Burundi president, rebel chief sign truce

DAR ES SALAAM - Burundi's president has signed a truce with the only Hutu rebels still fighting the east African country's decade-long civil war, witnesses said.

President Domitien Ndayizeye and Agathon Rwasa, leader of the extremist Hutu Forces for National Liberation (FNL) rebels, signed the cessation of hostilities agreement after their first ever face-to-face talks in the Tanzanian commercial capital of Dar es Salaam.

"The two parties declared an immediate cessation of hostilities and decided to set up technical teams in a timeframe not more than one month. The tech team will decide the mechanism of a permanent ceasefire," Burundian foreign minister Therence Sinunguruza said in a statement read to reporters.

"The two also committed to start negotiations very soon (on a permanent end to hostilities and then on bringing the FNL into the peace process)," he said. "The two parties committed not to disrupt the ongoing electoral process."

A recent resumption of contacts between the government and the FNL has produced the best hope in years among diplomats that Burundi can finally remove one of its last major impediments to peace.

The government broke off all contact with the FNL after the rebels said they were responsible for the massacre of more than 160 Congolese Tutsi refugees at Gatumba refugee camp northwest of the capital in August last year.

Burundi, a tiny coffee-producing nation of 7 million, is slowly emerging from more than a decade of civil war that pitted the Hutu majority against the politically dominant Tutsi minority and killed some 300,000 people.

- REUTERS