/ 14 September 1999

BURUNDI PEACE TALKS TO RESUME

BURUNDIAN delegations will next week resume talks aimed at restoring peace in the war-torn central African nation. The talks will continue Monday in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha. Hashim Mbita, a spokesman for the mediating Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, said the talks were postponed for a week to allow deeper consultations among the parties. Mbita has dismissed as unfounded claims that the talks were further delayed because of the ill-health of Tanzania’s founding president Julius Nyerere, who is the chief facilitator of the Burundi peace process. Recently there has been an escalation in the conflict between rebels from the Hutu majority and the minority Tutsi-backed Burundian army, which has claimed more than 200000 lives since 1993.