(Special for CAFS) Roundup EAC

(Special for CAFS) Roundup: EAC calls for peaceful elections in Burundi By Daniel Ooko

NAIROBI, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Regional countries on Saturday called for peaceful presidential elections in Burundi, warning that the region would not entertain any acts of violence in the East African nation.

Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, together with Burundi, which are members of the East Africa Community http://www.wubags.com/handbags-r/ (EAC) want Burundi to ensure the polls to be held on Monday are credible to avoid chaos in the region.

Wetangula, who was among the EAC foreign ministers that met with various political parties in Bujumbura on Thursday said the region is unanimous that free and fair elections would avoid a return to anarchy in the tiny African nation.

"As a region we want elections to be held on June 28 in Burundi to be free and fair. Burundi should embrace democracy by participating in the elections which have been boycotted by some parties," Wetangula told journalists in Nairobi.

He urged all political actors, especially the opposition parties to fully embrace the electoral process as the best means to attaining enduring peace and stability for Burundi and for the shared prosperity of the people of East Africa.

Wetangula said instead of boycotting elections, the parties should use the elections as opportunity to demonstrate democracy to the rest of the world.

According to Wetangula, the regional foreign ministers told the parties in Burundi that the gains in both security and stability that have been made in the last couple of years must not be lost.

He said they told the leaders including outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza from the ruling CNDD-FDD party and his rival from the Union for National Progress (UPRONA) party Yves Sahinguvu who has pulled out of the race that the Arusha agreement that gave rise to all these gains must be protected at all costs.

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"Having listened to all the parties, the region advises the people of Burundi very firmly that the region will not tolerate any slippage of the country into instability and violence," the minister warned.

"We told them that the region hopes that the parties to the elections will, where necessary, adhere to the laid down processes of dispute resolution wherever there is any election other than unhelpful activities."

Burundi's forthcoming presidential elections are meant to consolidate democracy and the peace process which was signed in Tanzania after more than 10 years of civil war.

However, mistrust, allegations of manipulation and the withdrawal of all opposition candidates has overshadowed the vote in the small, densely populated East African country.

Wetangula also warned that the region will impose travel sanctions to individuals bent causing violence that may mar elections, saying the tiny African nation has lost three of its presidents due to anarchy.

"We told the parties that the region will take unkindly any actions by individuals, politicians and anybody that will slip the country into violence. We have discussed it as a region to impose travel sanctions to those individuals so that they don't travel to any country within the region as has happened in West Africa," he warned.

Incumbent President Nkurunziza, as in 2005, will be the onl
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