Burundi’s main rebel group said on Tuesday that former president Nelson Mandela, the new mediator in the country’s long-running civil war, has already brought peace closer. Mandela launched a bid to end the war on Sunday with an appeal for the army to include all ethnic groups in the country, and for armed rebel groups to be included in the peace process. Around 200000 people have been killed in six years of fighting between Burundi’s ethnic Hutu rebels and the army, dominated by the country’s Tutsi minority.