SOUTH AFRICA: BURUNDI PEACE TALKS

Описание: (24 Mar 2000) English/Nat

Ahead of Monday's special session of Burundi peace talks, the country's second Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Force or F-N-L, has said it is committed to the peace process and will join the talks soon.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela, who is mediating in the Burundi crisis, met with the National Liberation Force's commanding officer Kabura Cossana in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The meeting with the F-N-L chief came a week after a breakthrough meeting with Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, the leader of the main Burundian Hutu rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy.

The largest Hutu rebel group promised Nelson Mandela last Monday that it would join the Burundi peace talks, which are being held in Arusha, Tanzania.

Now the smaller F-N-L, led by Kabura Cossana, says it's also ready to talk peace.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"What is important, what inspires me is the fact that we are making progress, the fact the for the first time in these negotiations Mr Kabura Cossana and Jean Bosco are going to take part is something extremely important which means that we're making progress."
SUPER CAPTION: Nelson Mandela, Burundi negotiator

Cossana said that his F-N-L is ready to join the talks, but he pointed out that the Tutsi-led Armed Forces are the real problem in the Burundian conflict.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"And the main obstacle to the problem is the army...the "mono-ethnic" Tutsi army must be dismantled. And forming the new one according to how the Arusha negotiations will agree."
SUPER CAPTION: Kabura Cossana, Commanding Officer F-N-L

Fighting between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated army has killed at least 200-thousand people - mostly Hutu civilians - since 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated Burundi's first democratically elected president, a Hutu.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"This issue can be solved by all Burundians. That's why I have agreed to participate in Arusha negotiations so as to give our....our grievances."
SUPER CAPTION: Kabura Cossana, Commanding Officer F-N-L

The issue of the participation of the two main Hutu rebel groups at the Burundi talks in Arusha will top the agenda of the special session of the talks chaired by Nelson Mandela next week.

Mandela says the rebels must be included as soon as possible.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We can never succeed in bringing about peace to Burundi as long as the rebel groups are not included in the negotiations because ... the political parties with whom I'm negotiating, we can reach a decision. But if the rebel groups are not included, are not bound by that decision, there is no guarantee that they will obey what we have decided."
SUPER CAPTION: Nelson Mandela, Burundi negotiator

Human rights groups say the ongoing conflict in Burundi is increasingly drawing in other central African countries.

They want the brief of the Arusha-based United Nations Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to be expanded to include serious crimes being committed in Burundi.

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