Several African heads of state are due to meet in Tanzania today for an umpteenth summit on Burundi which is expected to focus on the thorny issue of election dates and the country's last active rebel group.

All the key players in efforts to end more than a decade of civil war in the central African country have confirmed they will be in Dar es Salaam for the meeting: presidents Domitien Ndayizeye of Burundi, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania.

Also expected are presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Levi Mwanawasa of Zambia and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

More than 300 000 people have been killed since a variety of Hutu groups in Burundi took up arms against the dominant Tutsi minority in 1993, and the tiny central African country's economy and infrastructure has been left in ruins.

"The summit will be decisive, that's for sure," Burundian Foreign Minister Therence Sinunguruza said.

"And we are certain it will adopt the government's proposal to delay elections," he added.

Ndayizeye wants to push elections, and thereby the end of a transition period, a year beyond the current deadline of late October, but the largest former rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), now a partner in government, is having none of it.

"Billeting and disarming former rebels has not begun... A census must be prepared. The constitution, common and electoral law have to be discussed and adopted," Ndayizeye explained recently, justifying the argument for a delay.

"There can be no agreement on delaying the elections. Therefore the summit meeting will settle the issue," said FDD Secretary General Hussein Radjabu.

"The FDD have the Hutus, who make up 85 percent of the population, behind them," noted a diplomat posted to Bujumbura.

"They feel they can win the elections, they want them to be held very soon," he added.

Most Tutsi parties, however, are afraid of being excluded from political life and don't want to go to the polls without constitutional guarantees.

"Rushing into this will plunge the country into chaos," predicted the leader of one small Tutsi party, Joseph Nzeyimana.

Hutu politicians, for their part, are determined polls should be conducted on a one-man-one-vote system and are totally averse to any weighting in favour of the small Tutsi minority.

"That would be unacceptable," declared Jean de Dieu Mutabai of Frodebu, the largest Hutu party.

"Elections cannot be organised (by October). The transition period must be extended or Burundi will have badly organised elections that could spell trouble," warned the diplomat.

"But a year is a long time for the FDD, and they must be given something in exchange," he advised.

Also on the summit's agenda is what to do about the National Liberation Forces (FNL), the only armed Hutu group still at war in Burundi.

The summit "will try to bring the FNL into the peace process," Lakela Kaunda, spokesman for mediator-in-chief and South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, said in May.

"The peace process in Burundi is a chimera. It does not exist," FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana retorted, when contacted by AFP.

"The three-month ultimatum given to the FNL (by an earlier summit) has expired. The region must take the necessary measures," said Ndayizeye, whose government is in favour of sanctions against the rebels.

But taking such punitive measures against the diehard rebel group would have little effect, according to Habimana.

"We have no foreign bank accounts, we don't travel by plane. What sanctions are they going to impose on us?" he wondered.

"Regional states must be embarrassed. They have threatened sanctions against a movement they have no hold over. What kind of sanctions will they use? It will be interesting to see that," mused the diplomat. - Sapa-AFP