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Radjabu leaves SA embassy
24/01/2007 14:15 - (SA)
Bujumbura - Burundi's ruling party chief, who took refuge in a South African embassy after his bodyguards were switched without his knowledge, has left the mission and gone home, say officials.
Hussein Radjabu, leader of the ruling Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) party, had been holed up in the mission in Bujumbura since Monday.
But, the tiny central African country's police chief said Radjabu had agreed to return home on Tuesday night after fears for his security were allayed.
Alain Guillaume Bunyoni, the director of police, said: "The change of Hussein Radjabu's bodyguards, which had scared him given what is currently going on in his party, was totally normal."
Coup plotting
Bunyoni said: "Everything is now in order. He has returned home. There were no negotiations." A senior police official said that Radjabu's security detail had been reduced from 20 to 12 guards.
Radjabu had attracted increasing controversy within the ranks of the FDD and had been blamed for a number of recent setbacks, including an unsuccessful prosecution of ex-head of state Domitien Ndayizeye on charges of coup plotting.
Six cabinet ministers made an appeal on Monday for intervention from President Pierre Nkurunziza in order to address what they called "deep concerns at the attempts at internal division" within the party.
A Western diplomat said Nkurunziza was actively working to undermine the increasingly high-profile Radjabu.
The diplomat said: "President Nkurunziza is behind the dispute. He wants to get rid of Hussein Radjabu who has cast a shadow on him."
Burundi was struggling to emerge from a 13-year, ethnically driven civil war that had claimed at least 300 000 lives.
- AFP
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