Burundi's ex-president arrested over alleged coup plot
Burundi's former president Domitien Ndayizeye was arrested in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the country's less than year-old government, officials said.
Ndayizeye, a serving lawmaker and Burundi's last transitional head of state before 2005 elections brought in a new power-sharing administration, was stripped of his parliamentary immunity before being detained, they said.
"He was summoned this morning by the Senate which withdrew his parliamentary immunity and then he was arrested by police," said Euphrasie Bigirimana, secretary of Ndayizeye's Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU) party.
Bigirimana told AFP Ndayizeye was in custody and being questioned by police who have already arrested eight other suspects, including senior opposition officials, over the alleged plot to oust President Pierre Nkurunziza.
"We condemn the arrest of Domitien Ndayizeye. He has been arrested for an imaginary coup d'etat. It is ploy by the government to silence us," protested FORDEBU's chief Leonce Ngendakumana.
Officials said the government ordered the former president's arrest for suspicion of playing part in the alleged plans for the coup, which the UN mission here demanded a clarification.
"Ndayizeye was arrested on the orders of the attorney general," a senior police official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "He is suspected to have participated in the plot to destabilise the government."
A secret service official told AFP that the former president was "leading its preparation."
UN Mission in Burundi (ONUB) chief Nurreldin Satti called "for strict respect of the law and dignity of Domitien Ndayizeye."
"Once again we call we demand total clarity on this coup d'etat," Satti added.
At least 50 armed police were deployed around the attorney general's office where the ex-president, who led the tiny central African nation between May 2003 and August 2005, was questioned before his transfer to prison, an AFP correspondent said.
In addition to Ndayizeye and those already detained, several other suspects in the alleged plot are still being sought by the police, including Ndayizeye's former spokesman Pancrace Cimpaye and ex-protocol chief Isaie Simbare.
Details of the alleged plot remain sketchy and the arrests have been criticized by human rights groups after allegations of police mistreatment of those arrested thus far, although authorities have denied those charges.
Ndayizeye was succeeded by Nkurunziza in a complex series of polls last year after the adoption of a new constitution under a peace process aimed at returning democracy and stability to Burundi after more than a decade of war.
Ndayizeye, a Hutu, took over from then president Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, in a move aimed at redressing ethnic imbalance between the Hutus who make up 85 percent of the population and the Tutsis who account only for 14 percent.
He handed over power to Nkurunziza -- also a Hutu, and leader of the ex-rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy -- under the current power-sharing arrangement in which the two main ethnic groups have a 60-40 split.
Burundi has suffered several coups and attempted coups since it won independence from Belgium in 1962 and is currently struggling to emerge from its latest 13-year ethnically driven conflict that has claimed some 300,000 lives.
The war began in 1993 with the assassination of the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, by elements of the then Tutsi-dominated military.
Burundi's main Tutsi party, UPRONA, has accused the government of using the alleged coup plot to divert attention from corruption scandals that are now dogging the administration.
Despite the election of the new administration that was hoped to return the country to peace after years of turmoil, Burundi continues to be plagued by insecurity, particularly raids by its last active Hutu rebel group.
South African-mediated peace talks between the government and the National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebels being held in neighboring Tanzania are currently deadlocked.
AFP
