Belgium fears Congo may re-ignite ethnic mayhem

Belgium is dispatching a special envoy to central Africa in an attempt to calm rising tension in the region following the weekend massacre of at least 160 refugees at a UN camp in Burundi.

Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht has expressed ”very strong concern” about the situation in the border region between Burundi, Rwanda and Congo.

Burundi and Rwanda have threatened to send troops into Congo to hunt down militiamen who attacked the camp for Tutsi refugees from bases in eastern Congo.

A Burundian Hutu rebel group has claimed responsibility for the killings, but Burundi’s army chief accused Congolese soldiers of joining in.

Congo said it wanted to resolve the situation diplomatically, but was ready “to react” if Burundian or Rwandan troops crossed the border.

Belgian officials said envoy Jan Mutton will fly today to Congo for urgent talks with authorities there before heading to Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa.

The European Union later said it too was sending a mission to Burundi to discuss efforts to shore up peace efforts following the massacre.

The EU’s special representative for the region, Aldo Ajello, and Dutch Development Co-operation Minister Agnes van Ardenne are to hold talks with Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and other officials on Sunday.

Belgium was the colonial power in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi until the early 1960s and has sought to maintain close ties with them.

African leaders meeting Wednesday in Tanzania appealed to the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Burundi’s National Liberation Forces, which said its fighters staged the attack because Burundian soldiers and Congolese Tutsi militiamen were hiding among the refugees.

Burundian officials and witnesses said the rebels were accompanied by Hutu extremists based in Congo.

Belgian officials said Brussels would seek to discover if other groups were involved in the killings before proposing a response. Foreign Ministry spokesman Patrick Herman declined to rule out EU sanctions against those found to be involved.

Last year, the EU sent peacekeeping troops to eastern Congo to halt killings in north-eastern Ituri province, which borders Uganda.

The massacre has revived fears of yet more violence between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups, which has spawned decades of mayhem in Africa’s Great Lakes region including the 1994 genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and a war in Congo that sucked in several neighbouring nations.

Amid a flurry of diplomatic initiatives to contain the tension, De Gucht called for a meeting of ministers from region on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly next month in New York and said he would soon tour the area himself.

The Belgian minister plans to meet his Burundian counterpart Terence Sinunguruza in Brussels next week.