July 2001 Africa News Headlines

Tuesday, July 24, 2001 - Web posted at 12:17:33 GMT

Burundi soldiers mutiny, attempt coup

BUJUMBURA - Gunfire and grenade blasts reverberated through Burundi's capital overnight yesterday, when a group of Tutsi soldiers mutinied and attempted to stage a coup to stop the president from signing a power-sharing deal with majority Hutus, the defence minister said.

General Cyrille Ndayirukiye, minister of defence, confirmed that the mutineers had taken the army chief of staff, Gen.Libere Hicuburundi, hostage and had fled north from the capital, Bujumbura.

Loyal troops were in pursuit, he added.

He said two of the mutineers were killed in the early morning fighting and that the Bujumbura area commander, Col.Fabien Ndayishimye, and his bodyguard were wounded.

Ndayirukiye said 72 soldiers started the mutiny, but a regional security official said about 600 troops from two battalions had since joined them.

While the situation in the capital, Bujumbura, was calm, some troops stationed in the countryside were refusing to take orders from the defence ministry, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The mutiny came just hours before President Pierre Buyoya was due to finalise a power-sharing deal with opposition political parties in Arusha, Tanzania.

The deal is known as the Arusha peace accords.

MUTINERS OPPOSEDTO PEACE DEALS

"These mutineers are against the Arusha peace accords and do not know the necessity of the accords," Ndayirukiye said.

"We have arrested one of the mutineer chiefs, Lt.Kamenyero and the Lt.Ndayishimiye is still on the run."

Ndayirukiye said top military commanders had been alerted to the coup a few hours in advance and had beefed up security at the airport, radio stations and other key installations.

But the mutineers did cut conventional telephone lines and only mobile telephones worked in the capital.

He called on all senior military officers to keep their troops under tight control and for government authorities to keep civilians calm.

Ndayirukiye also called on the mutineers to surrender.

Joseph Nyezimana, leader of the Tutsi hardline RADDES party, said he had information that the mutineers had occupied some military camps.

"They are still fighting and they have taken some officers as hostages," Nyezimana said while attending the summit in Arusha.

"The coup (attempt) was carried out to show that there is no military support for Buyoya ...it means that Buyoya should (step down)."

"The RADDES party opposes Buyoya, but Nyezimana said it does not support the coup attempt. A spokesman for Buyoya, travelling with him in Arusha, said the summit would continue as planned."

"We do not know the details of what is happening, what we know is there was a coup attempt and it is being controlled, there is no more fighting," Apollinaire Gahungu, Buyoya's spokesman said.

"Apparently it is not very serious."

Soldiers seized any civilian trucks or vans they could find to go into the countryside to contain the mutiny.

Troops loyal to Buyoya also took control of independent radio stations, which reported extensively on the last coup attempt in April, forcing them to play only music.

CIVIL WAR SINCE 1993Burundi has been at civil war since Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the nation's first democratically elected president, a Hutu, in October 1993.

Minority Tutsis have controlled the government and army for all but four months since independence in 1962.

Hutu rebels have fought to overthrow the government, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 000 people, most of them civilians.

Many Tutsis fear a Hutu government would carry out a genocide similar to what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

More than 500 000 Tutsis were killed by an extremist Hutu government.

Buyoya was in Arusha to finalise a new transitional government designed to help end the civil war.

Under the plan mediated by former South African President Nelson Mandela, Buyoya would lead a coalition government for the first 18 months, after which he would turn over power to a Hutu politician for another 18 months, followed by elections.

While all of the Hutu political parties have signed on to the plan, the two Hutu rebel groups have rejected it and continue to fight.

Hardline Tutsis in the army are also known to oppose the peace process.

The April coup attempt coincided with Buyoya's visit to Gabon, where he met with Hutu rebel leaders.

The only reaction in the streets yesterday coup attempt came from one group of youths in the Nyakabiga neighbourhood of the capital, who stopped cars and asked civilians to join the movement to overthrow Buyoya.

But by midmorning most people began going to work and the city returned to normal. - Nampa-Sapa-AP

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