/ 21 August 2007

Opposition politicians’ homes attacked in Burundi

Grenade attacks on the homes of five prominent Burundian opposition politicians wounded two bystanders but did not injure their intended target, a police official said.

Police spokesperson Pierre Chanel Mtarabaganyi said attackers dressed in civilian clothes carried out a ”meticulously prepared” attack, in which five explosions occurred within 10 minutes, on Monday.

The vice-chairperson of the opposition Front for Democracy in Burundi was among the intended victims, he said.

For the past two years, the tiny African nation in the central Great Lakes region has been relatively peaceful, after a 12-year civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people died. The conflict erupted in 1993 after paratroopers from the Tutsi ethnic minority assassinated the country’s first democratically elected president, from the Hutu majority.

Burundi’s government is currently in the grip of a power struggle after the ruling party jailed its chairperson for trying to destabilise the country.

The sacking split the party into two factions, one of which has allied itself to opposition parties blocking legislation. The opposition says the system is weighted against them and the government is not doing enough to tackle corruption. — Sapa-AP