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, the officials agreed to hold another meeting in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, before the end of June where an agreement on the proper border demarcation would be signed.

Rwanda's minister of state for cooperation, Rosemary Museminali, said experts from the two countries would use maps as the main tools to settle the land disputes among the communities living along the border, mostly in Burundi's northern provinces of Ngozi, Kirundo and Muyinga in the northeast.

"We believe maps are the most reliable documents we can work on," she said

Museminali added that the officials who attended the Bujumbura meeting recommended that subcommissions on land conflict should go to the field and speed up discussions ahead of the planned Kigali meeting.

Tuesday's meeting was the sixth session of the Rwanda-Burundi joint commission on land conflicts.

The conflicts, involving Burundian and Rwandan communities living along the border, have been caused by the diversion of rivers that delineate the border. The most recent conflict was reported at Sabanerwa hill, in the commune of Mwumba, in Burundi's Ngozi Province. The conflict followed the natural diversion of River Kanyaru to Burundian territory.

A similar dispute has occurred in Ruzo, in the commune of Giteranyi, in Muyinga. Local mediators have failed to resolve this dispute, which first flared up in the 1960s.

At the meeting on Tuesday, Burundi's minister for external relations and international cooperation, Antoinette Batumubwira, said both countries had agreed to strengthen cooperation, especially regarding security matters, notably by curbing illegal immigration.

"Subcommissions have been formed in both our countries to put an end to the movement of illegal immigrants in our countries," she said.

Moreover, she said, the subcommissions would monitor the circulation of people within the two countries.

"We have realised that some wrongdoers may cross the border from one of our sister countries and go to disturb security in the other country," Batumubwira said.

At the same time, Batumubwira said an extradition convention would be signed "shortly" between the two countries in an effort to ensure the prosecution of Burundians who commit crimes in Rwanda and vice-versa.

She also said the subcommissions would work closely to facilitate the repatriation of refugees from Burundi or Rwanda.

Museminali said: "We will continue to sensitise Rwandan asylum seekers living in Burundi to return home."

She expressed gratitude towards the Burundi government for hosting 19,000 Rwandan asylum seekers who are living in camps in Musasa and Songore in the commune of Kiremba, Ngozi Province. Of these, the Burundian government has granted 52 of them refugee status and they have been moved to camp in Giharo in southeastern province of Rutana.

Reacting to whether or not the 52 deserved refugee status, Museminali said: "I don't think there is any political motive that urged them to flee, it is only manipulation from some political leaders."

She said many of the Rwandans had fled hunger in their homes, while the others fled justice because they were allegedly involved in genocide crimes during killings in the country in 1994.

Batumubwira said civil servants who worked either in Burundi or in Rwanda, and who had returned home, would be paid their retirement benefits. She was referring to Rwandans (then refugees) who worked in Burundi and who later returned home following the victory of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front in 1994.

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006