Burundi President in South Africa

Saturday May 5 10:53 AM 

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela held talks Saturday with Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya on ending the East African nation's civil war.

Mandela, the chief mediator in the conflict, said the talks were fruitful but that they were at a sensitive stage and he would not elaborate, the South African Press Association reported.

``We reached a ... good base to go forward on,'' Buyoya said through an interpreter. He was to hold private talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki later Saturday.

The war, which has pitted Burundi's Tutsi-led army against Hutu rebels, has left an estimated 200,000 people dead since 1993. In recent weeks, there has been a lull in the violence.

Currently under discussion are proposals for the setting up of a transitional government in Burundi, a balanced army and legislature.

Buyoya, a Tutsi, took power in a coup in July 1996, promising to end the civil war. He signed a power-sharing deal in August with Hutu opposition leaders, but Hutu rebels have stayed away from subsequent talks mediated by Mandela.

Mandela said that although negotiations with the rebels were continuing, he did not want to see a delay in the establishment of the transitional government.

Hutus make up the majority of Burundi's population, but Tutsis have controlled the army and economy since independence from Belgium in 1962. Tutsis have controlled the government for all but four months of the country's history.

The civil war began in October 1993, when Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu.

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