African leaders gathered on Wednesday to ratify controversial power-sharing arrangements between minority Tutsis and the Hutu majority in Burundi as well as discuss a massacre of at least 160 refugees at a United Nations camp, officials said.
Burundi and Rwanda on Tuesday threatened to send troops into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to hunt down militiamen who attacked the Burundian refugee camp on Friday from bases in the eastern DRC. The Burundian army chief accused Congolese soldiers of also participating in the massacre.
The presidents of Burundi, the DRC, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia, together with Uganda’s vice-president and Rwanda’s foreign minister, will discuss the slaughter, which has raised tensions in the volatile region, said Amos Msanjila, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
They will also discuss plans for elections in Burundi under a power-sharing formula that has been rejected by Tutsi-led political parties but accepted by Hutu political leaders, officials said.
Deal to share power
Under a deal proposed by South African mediators, Hutus and Tutsis will share power equally in the Senate. But Hutus will hold 60% and Tutsis 40% of the seats in the legislature’s lower house and Cabinet posts.
The first president, under the arrangement, will be elected by Parliament and subsequent presidents directly by the people. The president also will appoint one vice-president from each major ethnic group.
One main stumbling block centres on how to count Tutsis that are members of predominantly Hutu parties. Hutu parties argue the 40% Tutsi representation should include those in the Hutu-dominated parties. But the main Tutsi-led party wants the 40% reserved exclusively for the 10 Tutsi parties.
The African leaders will try to narrow differences even as ethnic tensions rise after the massacre of Congolese Tutsis who had sought refuge in Burundi.
Burundi’s rebel National Liberation Forces said its fighters staged the attack, claiming Burundian soldiers and Congolese Tutsi militiamen were hiding among the refugees.
Burundian officials and witnesses said the Burundian rebels were accompanied by Hutu extremists based in the DRC.
“The negative forces that attacked were made of [Burundi Hutu rebels] that acted as guides, former Rwandan soldiers, together with part of the Congolese army,” Brigadier General Germain Niyoyankana, Burundi’s army chief, said on Tuesday. He said the Congolese faction was made up of tribal fighters known as Mayi Mayi.
DRC will be ‘obliged to react’
Congolese government spokesperson Henri Mova Sakanyi said his country wants to resolve the situation diplomatically, but that it will be “obliged to react” if Burundian or Rwandan troops cross the border.
Rwanda and Burundi have twice invaded the DRC in attempts to root out Hutu extremists. The second invasion, in 1998, sparked a five-year war in the DRC that drew in six African countries before it ended in 2003. An estimated 3,5-million people died during that conflict, most from war-induced disease and starvation.
The fighting was part of more than a decade of violence between the region’s Hutus and Tutsis that has wracked this corner of Central Africa. The conflict also spawned the 1994 Rwandan genocide and a continuing civil war in Burundi that started in 1993.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Muligande also warned that his country is prepared to act against Rwandan rebels and allied groups based inside the DRC if they are not disarmed.
Extremist groups have ganged up with the aim of eliminating ethnic Tutsi from the three countries, Muligande said in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
UN suspends talks
On Tuesday, the UN said it suspended peace talks it has been mediating between Burundi’s government and the National Liberation Forces — the last rebel group still fighting in the country’s 11-year-old civil war.
Officials from UN missions in Burundi and the DRC are investigating the massacre, and UN troops are being sent to increase security around four camps for Congolese refugees. — Sapa-AP
UN suspends talks with Burundi rebels