official suggested on Tuesday that a deadline should be set

for closing camps for refugees from Rwanda and Burundi once

diplomatic and judicial problems have been addressed in the

African countries.

Brian Atwood, administrator of the Agency for

International Development, said he was hopeful of progress in

resolving outstanding issues in the two strife-torn East

African states within the next six months.

Atwood, who visited the region last week with European

Union commissioner Emma Bonino, said agreement had to be found

to stop ethnic violence in Burundi between members of the

Tutsi-dominated military and majority Hutu rebels.

In Rwanda, where Tutsi-led forces took power in 1994 after

mass killings by Hutu soldiers, militia and mobs, authorities

had to demonstrate that the situation was stable and murder

cases were being handled fairly, he told reporters.

"When all of that is done, and I'm hoping that we can look

at the next six months and see some progress along those

lines...we ought to seriously consider setting a deadline for

closing the camps," Atwood said.

He said the international community also needed to come up

with a plan for both the return of refugees and resettlement

of refugees in the country of asylum.

U.S. officials say there are 1.68 million refugees from

Rwanda and 204,000 from Burundi living in camps in Zaire and

Tanzania at a cost of about $1 million a day.

Atwood said that if some of that money were used to give

the refugees plots of land and agricultural implements, "some

good percentage (of the people) would decide to resettle...and

another percentage will agree to go home".

He said neither the United States nor the European Union

had formally proposed the plan he was suggesting, but that he

and Bonino had decided during their visit that it was an idea

that ought to be considered.

The joint European-U.S. mission announced in Burundi last

week a suspension of all but essential humanitarian aid there

because of continuing insecurity and ethnic violence.

But the State Department announced on Tuesday that the

United States had contributed $30 million in additional aid to

the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in response

to the commissioner's recent appeal for assistance to refugees

in Rwanda and Burundi.

This donation, to be used to promote the repatriation of

Rwandan refugees, brings the U.S. total to over $750 million

since April 1994.

REUTER