By Wangui Kanina
ARUSHA, Tanzania (Reuters) - One of Burundi's two main rebel groups refused
Monday to sign a cease-fire to end a civil war, complaining of problems with
the text, but diplomats hoped the faction would approve it later.
After months of haggling, government and rebel leaders appeared ready to sign
a deal to end the 9-year-old conflict that has claimed 300,000 lives in the
central African country.
But the ceremony, overseen by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, was
adjourned after the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or FDD, noted
changes in the final document agreed to earlier in the day.
"I am told that there are problems with the text. We have to adjourn and
return in a little while," Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told diplomats
and journalists gathered in a hotel in Arusha, Tanzania.
Burundi President Pierre Buyoya and FDD leader Pierre Nkuruzinza immediately
went behind closed doors for talks, witnesses said.
"There are very many changes in the document," FDD spokesman Rajabu Hussein
told reporters, but he gave no further details.
Mediators said the FDD delegation had mistakenly received a earlier draft
copy of the cease-fire deal.
"One of the (FDD) delegation got an older copy. We have been doing so many
photocopies that a mistake was made," said Lakela Kaunda, a spokesman for
chief mediator, South African deputy President Jacob Zuma.
Burundi's civil war pits rebels from the ethnic Hutu majority against the
Tutsi-led army.
A Burundi government sharing power between Hutus and Tutsis was inaugurated
last year aiming to steer the country toward reconciliation and democracy.
But the government has not signed a cease-fire with the country's two main
rebel groups, the FDD and the Palipehutu-FNL.
The FNL was not invited to the summit because it refused to meet Buyoya for
earlier talks in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam. Zuma said the group
had set down too many conditions for participation.
The leaders of South Africa, Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania arrived in Arusha
Sunday for a last-ditch effort to secure a cease-fire between the government
and the FDD.
The warring parties held talks last week in Dar es Salaam, but hit a deadlock
on the presence of foreign troops in Burundi.
12/02/02 11:49 ET
