Burundi has now established a "steering committee" to supervise the possible implementation of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) regarding the grave crimes committed over the past 40 years. It is made up of two government representatives (Festus Ntanyungu, former minister for civil service, and Françoise Ngendahayo, former minister and former adviser to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), two representatives of civil society (Joseph Ndayizeye, vice-president of the Iteka League of Human Rights, and Eulalie Nibizi, unionist), and a representative of the United Nations. But two and a half years after the UN wanted to speed up the creation of a "dual mechanism" composed of a TRC and a special tribunal, nothing else has taken shape [IJT-32-56]. Following a new cycle of negotiations between the UN and the Burundian government in March 2007, and the visit to Bujumbura by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour in May, the parties agreed to organize "independent national referenda that would be impartial and open to everyone" as a "prerequisite for the implementation of the truth and reconciliation commission." The steering committee is now supposed to oversee these referenda. It will gather the perspectives of all those involved, in particular the victims, and its conclusions "should be taken into account in the law" that would establish the TRC. Although the referenda were scheduled to begin in July, their scope, methodology, and term had still not been clarified by October. On October 21, during an interview on Télévision Renaissance, former Burundian president Pierre Buyoya stated that these public referenda were a way of slowing down or moving back the implementation of a dual mechanism. In that case, they would be just one more sign of the deadlock evident for the past two years.