PRESIDENT Pierre Buyoya has called off a trip to Gabon for talks seeking an end to Burundi’s civil war because a rebel leader had declined to attend. Buyoya was to have met the head of the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, in Libreville but had just been informed that “the FDD officials are not going to this meeting on the pretext that they were advised of it too late.” All political parties to the conflict in Burundi, which has claimed at least 200_000 lives since 1993, signed a peace agreement last year mediated by South African former president Nelson Mandela. – AFP