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Bakana, who got here on Monday after escaping from Bujumbura through the hills along the border with Zaire, said warily: "We must not forget that massacres are continuing in Burundi, and all the peaceful statements by the coupmakers have to be treated very cautiously." He remembered a coup in 1972. "It was the same thing. They said there was peace, but in the month that followed, they slaughtered everyone."
Nearly 400,000 Burundians have fled to Rwanda, Zaire and Tanzania this time. Minani, heading a temporary government-in-exile, has appealed for foreign intervention "to end the massacre" of Hutus, the majority tribe, by the military, which is dominated by the Tutsi minority. The army was a "furious force the government cannot control," Minani said.
Thierry Kiyogera, intelligence chief at Ntega in the northern Kirundo province, said he saw soldiers killing government administrators, leading merchants and college students as he fled through the localities of Vumbi, Ntega, Gitobe and Bugabira.
"They had lists of people to kill, and their aim was to kill Hutu intellectuals," he said. He also remembered the 1972 bloodletting, when an estimated 100,00 to 200,000 Hutus were massacred by the army.
The assassinated Ndadaye was the first Hutu to hold the post of president, after his election in June.
European Community headquarters in Brussels said they were allocating two million ecus (2,280,000 dollars) for 250,000 refugees in Rwanda and 30,000 more along the border. The four-month project would cover basic necessities including food, tents and blankets, plus medical kits, a spokesman said. The Belgian Red Cross and the Belgian branch of the medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres would carry out the relief work.
at-gg/jaw/fc AFP AFP
