– Slim hope of breakthrough –
CNARED chairman Leonard Nyangoma welcomed the delegation’s visit but held out little hope of a breakthrough.
“Nkurunziza is a diehard and without strong pressure and real sanctions he will never agree to the meaningful negotiations that are the only way out of this crisis,” he told AFP by telephone.
Burundi’s upheaval was triggered by Nkurunziza’s decision last April to run for a third term which he won in an election in July.
Following protests and a brutal government crackdown, violent attacks have become routine, raising fears of a return to the civil war fought between 1993-2006 in which around 300,000 people died.
On Thursday advocacy group Human Rights Watch warned that “government forces are killing, abducting, torturing and arbitrarily arresting scores of people at an alarming rate.”
It called for the deployment of “a strong UN political mission with a substantial international police component”.
Even Ban’s visit was greeted by an uptick in grenade attacks with at least four people killed just ahead of his arrival on Tuesday and at least a dozen injured.
A Burundi government spokesman said the AU delegation’s visit would “confirm that there is peace and security in Burundi” and that peacekeepers were not necessary.
However, Zuma arrived Thursday with a personal guard of more than 50 soldiers and at least six machine gun-mounted army trucks for his 10-minute drive to the city centre.
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