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'I've evidence against plotters'
15/09/2006 13:44 - (SA)
Bujumbura - Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza said on Friday that he had irrefutable evidence against alleged coup plotters attempting to overthrow his government.
In his first public comments since the arrest of nine people last month, including the former president Domitien Ndayizeye, he said the plotters would stand trial "very soon".
He said: "The justice system has irrefutable proof and that is what has allowed continued detention."
Critics had said the year-old government fabricated allegations of a coup plot in order to arrest opposition members in the tiny central African state.
People arrested 'without proof'
No charges had yet been brought against the alleged coup plotters and their arrests had also prompted a leading member of the government to resign.
Second vice-president Alice Nzomukunda as she stood down, said: "People were arrested and jailed before the government was able to present any proof."
President Pierre Nkurunziza was elected in 2005 as part of a Hutu-dominated government to replace a power-sharing administration that oversaw the postwar transition.
His administration had been wracked by accusations of corruption and human-rights abuses, which it had denied.
The country was still reeling from a dozen years of conflict between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis, who had dominated the government, economy and military since independence from Belgium in 1962.
War claims 250 000 people
The conflict killed more than 250 000 people, most of them civilians who died from disease and hunger. The war started in October 1993, after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a Hutu.
However last week, the government and the rebel National Liberation Force - known by its French acronym, FNL - signed the agreement in Tanzania, more than a year after the country's other rebel groups agreed to lay down arms.
The deal was hailed as a vital development toward long-term peace in Burundi, an impoverished nation of seven million people.
Nkurunziza, a Hutu, said the rebels, whom he estimated to have about 2 000 fighters, had no other option but to sign a peace deal.
He said: "They have health problems, no food and no clothes. So they decided to join the peace process."
- AP
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