Burundi army, rebels fight for Bujumbura suburbs
By Patrick Nduwimana
BUJUMBURA, July 10 (Reuters) - Mortar bombs slammed into Bujumbura and its outskirts for a fourth day on Thursday, killing three people as Burundi's army sought to repel a rebel attack on two southern suburbs of the capital, residents said.
Residents said two watchmen were killed when a mortar bomb landed in the downtown area of Quartier Asiatique. Another man was beheaded by a mortar bomb as he rode his bicycle in front of the cathedral, also in the centre of the lakeside capital.
A government statement announced that as a result of the fighting, the heaviest in months, an overnight curfew in the city would start at nine p.m., three hours earlier than normal.
The restriction, long a feature of a decade-old civil war between rebels of the Hutu majority and the Tutsi- dominated army, ends at six a.m. The extension takes effect immediately.
Residents said mortars and gunfire could be heard in the hills around the capital in the early evening, after a relatively calm afternoon.
"The atmosphere is very tense, even allowing for the fact that everyone here is used to war," said one foreign resident.
Civil war has ravaged the tiny country of 6.5 million people in Africa's Great Lakes region since 1993, killing about 300,000 and uprooting hundreds of thousands.
At least 38 people have been killed in this week's violence, which erupted on Monday when the rebel Hutu Forces for National Liberation (FNL) fired mortars at the southern Kanyosha and Musaga suburbs and sent fighters from hilltop hideouts into sections of the city.
SOUTH AFRICAN VISIT
Officials said South African deputy president Jacob Zuma would visit the region next week to discuss Burundi, meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Rwandan President Paul Kagame and then going to Bujumbura to meet government officials.
It was not clear whether he would see Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye. A statement from Zuma's office appealed to all parties to respect the peace process.
The FNL, Burundi's second largest rebel group, says it is fighting what it calls 400 years of Tutsi supremacy. The rebels have vowed to force Ndayizeye to negotiate.
U.N. sources said sporadic fighting and armed banditry was affecting 16 of the 17 provinces, a marked worsening from a year ago when only six provinces were hit by civil war violence.
Residents said up to 10,000 people uprooted by this week's battles in Bujumbura's southern suburbs had fled into the centre of the city. Most were dependent on emergency handouts of food and water from U.N. agencies and relief organisations.
Army chief Brigadier-General Germaine Niyonkana said his soldiers, backed by mortars and helicopter gunships, drove back an advance by FNL fighters in Musaga and seized eight mortar bombs, several hand grenades and 12 bags of bullets.
FNL spokesman Pasteur Habimana denied the rebel advance had been checked. "We are still around the capital and the proof is the bombs that landed down in the capital. This means that we are not too far from the capital," he told Reuters by telephone.
"We will continue the war -- but if the army stops, we are ready to stop (this week's assault on Bujumbura) too," he added. He did not elaborate.
Ndayizeye, a Hutu, took over the presidency on April 30 from a Tutsi under a peace plan that envisages his rule as a sign of change in a country historically dominated by minority Tutsis.
(Additional reporting by Nairobi bureau)
07/10/03 13:25 ET
