Zimpapers Logo

Pierre Nkurunziza

BUJUMBURA/JOHANNESBURG. – Supporters and opponents of Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza clashed yesterday near the state broadcaster’s headquarters in the capital Bujumbura.

The fighting comes a day after Major General Godefroid Niyombare, the country’s former intelligence chief, said he had deposed Nkurunziza in a coup while the president was on a trip to neighbouring Tanzania.

That claim was rebuked by Army Chief of Staff General Prime Niyongabo who said the coup attempt had failed.

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from Bujumbura, said those fighting at the national radio and TV compound include rival factions within the army.

“We understand there are several dozen heavily armed soldiers who are loyal to Nkurunziza and a greater number of soldiers outside supporting the coup,” he said.

Supporters and opponents of the president were making competing claims about who controlled the area, Webb said, adding radio broadcasting networks were among the few means of information reporting on the current situation in the country.

“Radio stations have the ability to broadcast nationwide and are crucial at this stage. This is not a very developed country, it’s one of the poorest in Africa,” he said. “Whoever controls the radio stations and says they are in power is probably 70 to 80 percent on the way to actually making that come true.”

However, the coup leaders claimed they controlled the whole city: “We control virtually the entire city. The soldiers who are being deployed are on our side,” Burundi’s police commissioner and a spokesman for the coup leaders Venon Ndabaneze told AFP.

The clashes come amid a flurry of rumours over the status of the attempted coup, the whereabouts of Nkurunziza, and who remains in control of the central African nation.

Niyombare said on Wednesday he had launched the coup after weeks of violent protests against Nkurunziza’s controversial bid for a third term.

The general ordered the closure of Bujumbura Airport and the landlocked nation’s borders, and declared he had the support of “many” high-ranking army and police officials.

Rival general, Niyongabo, said the coup had been stopped and that pro-Nkurunziza forces controlled the presidential office and palace.

“The national defence force calls on the mutineers to give themselves up,” he added on state radio, also under the control of forces loyal to the president.

A spokesman for the anti-Nkurunziza camp, Burundi’s police commissioner Venon Ndabaneze, told AFP the claim was false and that his side was in control of facilities, including Bujumbura’s international airport.

“This message does not surprise us because the general has long been allied to the forces of evil and lies,” he said.

Padraic MacOireachtaigh, a freelance journalist based in Bujumbura, told Al Jazeera it was difficult to identify who the army was fighting against, though it “seems to be another army-backed faction loyal to the president”.

Confusion remains over the whereabouts of Nkurunziza, whose attempt to return home from neighbouring Tanzania after the coup was announced was blocked by opponents who seized the airport.

On Wednesday, hundreds of people took to the streets in celebration after the coup announcement, shouting “Victory!” and sounding car horns.

The crisis has raised fears of a return to widespread violence in the country, which is still recovering from a brutal 13-year civil war that ended in 2006.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the conflict, marked by massacres between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsis, although there is no apparent ethnic dimension to the recent violence.

Meanwhile, South Africa Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa who attended an emergency summit on the crisis Wednesday that was organised by the East African Community, said political instability and violence in Burundi could spill over into the region, also as people flee the country. As people flee they are going to various countries in the region and that leads to instability of a number proportions for those countries,” he said.

“Clearly Burundi’s stability is in the interest of all the countries in the region. And that is why the leaders said we cannot stand by to see violence and political strife tearing Burundi apart; that should not be allowed.

“We will make sure that we work to stop the violence that is unfolding there.” Ramaphosa spoke to the SABC and the Government and Communication and Information System in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, following the East African Regional summit on Burundi. The summit coincided with an attempt by Burundi’s military to oust President Pierre Nkurunziza.

The East African community has condemned the deteriorating political situation in Burundi. The condemnation was expressed at the Extraordinary Summit of the EAC heads of state in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on Wednesday.

“Given the situation in Burundi, conditions are not conducive for elections in Burundi and the summit calls upon the authorities to postpone the elections for a period not beyond the mandate of the current government,” read a statement issued after the summit.

“ As the region continues to consult with all stakeholders to make sure that the situation in Burundi normalises and elections can be held in a free, fair and peaceful manner in respect of the constitution of Burundi, the laws of Burundi and the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement; the summit condemns violence and calls on all parties to make sure that violence stops.”

According to the statement, the EAC will not accept nor stand by if violence did not stop or escalated in Burundi. – AFP/City Press/CAJ News.