KENYA: NAIROBI: AFRICAN LEADERS ARRIVE TO DISCUSS REGIONAL PROBLEMS

Описание: (16 Dec 1996) Natural Sound

African leaders arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, for a meeting to discuss regional problems.

On the agenda, the instability in Zaire, the political and ethnic violence in Burundi and the refugees' return to Rwanda.

African leaders arrived in Nairobi Monday for a two-day summit mainly to discuss the crisis in the Great Lakes region.

South African President Nelson Mandela was welcomed by Kenyan host Daniel Arap Moi.

Mandela did not attend the last summit because of a pending arms deal with Rwanda's Tutsi-led government.

The leaders met 5 November in Nairobi and called for a multinational force to intervene to help hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees.

They had been dispersed in eastern Zaire by fighting between Tutsi-led rebels and Zairean troops allied with members of Rwanda's former Hutu-led army.

The situation in eastern Zaire has changed drastically since the last meeting.

An estimated 640-thousand Hutu refugees have returned home from Zaire, and another 535-thousand were being forcefully encouraged to go home by Tanzania.

But concern still exists over how well the more than one (m) million returning Hutus will settle into the tiny country that is already among the most densely populated in Africa.

But even as Rwanda begins to heal its wounds, violence fed by a Hutu-Tutsi power struggle in neighbouring Burundi doesn't appear to be abating.

Regional powers imposed on Burundi's Tutsi-led military government crippling economic sanctions.

But they failed to achieve their stated goal of talks between the military --who seized power in bloodless July 25 coup - and rebels.

Burundi's military leader Major Pierre Buyoya restored parliament and promised to remove ban on political parties but has refused to engaged in direct talks with Hutu rebels.

It was not clear Monday whether anyone from Burundi had been invited to the summit.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is sympathetic to the Tutsi cause, partly because it was exiled Rwandan Tutsis who helped Museveni's guerrilla army topple a military junta in 1986.

Zaire, and to a lesser extent, Kenya, have both been sympathetic to the Hutus and consider Uganda and Rwanda to be behind the insurgency in eastern Zaire.

The instability in Zaire was another issue African leaders were to discuss, but as it seemed, without the country's leaders.

Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko has been recovering from prostate cancer treatment in France.

And although he was invited, it was uncertain whether Zairean Prime Minister Leon Kengo wa Dondo would attend.

He refused to attend the 5 November gathering while rebels occupied
Zairean territory.

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