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BUJUMBURA, Nov 10 (AFP) - The Organisation of African Unity is to recruit a multinational military protection force for the Burundi government, special OAU envoy Louis Fall said here Wednesday.
"Our mission has been crowned with success, there will be an international presence," Fall said at the end of a week's consultations with ministers, the army and diplomats following last month's failed coup by a section of the military.
He made the statement before returning to OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa to report to secretary-general Salim Ahmed Salim.
Regional leaders meeting in the Rwandan capital Kigali on October 29 in the wake of the coup urged the deployment of an African-led peacekeeping force in Burundi.
Fall gave no details of the formation of the force. Fall, a diplomat from Senegal, earlier told local radio that Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, Morocco and Cameroon had offered troops, as well as some of Burundi's immediate neighbours.
Foreign Minister Sylvestre Nibantunganya said Burundi was grateful to its neighbours but did not want their soldiers in the multinational force for tribal and historical reasons. Rwanda has already declined to send soldiers.
He expected the force would number several hundred men, who would protect the country's democratic institutions and their representatives, including ministers, and strategic installations targeted by the coupmakers.
President Melchior Ndadaye was murdered in the October 21 uprising, which unleashed inter-tribal killings and sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to neighbouring Rwanda, Tanzania and Zaire.
at/jaw/ap
