............Burundi on quick, steady recovery path   By Arthur Baguma BURUNDI, one of the world's poorest nations, is slowly emerging from a 12-year, ethnic civil war. The once poverty and war ravaged country is slowly turning into a hope of Africa’s model democratic countries. Half of the population lives below the poverty line depending on coffee and tea as the main foreign exchange earner. As the country positions itself as a member of the East African Community, it has taken a deliberate policy in promoting regional efforts on good governance. “We shall make all possible efforts to promote good governance through promoting its key tenets,” Hon. Hafsa Mossi, the Burundi Minister for East African Community (EAC) said in an interview with The New Vision. Hafsa commended the East African Community Secretariat for the ongoing consultations with various stakeholders on the formulation of a good governance protocol. Addressing regional delegates at consultative meeting with Civil Society Organisations in Bujumbura last month, Hon. Mossi said that good governance is a corner stone to development. “The East African Community should not lag behind on issues like human rights, zero tolerance to graft and good governance. As member states we should promote human security, fight corruption and hold regular free and fair elections,” the minister told about 70 delegates from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. The meeting was part of a series of consultations with various stakeholders that began with the first conference on good governance and regional integration in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in January this year. The consultations are broad based and include various stakeholders which will enable EAC to come out with initial draft on Good Governance for discussions by partner states. After the conclusion of consultations the Good Governance Framework will be signed by the Heads of State as an East African Community Protocol.   Burindi is reaping the benefits of peace and its economy is grows impressively The journey to the current developments in Burundi started a few years ago when the country elected the first democratically elected leader since the war. Pierre Nkurunziza, a Hutu former rebel leader, became the first president to be chosen in democratic elections since the start of Burundi's civil war. He was the first democratically elected president since the start of the civil war in 1993. The vote followed five years of peace talks. Nkurunziza, who pledged to strive for unity, faces the pressing challenges of reassuring the Tutsi minority and of reviving the economy. At the end of 2005 he unveiled a $2bn rejuvenation plan, most of it to be funded by foreign donors, targeted at the agricultural sector. A peace agreement between the government and the remaining Hutu rebels was signed in 2006, but broke down after the government rejected rebel demands for power-sharing. A ceasefire between the government and the last active rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), was signed in May 2008. Relative peace after a 12-year ethnic-based civil war has been attributed partly to international mediation and support with the government of Uganda playing a key role. Since independence in 1961, Burundi was plagued by tension between the dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. The ethnic violence in 1994 made Burundi the scene of one of Africa's most intractable conflicts. It is now beginning to reap the dividends of a peace process. But it faces the formidable tasks of reviving a shattered economy and of forging national unity. In 1993 Burundi seemed poised to enter a new era when, in their first democratic elections, Burundians chose their first Hutu head of state, Melchior Ndadaye, and a parliament dominated by the Hutu Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu) party. But within months Ndadaye had been assassinated, setting the scene for years of Hutu-Tutsi violence in which an estimated 300,000 people, most of them civilians, were killed. In early 1994 parliament elected another Hutu, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as president. But he was killed in April alongside the president of neighbouring Rwanda when the plane they were traveling in was shot down over Kigali. Another Hutu, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, was appointed president in October 1994. But within months, the mainly Tutsi Union for National Progress (Uprona) party withdrew from the government and parliament, sparking a new wave of ethnic violence. Following long-running talks, mediated by South Africa, a power-sharing government was set up in 2001 and most of the rebel groups agreed to a ceasefire. Four years later Burundians voted in the first parliamentary elections since the start of the civil war. The main Hutu former rebel group won the vote and nominated its leader Pierre Nkurunziza as president. Meanwhile, the government and the United Nations have begun the process of disarming thousands of soldiers and former rebels, as well as forming a new national army. The Burundi President, Pierre Nkurunziza is one of Africa’s youngest leaders. He was the sole candidate in the August 2005 vote in the National Assembly and the Senate after his Force for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) won parliamentary elections in June. The vote was one of the final steps in a peace process intended to end years of fighting between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-controlled army. Born in 1964 in Ngozi province, Pierre Nkurunziza trained as a sports teacher. His father, a former MP, was killed in ethnic violence in 1972. He joined the Hutu rebellion in 1995 and rose through the ranks to become head of the FDD in 2001. He sustained a serious mortar injury during the conflict.