BURUNDI: Former rebel leader becomes nation's president

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

KAMPALA, 26 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - Former rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza, 40, was sworn in on Friday as Burundian president for a five-year term. He becomes the country's first democratically elected leader since 1993.

"I pledge to fight all ideology and acts of genocide and exclusion, to promote and defend the individual and collective rights and freedoms of persons and of the citizen," he said in Kirundi, Burundi's national language, in a ceremony attended by 10 African heads of state.

His inauguration in Bujumbura is an important milestone in the effort to end 12 years of civil war between Hutu rebels and successive governments. The inauguration also ends an extended four-year transitional period of government that ushered in democratic rule.

However, Nkurunziza faces a low intensity rebellion by a minor Hutu rebel group, the Front national de liberation. This rebel group is the only one that failed to sign a peace deal with the just ended transitional administration; and has given no sign that is it ready to stop fighting now.

Speaking in Kampala, Uganda, a day ahead of Nkurunziza's inauguration, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the Burundi peace process that led up to Friday's event was a vindication of Africa's frequently expressed desire to solve its own problems.

"I do not know of any major African problem solved by outsiders. All these problems in Africa are better solved if Africans take the lead," Museveni said in a joint news conference on Thursday in Kampala with the visiting Tanzanian president, Benjamin Mkapa.

Museveni, who led the Regional Peace Initiative on Burundi, said the outcome was not a surprise to him because the process was handled by the Burundians, and other Africans.

Museveni was not present at Friday's inauguration. The Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said he had designated Mkapa, who was vice-chairman of the regional initiative, to represent that body. Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa led a delegation of ministers to the ceremonies in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura.

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