Burundi's embattled president skipped key regional talks Monday to campaign for a controversial third term amid renewed rebel threats and international calls to delay the vote. The crisis in the central African nation revolves around President Pierre Nkurunziza's third-term bid, which his opponents say is unconstitutional and violates a peace deal that brought an end to a dozen years of civil war in 2006.
Leaders of the five-nation East African Community (EAC) had been due to meet Monday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but Nkurunziza instead sent his foreign minister. Kenya and Rwanda were also represented at the ministerial level, leaving host Jakaya Kikwete and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni the only presidents in attendance. The bloc called for elections to be delayed by two weeks, from July 15 to July 30.
EAC Secretary General Richard Sezibera said Museveni would now lead regional efforts to strike a deal after weeks of unrest, and a delay would allow him time "to lead the dialogue". Nkurunziza has previously dismissed all previous calls for postponements, but Foreign Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe said the EAC request would be referred to "highest authority."
The EAC said it would deploy observers for the polls and called on Burundi to disarm armed groups, including the Imbonerakure, or youth wing of Nkurunziza's ruling CNDD-FDD party. It urged Burundi's rival factions to bury the hatchet and form a government of national unity "irrespective of whoever wins the presidential election."
Meanwhile rebel General Leonard Ngendakumana, who took part in a failed coup in May, vowed to carry out further attacks until the government is overthrown. "After we saw that we could not succeed our coup on May 15, we found it was necessary to keep fighting," Ngendakumana told Kenya's KTN news channel in an interview aired late Sunday. "All those actions that are going on in the country, we are behind them and we are going to intensify them until Pierre Nkurunziza understands that we are there to make him understand by force that he has to give up his third term."
General Ngendakumana, a top intelligence officer, is an ally of coup leader General Godefroid Niyombare, who has been on the run since their attempt to seize power was thwarted. Over 70 people have been killed in more than two months of protests, with almost 144,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries. "They are trying to move towards an open civil war just to find a way to protect themselves," Ngendakumana said.
Parliamentary and local elections held last Monday were boycotted by the opposition. The UN electoral observer mission said the polls took place "in a climate of widespread fear and intimidation". The results are yet to be released.
There is apprehension that the current crisis could plunge the impoverished, landlocked country back into civil war. During an EAC summit on May 13, army officers staged a failed bid to unseat Nkurunziza while the president himself attended the talks. Nkurunziza did not attend a second summit on May 31.
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