African Union backs away from imposing peacekeepers on Burundi

By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The African Union will send a team to Burundi to try to convince the government to accept a peacekeeping force that it had rejected, backing away from an earlier plan to send them with or without consent, a top AU official said. The AU's Peace and Security Council announced plans to deploy a 5,000-strong force in December, saying it would, if necessary, invoke an article of the AU's charter that allowed it to intervene whether or not the government agreed.