The Burundian military and armed opposition forces have committed serious war crimes, including civilian killings and rapes, Human Rights Watch said in a December report. The recent political agreement between the major parties in Burundi’s ten-year civil war should not have granted immunity from prosecution for such blatant and widespread crimes, Human Rights Watch said. The 63-page report, “Everyday Victims: Civilians in the Burundian War,” documents massacres and rapes of civilians and attacks on civilian property between April and November, when the government and the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), the main rebel group signed an peace accord guaranteeing all sides provisional immunity from prosecution for war crimes.

A local official in Burundi's northwestern province of Cibitoke has expressed concern over a security threat posed by Rwandan Hutu militiamen, known as Interahamwe, who have staged raids in the province in the last month, looting property in two communes. "Interahamwe militias have been hiding in the Kibira forest neighbouring the communes of Mabayi and Bukinanyana for about a month now," Benoit Ntigurirwa, the Cibitoke governor, told IRIN on Wednesday. The Interahamwe fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cibitoke Province is on the border with the DRC and Rwanda.

So far, 6,000 fighters from the main former rebel movement, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democarite (CNDD-FDD), are assembled at Kibongo Commune in the southern province of Makamba and are ready for cantonment, the movement’s spokesman, Maj Gelase Ndabirabe, told IRIN on Thursday.

Burundi’s new peace deal could bring very large numbers of refugees back home within three months, but there are no preparations for their repatriation and reintegration. The issue was ignored in the negotiations leading to the ceasefire accord signed on 16 November 2003, but such an omission endangers the peace process itself. It is crucial that the November accord not be implemented at the expense of refugees and the internally displaced. Numbering over one million, Burundian refugees and internally displaced have been the prime victims of the conflict, and their situation has deteriorated in the past three years. This is according to a report from the International Crisis Group.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and partner NGOs have mounted relief operations to respond to the needs of increasing numbers of war-displaced in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, following two weeks of fighting between government forces and rebel elements of the Forces nationales de liberation. UNICEF reported on Friday that following recent hostilities around Bujumbura, more than 40,000 people had been displaced, while over 17,000 people, fearful of fighting, were spending nights in areas of the city they considered safe.

Members of Burundi's main Hutu rebel group, a faction of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, are now represented in the country's government. They hold four of the 27 ministerial posts. Rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza is Burundi's new minister for good governance.

Search for Common Ground in Burundi has been in operation since 1995 and is a multi-dimensional program, with four in-country projects aimed at ethnic reconciliation and decreasing levels of distrust and violence: a radio studio (Radio Ijambo), a women's peace centre, a youth project, and an "integration" project. The program has 104 staff in Burundi, mostly local nationals, and support is provided from headquarters in Washington DC and Brussels. The Program Director is based in Bujumbura, Burundi, and is responsible for all aspects of the program.

Plans are underway to provide HIV/AIDS patients in Burundi with antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) free of charge by December, an official of the national AIDS body, the Conseil National de lutte contre le Sida, told IRIN.

Burundi's government signed a comprehensive power-sharing plan with the country's largest rebel group on Sunday, a major step toward ending a 10-year war that has killed at least 200,000 people. The peace agreement gives majority Hutus more weight in the security forces as well as bigger role in both the executive and legislative branches of government, long dominated by minority Tutsis. It incorporates cease-fires that have been largely ignored.

Some 12,000 civilians have fled their homes in Burundi's western province of Bujumbura Rural following the latest fighting between the army and fighters loyal to rebel leader Agathon Rwasa, Governor Ignace Ntawembarira told IRIN on Wednesday.

The government of Burundi launched a new malaria treatment, a combination therapy of artesunate and amodiaquine, on Monday, and announced the stoppage of chloroquine and fansidar, which have become resistant to the disease.

South Africa believes it has notched up yet another Africa conflict resolution success with the signing in Pretoria on Sunday of the final details of a power-sharing agreement between Burundi's transitional government led by President Domitien Ndayizeye and rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza. But the smaller and increasingly active National Liberation Front (FNL) of Agaton Rwasa has rejected the peace process.

The government of Burundi and the country's largest rebel group are due to resume talks in the South African capital, Pretoria, on Wednesday. A transitional government delegation are meeting leaders from the main rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) to iron out what is being billed as a final agreement.

Burundi and Sudan, both mine-affected countries, recently ratified the Mine Ban Treaty. Burundi submitted its ratification instrument to the United Nations on 22 October and Sudan completed its ratification on 13 October 2003. Now Somalia (which does not have a functioning government) is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that is neither a State Party nor a signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty. Ethiopia is the only remaining signatory in the region.

Burundi's Parliament has approved the power sharing agreement signed on 8 October between the transitional government and the country's largest rebel group, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces de defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) led by Pierre Nkurunziza, the Burundian news agency, ABP, reported.
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The Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) is seeking a dynamic Burundi Radio Producer with extensive experience in community radio.

Burundi on Tuesday entered its 11th year of civil war that has claimed more than 300 000 mostly civilian lives and ravaged this tiny French-speaking central African country that nevertheless clings today to hopes for peace. The civil war was sparked 10 years ago by the assassination of Burundi's first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye in an attempted military coup. A decade of inter-ethnic violence has followed.

Burundian human rights organisation, Ligue Sonera, has denounced as inhumane the conditions under which opposition politician Charles Mukasi is being held, and has demanded that his relatives be allowed access to him or he could die from hunger. "Mukasi is living in harsh conditions under the presidential police and we have information that his relatives are not allowed to take food to him," Therence Mushano, spokesman of Ligue Sonera, told IRIN on Sunday.

The signing on 8 October 2003 of an agreement on implementation of the December 2002 cease-fire agreement between the Government of Burundi and rebels leaves significant challenges unresolved, says Amnesty International. "It is essential that the Government of Burundi and the rebels assisted by regional and international actors commit themselves to addressing fundamental questions such as impunity. A determination by all parties to end the human rights and humanitarian crises must underpin a political settlement," Amnesty International said.

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and the leader of the strife-torn central African country's largest Hutu rebel group signed an agreement here early on Wednesday to implement a ceasefire deal hammered out late last year. The comprehensive agreement, signed by Ndayizeye and Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) leader Pierre Nkurunziza in the South African capital, included a compromise deal on political and military issues with both leaders declaring an immediate halt to hostilities.