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President Pierre Nkurunziza (Image source: Reuters)
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Two senior army officers and a police general accused of taking part in
an attempted coup in Burundi have been arrested, a presidential spokesman said
on Friday as it became apparent that a military plot to oust President Pierre
Nkurunziza had fizzled out.
Gervais Abayeho told The Associated
Press Friday that the leader of the attempted coup, Maj. Gen. Godefroid
Niyombare, is at large and that security forces are looking for him. He did not
name the attempted coup plotters in custody.
AP report continues:
Another official said Nkurunziza is
in the northern Burundian city of Ngozi, where he is popular, and that a
government news team is being dispatched there for him to make a statement to
be broadcast. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to divulge such information.
The streets of Bujumbura were mostly
calm on Friday following fighting on Thursday between loyalist troops and
forces supporting Niyombare, who announced the coup bid on Wednesday while
Nkurunziza was in Tanzania for a meeting with regional leaders about unrest in
his country.
Along a highway in the south of the
country, there were many police checkpoints but otherwise life was going on as
normal.
Nkurunziza's bid for a third term
had triggered protests over several days, with opponents saying it violated the
Constitution as well as peace accords that ended a civil war here. At least 15
people were killed in the demonstrations that began on April 26, a day after
the ruling party made Nkurunziza its presidential candidate.
Burundi's presidency late Thursday saluted
the police, who had tried to quell the demonstrations, for their patriotism.
Still, the U.S. urged its citizens
to leave Burundi the country and advised against traveling to Burundi. The U.S.
Embassy in Burundi said it is closed Friday amid the insecurity.
Burundi's Constitution states a
president can be popularly elected to two five-year terms. Nkurunziza maintains
he is eligible for a third because parliament elected him to his first term,
leaving him open to be popularly elected to two terms.
Burundi erupted into civil war in
1993 following the assassination of the country's first ethnic Hutu president,
Melchior Ndadaye. That conflict, which split open longstanding ethnic tensions
between the Hutu and the Tutsi people, lasted until 2005.
Nkurunziza, a Hutu, took over as president and
embarked on a campaign of ethnic reconciliation and economic rehabilitation.
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