OWN CORRESPONDENT, Bujumbura | Thursday
JUNIOR officers who occupied the state radio station in Burundi and claimed to have overthrown the government surrendered on Thursday, the defence minister announced.
A statement from Defence Minister Cyrile Ndayirkiye was read on state radio on Thursday morning and regular programming resumed, indicating that the soldiers who took over the radio station Wednesday no longer controlled it.
Ndayirkiye said the soldiers – calling themselves the Patriotic Youth Front – gave themselves up to loyalist troops who had surrounded the radio station on Wednesday night.
The Front, a hitherto unknown group, declared on national radio shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday that it had toppled the government of President Pierre Buyoya.
The lieutenant who read the statement identified himself as Pasteur Ndakarutimana. He said the country’s borders closed and a curfew imposed from 8 p.m.
Officials from Buyoya’s office denied on Wednesday that the coup had succeeded. Buyoya was in Gabon at the time for face-to-face talks with Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, who leads ethnic Hutu rebel fighters.
Civil war has raged in Burundi since 1993 when soldiers from the minority Tutsi ethnic group assassinated the country’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu. An estimated 200_000 people have died in the fighting, mainly civilians.
Buyoya came to power in a coup in 1996 and his government is dominated by Tutsis, who also control the army. A peace deal was signed last August in Arusha, Tanzania, under the mediation of Nelson Mandela.
It includes terms for establishing a transitional government featuring representation from 18 political groups and the army.
Subsequent negotiations have failed to put the power-sharing agreement into place. One of the key stumbling blocks has been the issue of who will become president during the transition.
It was not immediately clear why the soldiers who led the coup attempt wanted to overthrow Buyoya. They said in their brief statement on state radio that they supported the Arusha peace talks but that Hutu politicians were responsible for genocide.
Hutu armed groups opposed to the government have not been part of the Arusha talks and have not agreed to a cease-fire. However, Buyoya has in recent months held direct talks with the rebels. – AFP
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