• by IPS Correspondents (united nations)
• Thursday, December 22, 1994
• Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, Dic 22 (IPS) - The U.N. Security Council Thursday asked all sides in Burundi's fragile ethnic political stew to refrain from violence amid a political crisis.

Council President Manzi Bakuramutsa of Rwanda argued that recent violence in Burundi "threatens to further destabilise an already fragile situation and could endanger the stability of the sub-region."

The Council called on the Burundi government to hold people accountable for the violence and to disarm ethnic-based militias operating in the capital, Bujumbura, and the countryside.

The Council further urged "all sides to reject confrontational tactics, violence or extremism, and to work towards compromise and conciliation in a spirit of national unity which transcends ethnic origins," Bakuramutsa said.

Burundi, like neighbouring Rwanda, is divided between a Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority, and has experience riots and bloodshed as the two groups vie for power.

Last year, some 100,000 Barundi, including many Tutsis, were slaughtered after the country's first Hutu elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated in a failed coup attempt.

This week, the Tutsi-based UPRONA party left a governing coalition after charges that a minister who allegedly provoked mob violence during the 1993 massacres had been given a Cabinet position.

President Sylvestre Ntibantuganya has sought reconciliation between the dominant Hutu-based FRODEBU party and UPRONA, but worries are high that violence can return to Burundi.

In nearby Rwanda, perhaps one million people, mainly Tutsis, were slaughtered in political violence earlier this year. Many Hutu refugees from Rwanda have stoked anti-Tutsi propaganda in Burundi as well.

But, despite the Security Council's encouragement of the political process in Burundi, the United Nations is unlikely to send U.N. peacekeepers there.

The United States led an effort last year to prevent sending soldiers to Burundi at the height of the massacres, and wishes to avoid any entanglement there now.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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