THERE were clashes on the streets of Bujumbura yesterday, after 63 people were killed in Hutu rebel violence in northeast Burundi on Sunday.
Police clashed with students protesting against government negotiations with the rebels. Students were struck with truncheons and a dozen of them were hauled into a military vehicle as they denounced talks with the Hutu National Council for the Defence of Democracy, described as a "genocidal" movement.
Maj Pierre Buyoya, a member of the Tutsi minority who came to power in a coup last July, disclosed last week that negotiations were being held in Rome with the aim of a ceasefire.
Radio Burundi earlier reported that 63 people were killed and 12 injured on Sunday at two "regroupment" camps at Murwi and Buganda, in Burundi's Cibitoke province. It blamed Hutn rebels for the violence.
The camps were officially set up to provide protection for civilians from such attacks. Some say they are aimed at depriving rebels of the support of Hutu civilians.
The Tutsi dominated army says Burundian Hutu rebels accused of the killings in Cibitoke are backed by members of the old Hutu Rwandan Armed Forces and Interahamwe militants, who are accused of carrying out the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.
An army spokesman said on May 12th that 18 Interahamwe and Hutu soldiers had been killed in Cibitoke as they were returning from Zaire to Rwanda.
The civil war between the army and Hutu rebels is thought to have left at least 150,000 people dead in three and a half years, mostly civilians.