UN Council urges African force to stay in Burundi
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS, March 22 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council urged African nations on Monday to keep their troops in Burundi while it contemplates sending U.N. peacekeepers to help end a decade of civil war in the Central African country.
In a press statement, the council "took note" of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposal on Friday that it approve 5,600 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the African force.
About 2,500 soldiers from South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia are in Burundi but some are running out of money and want to withdraw or become part of a U.N. force when their mandate expires on April 2.
"Without prejudice to the action that the council might wish to take on (Annan's) recommendations, they invited the African Union to consider extending the mandate," said the council's president, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere.
Sabliere, France's U.N. ambassador, said members encouraged voluntary contributions and logistical support to the African Union. More than 30,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops around the world are currently in Africa -- in Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
An additional 6,000 are approved for the Ivory Coast. The Bush administration, which has to pay 27 percent of the cost, is evaluating whether the cost of the new troops would go beyond the monies it had estimated for 2004.
Burundi, a tea and coffee producer, has been racked by a decade of civil war, with an estimated 300,000 people killed. Rebels from the ethnic Hutu majority have fought the traditional dominance of the minority Tutsis.
Sabliere, on behalf of council, also told the National Liberation Forces, the only rebel group to have rejected a peace deal, to agree to stop fighting.
Burundi is supposed to hold elections by Oct. 31, but its leaders have said this is not possible while fighting prevails.
03/22/04 21:54 ET
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
