Tutsis March Against Burundi Peace
Riot police on Saturday clubbed Tutsi demonstrators trying to mobilize opposition to a Burundi peace agreement that President Clinton is being asked to endorse on a trip to east Africa next week.
The clash on the streets of the capital, Bujumbura, epitomized the uncertainty over the accord with Hutu rebels.
President Pierre Buyoya, a retired Tutsi major, said Friday that he and opposition leaders, including Hutu rebels involved in a seven-year civil war, have asked former South African President Nelson Mandela to put off the signing of a power-sharing agreement set for Aug. 28.
Mandela, who has been trying to cut a deal among Burundi's 19 political parties and interest groups, has invited Clinton and other world leaders to take part in the signing ceremony in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.
The White House announced Wednesday that Clinton will visit Tanzania this month to show U.S. support for the Burundi peace process, but did not disclose any other details about the trip.
Organizers of Saturday's anti-government demonstration said life in this central African nation, already beset by a poor economy and an upsurge in rebel attacks, will get worse if the government agrees to share power with Hutus who have been fighting the Tutsi-dominated government and army since 1993.
"You cannot negotiate with people who carried out a genocide. They should be tried in court. The peace agreement will have no future," said Lothaire Niyonkuru, a university lecturer whose group, Action Against Genocide, organized the rally.
More than 200,000 people have been killed since Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the first democratically elected president, a Hutu, in October 1993. Burundi's first experiment with democracy collapsed amid ethnic violence when Hutu politicians and soldiers took up arms, accusing the Tutsi-dominated army and government of robbing them of the 1993 vote.
At least 10 protesters were arrested and others dispersed by police wielding clubs when they tried to gather at the downtown market, near the U.S. Embassy. The embassy was not the target of the protest.
"This is a warning we want to give to Mandela, President Clinton and all the others who will assist in the signing of the Arusha peace agreement so they know that the Burundians are against it," said Diomede Rutamucero, leader of PA-Amasekanya, one of the other groups involved in the protest.
Buyoya on Friday condemned the banned demonstration and accused the organizers for trying to create "confusion."
"They are people who don't want peace," Buyoya told reporters on his return from South Africa, where he held talks with Mandela and both Hutu and Tutsi opposition leaders.
Mandela's draft proposal centers on an ethnically balanced government, parliament and army. But both the rebels and the government objected to the proposal, and could not agree on when a cease-fire should take effect and who should be in charge of a three-yea transition period.
Hutu rebels, meanwhile, stepped up attacks all over the country, causing tension in the lakeside capital where gunfire and artillery explosions echoed from the surrounding mountains on Friday.
Four people, including one soldier, were killed Thursday in Gatumba, west of Bujumbura, when three military positions came under rebel attack, Radio Burundi reported. In a separate incident, one rebel was reported killed in Kanyosha, south of the city.
On Saturday, Buyoya was scheduled to attend the funeral for Col. Balthazar Nyezimana, the highest-ranking army officer to die in a rebel attack. The killing has strained the army, which has been ordered not to respond at a time when violence could easily spin out of control, officials said.
By HRVOJE HRANJSKI