African Leaders Agree to Sanctions Against Burundi
African leaders agreed Wednesday to impose sanctions on Burundi for a military coup last week that ousted the country’s fragile coalition government and heightened ethnic tensions. The leaders provided no details on how and when sanctions would be implemented.
Officials in Burundi had earlier brushed off the threat of sanctions, saying the coup was necessary to avoid further bloodshed in a country where three years of Tutsi-Hutu fighting has left 150,000 dead, mostly civilians.
Members of the Organization of African Unity, which organized the summit, want the new government to resume peace negotiations and share power with Hutus, who make up 85% of the country’s population of 6 million.
The new regime, led by retired Maj. Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi installed after the peaceful overthrow of Burundi’s Hutu president July 25, picked a Hutu agricultural engineer, Pascal Fermin Ndimira, as prime minister.
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