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We won't disband, vow soldiers
31/03/2008 21:08 - (SA)
Bujumbura - More than 650 mostly Tutsi soldiers in Burundi refused to demobilise on Monday in the small central African country, citing unfair ethnic treatment.
"We know they've chosen us because we're Tutsi," a Burundian officer who asked to remain anonymous told AFP, adding "we are not refusing to demobilise but we are victims of mistreatment".
He said soldiers who have been gathered at a Bujumbura football pitch would refuse to leave for the army centre in Gitega in central Burundi until the ministry of defence gave them an explanation.
A military spokesperson said Defence Minister Germain Niyoyankana "is ready to meet with the soldiers" in Gitega, where the demobilisation process is due to take place, but "not here".
The Burundian army announced the demobilisation of 778 soldiers as of Monday in line with a World Bank agreement, to get them down from 27 375 to 25 000 by June 31.
An AFP journalist saw that some 108 "volunteer" soldiers signed their papers and went to Gitega in the afternoon, but those unwilling to do so feared that the government was out to purge the military of its minority Tutsis.
Burundi, which is barely recovering from a 14-year civil war, was previously lead by a Tutsi minority, and has only been governed by a Hutu majority since general elections in 2005.
Part of the 2000 peace agreement signed in Arusha, Tanzania, was to have a joint Tutsi and Hutu army and police force.
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