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The Burundi government and the country's main rebel group agreed yesterday to give a failed seven-month-old ceasefire another chance following a regional peace summit in Tanzania, but shelved other core issues until a later round of talks.

But Burundi's second rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), stayed away from the talks, after launching this month the fiercest assault on the capital since the start of the decade-long civil war, prompting calls for the mandate of African peacekeepers in the central African country to be extended.

Despite regularly trading accusations of violating the ceasefire deal, the government and the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) agreed to try to implement the truce once again following the talks in the Tanzanian economic capital.

"The FDD and Burundi transitional government have agreed to implement the ceasefire act signed in Arusha (Tanzania) in December 2002," the South African mediators led by Deputy President Jacob Zuma said in a statement.

"A full regional summit will be convened within three weeks, will receive reports of this consultative meeting and will finalise all outstanding matters," said the statement.

The talks, which included Burundi President Domitien Ndayizeye and FDD leader Pierre Nkurunziza, were brokered by the Ugandan and Tanzanian presidents Yoweri Museveni and Benjamin Mkapa and mediated by South Africa's Zuma.

But they failed to tackle the question of extending the mandate of the African peacekeeping force currently deployed in Burundi, as sought by regional leaders including Museveni, who has long presided over the Burundi peace process.

"This meeting did not touch on the issue of sending in regional forces," the Tanzanian leader Mkapa told reporters following the discussions.

Mkapa also urged the FNL to engage in negotiations, saying: "I call on the FNL to cease fighting and to join in the peace process - this is the last time my government will do so".

On Tuesday, Museveni had called for the peacekeeping force to be increased in size and to be given the power to retaliate militarily against the FNL.

The rebel group's latest five-day assault on the capital Bujumbura, launched on July 7, left some 300 combattants and dozens of civilians dead, with reports of civilian women and children being massacred.

Currently, the troops from South Africa and Mozambique are mandated only to help with the demobilisation of fighters from groups that have signed truces, a process that has yet to get off the ground.

Before flying to the summit on Saturday, president Ndayizeye repeated his view that sending more peacekeepers would not be helpful in the near-term, adding that the present force was large enough and that the Burundian army was itself able to deal with rebel attacks.

The Hutu-led FNL has refused to take part in the so-called Regional Consultations on Burundi and called Saturday for former South African president Nelson Mandela to mediate, accusing his compatriot Zuma of bias.

The group insists on talking only to the minority Tutsi command of the army and top Tutsi politicians.

Concerning the FDD ceasefire, experts foresee two stumbling Blocks - the first being the Hutu rebel movement's wish to see its own men account for three-quarters of any future national army.

Since independence from Belgium in 1962, Burundi's military has been dominated by the minority Tutsis, which make up 15% of the population.

The second hurdle, according to sources close to the talks, is an FDD demand to hold half the posts in a future transition government - a demand rejected by both the Tutsi leadership and moderate Hutu leaders such as Ndayizeye.

Meanwhile three local employees of Western non-governmental organisations (NGOs), a woman and two men, who were kidnapped by FDD rebels earlier this month in southeastern Burundi were released Friday, according to the governor of Makamba province.

Burundi's civil war has pitted rebels from the Hutu majority against their Tutsi rivals, who controlled the military and held sway over the government until the interim power-sharing regime was installed in November 2001.

More than 300 000 people, mostly civilians, have so far died in the war. - Sapa-AFP.

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