BURUNDIÂÂ16/2/2004Â19:31
DEADLINE FOR REBELS EXPIRED, GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR NEW REGIONAL SUMMIT
The deadline launched three months ago by the Heads of State of the African Great Lakes Region to the rebels of the FNL (National Liberation Forces), the last armed movement active in Burundi, expired today without any concrete results. For this reason the government once again appealed to neighbouring nations, âto acknowledge that the FNL renounced to negotiations with President (of Burundi) Domitien Ndayizeyeâ, stated this morning to the French âAFPâ agency the Foreign Relations Ministry of the government of Bujumbura, ThÃrence Sinunguruza. During the new regional summit âwe will call for appropriate measuresâ, added the government spokesman. On November 16 in Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania) the leaders of the region decided to concede ninety to the Burundian rebels of the FNL to engage in negotiations with Bujumbura authorities, in a move to end the internal conflict that since 1993 claimed over 300-thousand victims, based on the most reliable estimates. In January, during a trip of the President of Bujumbura in Europe, a meeting was announced between the Head of State and the FNL, held in great secret and from which no details emerged. In the same summit of Dar Es Salaam, last November, the other armed anti-government movement (the FDD â Forces for the Defence of Democracy) undersigned an accord with Burundian authorities to enter the government and for integration in the armed forces.
[BO]
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
