ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250043
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press BUJUMBURA, Burundi
Burundi's Tutsi-led army staged an apparent coup against the Hutu president, who fled to the U.S. ambassador's residence and urged his countrymen Wednesday not to yield to attempts to seize power by force.
President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya took refuge at the residence of U.S. Ambassador Morris Hughes late Tuesday after Tutsi paratroopers surrounded government buildings in the capital, Bujumbura.
He faced more pressure Wednesday from a Tutsi-dominated political party, which called for his ouster. Foreign diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was unlikely Ntibantunganya would remain in power.
``The president feared for his life and his own security forces were not responding to his requests,'' said Mames Bansubibko, a close adviser to the president. ``He is staying with the U.S. ambassador to make sure he is not going to be killed.''
Bansubibko said Ntibantunganya was not resigning, adding: ``The most important thing right now is to make sure the population in Burundi will not start killing each other.''
Civil war between Tutsis and Hutus has ripped the tiny African nation apart for the past three years, killing more than 150,000 Burundians. Hutus make up 85 percent of the population of 6 million and Tutsis make up 14 percent. In neighboring Rwanda in 1994, violence between Hutus and Tutsis killed more than 500,000.
Ntibantunganya, 40, was pelted with stones and cow dung Tuesday as he arrived for a funeral for 340 Tutsis, mostly women and children, massacred Saturday by Hutu rebels in Bugendena, in central Burundi.
Despite Ntibantunganya's flight and the paratroopers surrounding government buildings, Lt. Col. Nicodemus Nduhirubusa, a military leader and adviser to the Tutsi prime minister, denied there was any coup attempt. ``I can't see any sign of a coup,'' he said.
Indeed, except for an anti-government demonstration Wednesday morning, the streets of the capital were calm, just as they were in 1993, when the first democratically elected Hutu president was assassinated. Heavy fighting between the army and Hutu rebels was reported, however, in the southern province of Bururi.
The U.N. Security Council said Wednesday its 15 members ``strongly condemn any attempt to overthrow the present legitimate government by force.''
In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the United States ``will not, under any circumstances, tolerate a government installed by force or intimidation in Burundi.''
Another U.S. official said he believed Ntibantunganya would flee Burundi for Tanzania, but Burns said he was not aware of the president's plans.
In a phone call to Burundi Radio, Ntibantunganya called on Burundians not to support the coup attempt.
``Ignore politicians who aim to plunge our country into chaos by seeking to overthrow our current leadership institutions,'' he said.
In a tape-recorded message released earlier to the BBC, Ntibantunganya said it didn't matter that he was not in the presidential palace. What was important, he said, was that he was still in the country.
``A person making decisions had to do it in a quiet, secure place,'' Ntibantunganya said.
Ntibantunganya met Wednesday with Hughes, the U.S. ambassador, to determine his next move.
Late Tuesday, the usually tight security around the capital was heightened. Tutsi paratroopers were stationed at the government-run radio and TV stations and outside government buildings.
On Wednesday, the junior partner in the coalition government rejected both Ntibantunganya and the 1994 agreement setting up the current government, a weak coalition of the two ethnic groups.
``The presidency of Sylvestre Ntibantunganya is a total failure. Instead of being the president of the country, he is the head of the Hutu ethnic group,'' Charles Mukasi, the president of the Tutsi-dominated UPRONA party, said at a news conference in Bujumbura.
``He is guilty of high treason and must be toppled.''
Mukasi, a Hutu, said the party's decision to renounce the 1994 pact technically dissolves the government.
The pact followed the October 1993 assassination of Burundi's Hutu president, Melchoir Ndadaye, which threatened to plunge the tiny nation into chaos. Widespread violence followed, and thousands of people, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutus.
Still, the convention kept a government in place. Ntibantunganya became president on April 12, 1994, six days after President Cyprien Ntaryamira died with the Rwandan president in a mysterious plane crash - opening the summer of systematic genocide against Tutsis that killed a half-million in Rwanda.
Ntibantunganya knows the horrors of ethnic hatred - his wife was killed in 1993 by rebel troops who had come to arrest him.
Both the Tutsi-dominated army and Tutsi political parties have condemned a call by Ntibantunganya and Tutsi Prime Minister Antoine Nduwayo for foreign military help to restore security.
Many Tutsis say the plan is a plot by Ntibantunganya to destroy the Burundi military and expose Burundis Tutsis to the kind of genocide that took place in Rwanda.
Clashes involving the Tutsi-dominated army and Hutu rebels have intensified this year, and human rights observers say both sides routinely kill civilians.
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