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Former Burundi rebel leader rules

"I swear that I will stand for peace, tranquility and development for all."

Pierre Nkurunziza, new Burundi president

A former rebel leader took Burundi's presidential oath, pledging to calm the ethnic tensions that have repeatedly erupted into violence in Burundi.

"I swear that I will stand for peace, tranquility and development for all," said President Pierre Nkurunziza, who was just eight years old when he saw Tutsi soldiers kill his Hutu father during ethnic violence in 1972, and then two decades later fled Tutsi plots on his own life to join the rebels.

The inauguration on Friday of Nkurunziza, 40, as president follows a four-year transitional government set up to end a civil war that erupted when paratroopers killed the first democratically elected president, a Hutu, in 1993.

Nkurunziza's Forces for the Defense of Democracy was once the largest Hutu rebel group fighting the former Tutsi-dominated government.

On Aug. 19, parliament elected Nkurunziza to become Burundi's second democratically chosen president since the country became independent from Belgium in 1962. Nkurunziza's Forces for the Defense of Democracy dominates parliament's two chambers.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who witnessed Nkurunziza's inauguration with six other regional leaders, said, "This is not the end of the journey. But a beginning of a new era whose sustainability will require more regional and international support."

In a speech after his swearing-in, Nkurunziza urged Burundians to make the central African country's nascent democracy their own and work to reduce Burundi's poverty and heal divisions between Hutus and Tutsis.

"Let's unite and work hard so as to find solutions for our country to make it prosperous and renew its image before the international community," Nkurunziza said. "It is a shame to see that today the image of Burundi ... is as a country having problems between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups."

The rebel National Liberation Force did not take part in the process and has continued to fight, mostly in the rural areas around the capital, Bujumbura. Persuading that group to join his government will be Nkurunziza's top priority.

Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, who had helped mediate Burundi's peace process, said on Friday that he wanted to remind the hold outs "of the commitment they made to me personally to join the peace process. I strongly encourage them to join the process."

Fatuma Siniremera, a 56-year-old Nkurunziza supporter, said during a rally on Thursday that she hoped he would "bring back peace quickly and help us overcome poverty."
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