The United Nations (UN) has suspended mediation talks with a rebel group in the central African state of Burundi after it claimed responsibility for the massacre of some 160 civilians in a refugee camp, the UN said yesterday.

"Negotiations with the FLN (National Liberation Forces) were suspended for an indeterminate period from the moment they presented themselves as responsible for the attack," Isabelle Abric, spokesperson of the UN force in Burundi, told AFP.

The FLN, the rebel force of Burundi's Hutu ethnic group, claimed responsibility for last Friday's slaughter in a camp at Gatumba in Burundi containing mainly Congolese Tutsis, a rival ethnic group.

The UN has been acting as mediator in efforts to end a decade of civil war in Burundi.

Burundi plunged into civil war in 1993, when rebel groups drawn from the Hutu majority rose up against the government and army, then dominated by the Tutsis, who make up around 15% of the population.

The FLN has insisted that it alone was responsible for murdering the refugees at the United Nations transit camp near Burundi's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

But several witnesses, the authorities in Burundi and Rwanda, and the UN mission in Burundi, have reported that attackers from the DRC and extremist Rwandan Hutus based there were also involved.

"It's clear that the FLN doesn't want to take part in the peace process," said Abric.

The UN mission to Burundi had up to now acted as mediator between the FLN and the Burundi government, she explained.

The mission chief, Caroline McAskie, last month had a meeting in Nairobi with FLN leaders and spoke of very positive progress.

The FLN said it had negotiated with her on withdrawal of government forces from the western Burundian province of Rural Bujumbura where rebels are active.

But McAskie has stressed she did not negotiate but simply passed on to the Burundi government the proposals made to her by the FLN.

Burundi is trying to put an end to 11 years of civil war that has claimed 300 000 lives. Only the FLN out of seven rebel groups continues hostilities. – Sapa-AFP.