The mood was jubilant last week as the Burundi government signed a ceasefire deal with its last remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (fnl). Agathon Rwasa, the fnl's leader, has promised either to integrate his fighters into the army or demobilise them within a month. The deal was the last part of a peace process that ended more than a decade of violence between Hutu rebels and an army dominated by the Tutsi minority. Last year another former Hutu rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (fdd), won a landslide election, propelling its leader, Pierre Nkurunziza, to the presidency. He and Mr Rwasa embraced under the watchful eye of South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, whose staff had helped to broker the peace talks.
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