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DATE=4/25/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=BURUNDI FIGHTING (L)
NUMBER=2-261683
BYLINE=SCOTT STEARNS
DATELINE=NAIROBI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  Burundi's army has launched a new offensive 
against rebels outside the capital just days before 
former South African President Nelson Mandela is 
scheduled to arrive on a peace mission.  As VOA's 
Scott Stearns reports, the country's civil war shows 
no sign of letting up.
TEXT:  Burundi's army fought rebels south of the 
capital, Bujumbura, Tuesday in its latest campaign to 
dislodge militiamen from their bases in the hills 
above the lakefront city.
Military officials say they are moving against rebel 
positions near the village of Tenga, 15 kilometers 
north of the capital. Tenga is on the edge of the 
broad Imbo Plain across which rebels regularly move in 
and out of neighboring Congo and Rwanda. There is also 
fighting reported in southern provinces near the 
Tanzanian border.
Burundi's military government is led by members of the 
ethnic minority Tutsi.  Ethnic Hutu rebels have been 
fighting that army since paratroopers killed the 
country's first democratically elected president in 
1993. The murder of President Melchior Ndadaye, a 
Hutu, sparked Burundi's latest wave of ethnic 
violence, which has killed more than 200 thousand 
people.
Mr. Mandela is the new international mediator on 
Burundi.  He has convinced leaders of the main rebel 
group to join peace talks in Tanzania next month. So 
far, those talks have made little progress.  There is 
still wide division over the make-up of a new 
electoral system as well as over how many seats each 
ethnic group will get in a new parliament.
Tutsi account for only about 13 percent of the 
population. Hutu are the vast majority at 85 percent. 
The remaining two percent are members of the pygmy 
Twa.  Tutsi know they will lose political power in a 
winner-take-all system and want guarantees that 
majority rule will not threaten their security.
On Friday's visit to Bujumbura, Mr. Mandela is 
scheduled to meet with President Pierre Buyoya and 
senior military officials.  The former South African 
president is also expected to meet with local 
diplomats. (Signed)
NEB/SS/GE/KL 
25-Apr-2000 07:21 AM EDT (25-Apr-2000 1121 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.