Burundi army bans parties: State radio

BUJUMBURA (Agencies): Burundi's Tutsi-dominated army seized power yesterday, outlawed political parties and closed the airport and land borders, state radio said.

It said the new leaders, headed by former military ruler, Major Pierre Buyoya, had disbanded parliament and imposed a dusk- to-dawn curfew throughout the central African country where up to 1,000 people each month are dying in ethnic violence.

The move came in spite of international warnings against any attempt to overthrow the Hutu incumbent, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.

The overthrow of Ntibantunganya, 40, has been brewing for several days with the collapse of a fragile power-sharing agreement between the rival ethnic groups aimed at preventing a Rwanda-style genocide in Burundi.

The former president fled to the protection of the U.S. ambassador's residence on Tuesday night after the mainly Tutsi- led opposition withdrew support for him.

Buyoya had previously seized power in Burundi in an army-led coup in September 1987.

Earlier, unidentified gunmen lobbed grenades into Burundi's main market and the army set up roadblocks across the city and moved into the state television station.

"They (army) have set up roadblocks with barbed wire and so I cannot leave my house," one resident told Reuters by phone.

The witnesses said it was impossible to say how many people were hurt in the attack because the army sealed off the market.

State radio said earlier Prime Minister Antoine Nduwayo had agreed to resign and his mainly Tutsi Uprona party together with seven other pro-Tutsi parties had withdrawn from the Convention of government -- a feeble governing coalition.

The Hutu president is holed up in the U.S. embassy and its foreign minister, parliament speaker and several other government officials and deputies have taken refuge in the German ambassador's residence in Bujumbura.

An estimated 150,000 people have been killed in three years of ethnic violence, and there are fears that a coup could plunge the country into the kind of bloodbath that happened in neighboring Rwanda, with its same ethnic mix, where up to one million people were massacred in three months in 1994.

Paracommandos from former colonial power Belgium are on alert to fly to Burundi and evacuate the more than 300 Belgian nationals if the situation deteriorates further, a spokesman for the Armed Forces said.

"It looks like all hell is breaking loose in Bujumbura," said an aid worker in Nairobi, in contact with Bujumbura by radio.

Ntibantunganya told Belgian radio he was still in power, refused to resign and said he was still functioning as president of the central African state.

Earlier, the European Union had threatened to withdraw aid if there was a coup while the Organization of African Unity (OAU) predicted that any attempt to overthrow Burundi's government "through illegal means or under any pretext will be resisted."

The UN Security Council warned against any attempt to topple the "legitimate government" after the Hutu president sought refuge in the U.S. ambassador's residence on Tuesday.

In Washington, the White House said Wednesday that the United States would present a plan to the UN later on Thursday to head off "a possible humanitarian disaster" in the central African country.

In Brussels, a spokesman for the Commission of the 15-nation European Union said: "The European Commission has no intention of cooperating with a new political class that might come to power by means of coup d'etat."

Speaking on behalf of Emma Bonino, the European commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid, an official said the Commission would terminate all development aid programs for Burundi if there was a coup.

The OAU appealed to its member states to be ready to isolate and if necessary applies sanctions to any government seizing power in Burundi, whose president fled in fear of his life Tuesday night to seek sanctuary with the US ambassador amid rumors of a coup led by the minority Tutsi-dominated army.

In a statement from New York, the 15-member UN Security Council "strongly condemned any attempt to overthrow the present legitimate government by force or coup d'etat."

If current peace talks failed, the UN statement said "a multi- national force for humanitarian intervention as recommended by the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali will go into force."