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We didn't mean to do it / Burundi's unhappy coup
KIGALI, RWANDA
COUPS and massacres in Burundi have slipped by without the outside world turning its head. The army, run by the minority Tutsi tribe, has divided its time between fighting itself and killing members of the Hutu majority. This time, however, was different. The bloody coup on October 21st, which murdered Burundi's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, after only 100 days in office, inspired widespread condemnation. Only days after carrying it out, the soldiers found their coup falling apart. On October 27th the airport was reopened and the capital, Bujumbura, was calm enough to allow James Jonah, the UN's top African man, to fly in from nearby Djibouti to find out what was going on. The surviving members of the government announced from their sanctuary in the French embassy that the band of soldiers who had carried out the coup had been disbanded. Sylvie Kinigi, the prime minister, began reasserting control.When the paratroopers stormed President Ndadaye's residence, seized control of Bujumbura, and claimed loyalty to Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, a former military ruler, they clearly expected to launch themselves as the latest military junta. They installed a Hutu as head of their short-lived National Salvation Council to show that theirs was not an ethnically-motivated revolt, but one to protect national security. In fact, the only security they were trying to protect was their own. Ndadaye, a Hutu who had already been threatened with a coup in July, had been planning to dilute Tutsi control of the security forces by bringing in more Hutus. But he meant to move cautiously, beginning with the gendarmerie.Most officers would have retained their command. Toppling the government proved much easier than convincing the country it was right. The putschists met with opposition from the Catholic church, political parties, trade unions, and - ultimately the most crucial - elements in the armed forces. Just days after the coup, senior officers distanced themselves from the coup plotters. (Tutsi officers who dumped Colonel Bagaza for his cousin Major Pierre Buyoya in 1987 had little to gain from the colonel's return). Top officers appealed to Ms Kinigi to come out of hiding and take control. Government members have been cautious about leaving their sanctuary - several ministers were killed in the coup - but they have said there would be no amnesty for the plotters. Some soldiers have already been arrested; many others have fled to Zaire. With officers scrambling to deny their involvement, Burundians are anxious to show their loyalty to the dead president. Many of Ndadaye's most vocal critics now mourn his death in the green and white of the Burundi Democracy Front. Earlier, they had found plenty to criticise. Ndadaye pardoned petty thieves, increasing crime in Bujumbura. He promised land to refugees returning to a densely populated country, sparking a property-rights battle. But now he is set for martyrdom. Rwanda, Tanzania and both governments in Zaire have condemned a coup that has sent a massive 500,000 people fleeing over their borders. People fleeing from Kiremba, a village in northern Burundi, say that Tutsi soldiers celebrated the coup by executing their communal leader and attacking Hutu students and teachers at the local school. The scale of the current inter-ethnic violence is not known - there are reports of several thousand dead - but the hideous massacres in 1965, 1972, and 1988, when tens of thousands of people were killed, make the vulnerable fear the worst. In reviving this culture of fear, the coup has saddled neighbouring countries with another exodus. In a border region already hurt by late rains, Burundi refugees join Rwandans displaced by three years of civil war. UN troops will soon be arriving to help implement a peace accord ending the war between Rwanda's Hutu government and Tutsi rebels based in Uganda. But parts of the plan may now be delayed: soldiers were to be demobilised in areas in southern Rwanda now occupied by refugees. @AGNews 2003 |