Citation
BUJUMBURA, April 24 (Reuter) - Diplomats and aid workers said on Sunday
they feared a sudden upsurge of violence in Rwanda's neighbour Burundi
where insecurity is worsening daily.
They said a government deadline for people to hand in all illegal
weapons before 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Sunday was expected to be widely
ignored.
Passage of the deadline might spark fresh violence between the
Tutsi-dominated military and gunmen from the Hutu majority -- the same
tribes who have plunged Rwanda into bloody turmoil.
I doubt all hell will break loose all over Burundi but it might be
confined to specific parts of town,
a diplomat said.
The problem is that the armed forces have been trying to disarm
everyone for a long time now but haven't been able to do it. So there
is a chance it will get bloodier when the deadline passes,
he added.
Diplomats have warned Hutu-Tutsi violence in Rwanda might spill over
into neighbouring Burundi. Both states have suffered from periodic
outbreaks of tribal slaughter since independence in 1962.
The estimated 100,000 killed in Rwanda over the past two and a half
weeks is the bloodiest mass slaughter in Africa since massacres that
killed 100,000 in Burundi in 1972.
The killing in Rwanda began after President Juvenal Habyarimana and
Burundi's President Cyprien Ntaryamira were killed when a rocket downed
their plane at Kigali airport on April 6.
The diplomats and aid workers said troops had been besieging three
northeastern suburbs of Bujumbura since Wednesday and civilians in the
interior had been errecting barricades to stop armoured vehicles being
brought to the capital by the military.
These barricades could be a sign the conflict in Bujumbura is about to
spread out of the capital,
an aid worker said.
The government announced the deadline on Saturday after new President
Sylvestre Ntibantunganya held talks with security officials on how to
end sporadic but almost nightly gunfire in the suburbs.
Burundi radio quoted a statement by government spokesman Issa
Ngendakimana as saying that if the security situation continued to
deteriorate the country would shortly collapse.
The government condemned armed groups it said were causing insecurity
and appealed to soldiers to observe discipline and only resort to using
their weapons to defend themselves from attack.
It (the government) reminds the population that any illegal carrying
of weapons is forbidden and anyone who goes astray will be seriously
punished,
the radio quoted the statement as saying.
The government also called for roads which had been blocked to be
opened and urged people to respect steps to restore peace.
A number of people were reported killed last week in shooting on
Rwanda's border with Burundi when thousands of Rwandans tried to force
their way across the frontier.
The shooting at night has been concentrated in Bujumbura's northeastern
suburb of Kamenge, the focus of a week of tribally-based fighting last
month in which hundreds of people were killed.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
