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DAR ES SALAAM, Jan 29 (AFP) - Peace talks between the Rwandan government and rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) opened in Arusha, northern Tanzania, Friday with the rebels demanding an end to the inter-communal fighting that has killed some 80 people in the past week.
The RPF expressed concern at the violence at a plenary session of the latest round of the negotiations, saying that if the massacre did not stop, the talks would be "disrupted", leading to a bloodbath in the central African country, sources close to the talks said.
Supporters of Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana launched an offensive seen as aiming to torpedo the peace process ealier this week, massacring at least 80 of their political opponents and members of the Tutsi minority.
The latest round of the negotiations was originally scheduled to start Tuesday but the government delegation was delayed by a clash between Habyarimana and Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyareye over who was to head the team to Arusha.
Foreign Minister Boniface Ngulinzira, who has been leading the government side, was replaced on the president's orders by Defence Minister James Gasana, but the prime mister had rejected the change, saying he was not consulted.
The government delegation led by Gasana arrived in Arusha late Thursday.
Both sides reached a power-sharing agreement earlier this month.
The accord detailed the sharing of the 22 cabinet posts between Habyarimana's ruling National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRNDD), the RPF and four other parties in the current coalition, as well as the sharing of 70 seats in the legislature during the transition to democratic rule.
The mainly Tutsi RPF invaded their country in October 1990 in an attempt to overthrow Habyarimana's 19-year-old regime.
The Tutsi were traditional rulers in Rwanda before they were driven out in an uprising in the early 1960s, forcing thousands of them into exile in Uganda and other neighbouring countries.
hb/jnm/bb AFP AFP SEQN-0300
