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ARUSHA, Tanzania, July 12 (AFP) - The Rwandan government and rebels agreed Sunday to observe a truce and to resume peace talks next week in a bid to end 21 months of civil war, delegates at a meeting between the two sides said.
After tough overnight bargaining, the government and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) were expected to sign a formal truce accord before closing three days of talks in this northern Tanzanian town later Sunday, the delegates told AFP.
Details of the truce, to take effect in seven days, were still to be finalised, they said.
The two sides still had to agree on its duration and on a venue for peace talks to resume in about 10 days in an effort to end the guerrilla conflict which has uprooted thousands of people from their homes and is wrecking the tiny central African country's economy, the delegates said.
The war in Rwanda, which erupted in October 1990 when the RPF invaded from neighbouring Uganda, harks back to some of Africa's worst tribal massacres.
The RPF is drawn mainly from the minority Tutsi tribe which ruled Rwanda until an uprising by the majority Hutus against their feudal overlords in the 1950s and 1960s culminated in the massacre of at least 100,000 Tutsis.
Thousands more fled to Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire. When Rwanda won independence from Belgium in 1962, the Hutus were firmly in control.
The RPF, many of whose fighters are the sons and daughters of Tutsi exiles born in refugee camps, initially vowed to overthrow the Hutu-dominated government of President Juvenal Habyarimana, but are now seeking representation in a coalition recently formed as part of a transition to multi-party democracy.
During the often stormy Tanzanian-mediated talks, which took place amid an upsurge of violence in Rwanda, the eight-member delegations from each side traded vitriolic accusations.
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