South Africans had nothing to do with the alleged coup plot in Burundi, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
Speaking a day after the Burundian Supreme Court refused an application by the alleged plotters — including former president Domitien Ndayizeye and former vice-president Alphonse-Marie Kadege — to be released, Pahad denied any South African involvement in the plot.
”Our investigation shows that it was one two-minute report by the owner of one radio station that led to all the speculation, and all our investigations shows that it was not based on any facts,” Pahad said.
In Burundi there were claims that a South African, working at the South African embassy in Bujumbura, and another agent of the National Intelligence Agency had been involved in concocting a fake coup in the country.
Radio-station director and respected journalist Alexis Sinduhiji claimed the ruling CNDD-FDD had concocted the coup plot as an excuse to crack down on its political opponents.
He called on the South African government and President Thabo Mbeki to find out if his intelligence services had been infiltrated by the ruling party.
”It was just an anti-South-African story by one individual and it was picked up elsewhere,” Pahad said, adding that there was no truth to the claims.
However, he said Ndayizeye did request a meeting with Mbeki but was arrested before it could take place. ”Now we are trying to get more details about this plot,” Pahad said.
In the meantime, the signing of the comprehensive ceasefire between the Burundian government and the only remaining rebel group, the FNL, that had been due to take place on Tuesday has been postponed indefinitely.
South African Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula is the mediator in peace talks and has been in the region recently trying to persuade the parties to sign the agreement.
Burundi has suffered several coups and attempted coups since it won independence from Belgium in 1962 and is currently struggling to emerge from its latest 13-year, ethnically driven conflict that has claimed about 300 000 lives.
The war began in 1993 with the assassination of the country’s first democratically elected president, a member of the ethnic Hutu majority, by elements of the then Tutsi-dominated military. — Sapa