Burundi coup bid on day of peace accord

Gunfire and grenade blasts reverberated through Burundi’s capital overnight when a group of soldiers mutinied and attempted to stage a coup.

The mutiny appeared to still be under way today but information was scarce .

There were unconfirmed reports that a senior military officer had been wounded.

General Cyrille Ndayirukiye, minister of defence, announced on state-run radio that the fighting broke out around midnight, just hours before President Pierre Buyoya was due to finalise a power-sharing deal with opposition political parties at a meeting in neighbouring Tanzania.

‘‘A group of soldiers, that we call mutineers, have attempted another coup,’’ Ndayirukiye said. ‘‘These mutineers are against the peace accords and do not know the necessity of the accords.’’

He called on all senior military officers to keep their troops under tight control and for government authorities to keep civilians calm. Ndayirukiye also called on the mutineers to desist, return to barracks and obey their commanders.

It was not immediately clear where the mutineers were located, how many were involved or whether they had been brought under control. The mutineers cut the conventional telephone lines in the capital, Bujumbura, and only mobile telephones worked.

Burundi has been at civil war since Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the nation’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu, in October 1993.

Minority Tutsis have controlled the government and army for all but four months since independence in 1962.

Hutu rebels have fought to overthrow the government and for almost eight years, resulting in the deaths of more than 200,000 people, most of them civilians.