Burundi: Focus on peace

2004-08-18 13:39

Dar Es Salaam - 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 neighbouring Congo to hunt down militiamen who attacked the Burundian refugee camp on Friday from bases in eastern Congo. The Burundian army chief accused Congolese soldiers of also participating in the massacre.

The presidents of Burundi, Congo, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia, 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.

Plans for elections

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.

Under a deal proposed by South African mediators, Hutus and Tutsis would share power equally in the senate. But Hutus would hold 60% and Tutsis 40% of the seats in the legislature's lower house and cabinet posts.

The first president, under the arrangement, would be elected by parliament and subsequent presidents directly by the people. The president also would appoint one vice-president from each major ethnic group.

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 Congo.

Congolese government spokesperson Henri Mova Sakanyi said his country wanted to resolve the situation diplomatically, but that it would be "obliged to react" if Burundian or Rwandan troops crossed the border.

Rwanda and Burundi have twice invaded Congo in attempts to root out Hutu extremists. The second invasion, in 1998, sparked a five-year war in Congo 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. - AP

- AP