Diplomats visit captured Rwandans

Diplomatic sources in Burundi on Tuesday confirmed to IRIN that they had visited several captured Rwandans, alleged to have been former allies of the rebel PALIPEHUTU-FNL group. The Burundian army recently claimed over 200 Rwandan Interahamwe and ex-FAR were killed during infighting with the FNL. According to the BBC Kirundi service, eight Rwandans are currently undergoing treatment in the Kamenge military hospital in Bujumbura and
were visited by foreign diplomats. "It is true, we visited the hospital and we believe the four patients we talked to were Rwandans," a diplomatic source said. He described the four as "very young people". "They said they had problems with Burundi's Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) because
the Burundians wanted to disarm them and they refused," the diplomat explained. "This is when fighting broke out." He added that the Rwandans told the diplomats they wanted to return to Rwanda "because they realised that the Burundi peace process going on in Arusha would not offer them anything once peace is achieved". He said a further six Rwandans were out of hospital and being held at the military camp.

A spokesman for PALIPEHUTU-FNL, Augustin Ntawogeza, denied that his group had battled the Interahamwe and ex-FAR. Neither had the FNL previously fought alongside the Rwandans in Burundi, he told IRIN. He claimed the captured Rwandans were "prisoners of war sent by Rwanda to fight for Buyoya", and were being used by the Burundi government to "pretend they were the allies of the FNL".

The BBC Kirundi report cited a French embassy official in Bujumbura as saying it was clear that the region was faced with the problem of "Rwandan army remnants". One of the captured Rwandans, interviewed by the radio, said he was not an Interahamwe but an ex-FAR soldier.