Burundi: Rebels demand amnesty before going home

(SomaliNet)Before they can accept a 10-day ultimatum from regional leaders to return home and implement a long-awaited peace deal, Burundi\'s last group of rebels said on Monday they wanted an amnesty.

The Tanzanian and Ugandan foreign ministers issued the deadline at talks with FNL leaders in Arusha, northern Tanzania, on Sunday, a Forces for National Liberation (FNL) spokesperson said.

\"They told us to go back to Burundi,\" the FNL spokesperson, Pasteur Habimana, said by telephone from Dar es Salaam. A number of FNL officials are based in neighbouring Tanzania.

\"We do not accept that decision (on the ultimatum),\" he said. \"We want amnesty first before we return to Burundi.\"

According to reports, more than 50 people have been killed and thousands displaced in fresh clashes over the last two weeks between FNL fighters and the Burundian military, despite a 2006 peace deal.

Burundian president, Pierre Nkurunziza has urged the region to put pressure on the rebels, and Habimana said the FNL was briefed on Sunday about a meeting of regional leaders in Kampala last week.

Burundi\'s peace talks stalled last July after the rebels quit a ceasefire monitoring team and accused mediators of bias.

The FNL insurgency is seen as the last barrier to stability in the coffee-growing nation of 8 million, which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war in which 300 000 people were killed.-Reuters