No Official Information on Coup in Burundi: Envoy

The Burundian envoy in Tanzania said Wednesday there is no official information that President Pierre Buyoya has been overthrown by rebels.

"I haven't got any information about the incident," Emmanuel Rwamibango, charge d'Affaires ad interm of the Burundian Embassy in Tanzania, told Xinhua, declining to make further comment.

The Burundian state radio earlier reported that a group calling itself the "young Burundian patriots" announced that President Buyoya and the parliament are both "suspended".

The group also declared a curfew effective at 8 p.m. (local time) in the country's capital Bujumbura.

Buyoya, who seized power in a coup in 1996, is currently in Gabon for cease-fire talks with major armed rebel groups in a bid to end the seven-year civil war in the tiny central African state

U.N. Expresses Concern Over Coup in Burundi

The United Nations is following the development of the reported coup in Burundi with a great deal of concern, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Wednesday.

"We spoke with the U.N. office in Bujumbura, Burundi, a few minutes ago, where there appears to be a coup underway," Eckhard told press in the routine noon briefing. "We are following the development in that country with a great deal of concern."

"We know that a lieutenant claiming to represent a group called the Patriotic Youth announced in the radio in Bujumbura that a coup d'etat had taken place," he said.

"The lieutenant gave no further details except to say that the Burundi's new leadership will be announced soon, and that a curfew will be imposed at some 8 PM local time," Eckhard said, quoting reports from U.N. office in Burundi.

Explaining the U.N. mechanism on crisis management, Eckhard said that the United Nations' emphasis has always been put on preventive methods. "Once (tensions) explode into a coup," he said, "we don't have military options."

Currently there are less than 100 international staff working for the United Nations in that country, Eckhard said.

Burundi's Turbulent History Since 1993

The following is a chronology of the central African country of Burundi, where a civil war since 1993 has claimed at least 200,000 lives:

October 21, 1993: Burundi's first president from the Hutu majority, Melchior Ndadaye, elected in July 1993, is assassinated in an abortive Tutsi-led military coup.

January 13, 1994: Cyprien Ntaryamira, a Hutu, is elected interim president by the National Assembly.

April 6, 1994: Ntaryamira and Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana are killed when their plane is shot down over Kigali, capital of Rwanda.

September 30, 1994: Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, is elected interim president by the National Assembly. His appointment follows three months of negotiations and the signing of a coalition pact between the Tutsi-dominated opposition Unity for National Progress (UPRONA) and the Hutu-led Front for Democracy (FRODEBU).

December 21, 1994: The government orders a ceasefire in Bujumbura after inter-ethnic clashes claim at least 30 lives.

July 20, 1995: Some 330 displaced Tutsis, mainly women and children, are massacred in a camp at Bugendana, central Burundi.

July 24, 1995: The Tutsi opposition UPRONA denounces the 1994 government convention which sets the framework for Burundi's institutions. President Ntibantunganya takes refuge in the U.S. ambassador's residence in Bujumbura.

July 31, 1995: Countries in the region set up an embargo, demanding a return to constitutional order and negotiations with the rebels.

March 10, 1996: The government and the National Council for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD, political wing of the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, FDD rebels) approve an agreement establishing a framework and an agenda for negotiations.

June 11, 1998: Buyoya is sworn in as president of the transitional republic.

June 15-21, 1998: The first face-to-face peace negotiations take place in Arusha, Tanzania between the government, opposition parties and some rebel movements.

December 1, 1999: South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela becomes mediator following the death of Tanzania's Julius Nyerere.

February 21, 2000: Mandela opens talks at a summit bringing together six African heads of state and three European ministers.

August 28-29, 2000: The protagonists in the civil war -- with the notable exception of the two main rebel movements -- sign a peace deal in Arusha which provides for power-sharing between Hutus and Tutsis.

The Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) and the National Liberation Forces (FNL) do not take part in Arusha peace process.

November 25, 2000: A new session of talks begins in Arusha to tackle outstanding problems, with the controversial question of who will be in charge during the transition period high on the agenda.

April 18, 2001: A Burundian soldier announces on state radio that the government of President Pierre Buyoya, currently out of the country, has been "suspended" as shots are heard in the capital Bujumbura.






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