Burundi army says killed 50 rebels in clashes

BUJUMBURA-Burundi's army said on Thursday it had killed 50 fighters from the country's last active rebel group in renewed clashes outside the capital Bujumbura.The attack came barely a day after leaders of the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), an ethnic Hutu guerrilla group, said they would drop an amnesty demand and return to the tiny coffee-growing country to implement a long awaited peace deal."The Forces for National Liberation ambushed our troops on patrol.The army then entered into heavy battle with the insurgents...two soldiers were also killed," army spokesman Colonel Adolphe Manirakiza(picture left) said.He said four soldiers had been wounded, 31 rebels captured and several weapons seized.The rebels blamed the military for the fighting."It is really regrettable. At the time we were ready to come back to Burundi to continue talks with the government, the army decided to intensify attacks against our positions," spokesman Pasteur Habimana told Reuters by phone from Dar es Salaam."This proves that the government and its army have chosen the war option instead of peace talks."Burundi, which has a long history of coups and ethnic war, is emerging from more than a decade of conflict between the Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority that killed 300,000 people.

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