Burundi, last rebels agree to cut deal in two weeks

DAR ES SALAAM - Burundi's government and its last remaining rebel group agreed today to stop fighting and return in two weeks to sign a comprehensive ceasefire.

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza and Agathon Rwasa, leader of the Hutu forces for National Liberation (FNL), were joined by regional leaders and representatives of the international community at the signing of the agreement.

"An important agreement has been made to stop hostilities and reach a comprehensive agreement in two weeks. I believe it will not take us longer than two weeks," South African President Thabo Mbeki told both sides. "Let's stop these guns."

South Africa is the mediator in the talks, and Tanzania has worked hard for more than a year to bring Rwasa and his leadership to negotiations.

Originally, the two sides had been due to sign a final pact yesterday, but talks went late into the night as assembled dignitaries pressured both sides to reach a deal.

"We're asking the other delegation to be really determined to move toward this agreement. As a government we are ready to implement whatever agreement we sign," Nkurunziza said.

During the talks, the rebels twice shelled the capital Bujumbura, killing one and wounding at least 15 others. The Burundian army regularly hunts the FNL in their bush hideouts with attack helicopters.

One of the sticking points of the talks was reform of the police and military, Rwasa said. Under Burundi's peace plan, the FNL's soldiers should be integrated into those organisations but the rebels have refused.

"We have seen a dictatorship institutionalised in all forms. In these circumstances, the army, police have continued to intensify ethnicity," Rwasa said after signing. "We have to uproot ethnicity."

A pact with the FNL is seen as one of the final hurdles to stability in a nation recovering from more than a decade of civil war pitting the Hutu majority against the politically and economically dominant Tutsi minority.

At least 300,000 people were killed in a series of ethnic reprisals sparked by the 1993 assassination of the first elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, by Tutsi paratroopers.

Earlier talks failed to produce a deal, although Tanzania brokered a May 2005 ceasefire which was broken within days.

Burundi, a coffee-growing nation of 7 million on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, has been lauded as a model on the continent because of its progress and relative stability in following a UN-backed peace plan drawn up by regional leaders.

- REUTERS