This comes as the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) meet here for a four day public hearing workshop on the humanitarian crisis in Burundi.
EALA's Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution Committee (RACR) convened a public hearing yesterday that is intended to review a petition by Pan African Lawyers (PALU) submitted to the lawmakers in November last year.
The Burundi situation is now worrying petitioners who have called for EALA to reevaluate itself once the guns remain silent in Burundi.
Speaking on the sidelines of the workshop, Humphrey Mtui, a programme officer with the East African Law Society expressed concern on the recent developments in Burundi.
"As petitioners we are not satisfied with what we are witnessing in the neighbouring country," he said.
Mtui said he was equally concerned on how the process was dragging and on the no show of the government officials.
According to Mtui, officials from Burundi said they were not willing to sit down for talks, maintaining that they 'were still on holidays'."We are worried that we might not see anyone from Burundi, and if the stalemate continues, EALA will have to reevaluate itself," he observed.
He was however optimistic that Tanzania will set the motion during the workshop.
Earlier yesterday, the chairperson of the committee on Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution, Abdullah Mwinyi said a team comprising 13 members would carefully deliberate on the petitions.
He said: “We will transparently discuss the issues pertaining to the petitions as we all seek the best way to move forward.
According to Mwinyi, the committee will establish the facts of humanitarian atrocities as reported in the petition and make recommendations to the House during the next sitting scheduled to commence here in two weeks time.
The workshop also includes government officials from Burundi, Civil Society Organisation representatives and representatives from the country’s political parties and the petitioner.
In November last year four Civil Society Organisations led by PALU petitioned EALA to urgently undertake specified number of actions within its mandate to contain the situation in the tiny central African state.
The petition was presented to EALA's speaker, Daniel Kidega in Arusha by PALU and the East African Civil Society Organisations’ Forum (EACSOF).
The petitioners also urged the House to make strong recommendations to EAC Heads of State Summit that Burundi should not assume the rotating Chairmanship of the EAC until it resolves the political, human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country.
The petition stated that there were numerous reports of cases of assassinations, extra-judicial and arbitrary killings of over 130 persons (at the time of presentation) and thus implored EALA to condemn what it terms arbitrary killings as well as the inordinate use of force by the police, security officials and members of a youth wing group, ‘Imbonerakure’.
In addition, the petitioners want EALA to request the African Union to intervene in the political and humanitarian crisis citing its comprehensive and far reaching legal and institutional framework that includes the Constitutive Act of the African Union, 2000 and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights among others.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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