Military

DATE=11/2/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=BURUNDI/PEACE TALKS (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-309322

BYLINE=CHALLISS McDONOUGH

DATELINE=JOHANNESBURG

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The government of Burundi and the country's largest rebel group have finalized the last details of their peace deal to end Burundi's decade-long civil war. The two sides signed an agreement after several days of talks in South Africa. V-O-A's Challiss McDonough has more from Johannesburg.

TEXT: South African President Thabo Mbeki says the two sides have agreed to dissolve Burundi's current transitional government, and reconvene a new one within three weeks. The transitional government will include Burundi's largest rebel group, the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or F-D-D.

The government and the F-D-D reached their landmark peace deal at talks in Pretoria last month. But several key issues were unresolved at those talks, and were not ironed out until the latest round of negotiations, which began Wednesday in the South African capital.

South Africa has been mediating in the conflict, and has deployed about three-thousand peacekeepers to Burundi.

Burundian President Domitien Ndayezeye and F-D-D leader Pierre Nkurunziza led their respective delegations at the Pretoria talks, and both men called the deal an important step toward peace.

The details they agreed on include distribution of army posts, turning the F-D-D into a political party, and granting temporary immunity from prosecution to combatants.

President Mbeki said the two sides failed to agree on the rebels' representation in the Senate, but decided to leave that issue unresolved for now, and go ahead with implementing the rest of the deal.

The peace deal and the transitional government still do not include another major rebel group, the Forces for National Liberation, which has so far refused to negotiate.

Fighting has continued in Burundi, casting a shadow over hopes that the Pretoria deal will finally bring an end to the war. (SIGNED)

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