THE international community will "on no account" accept a coup d'etat in Burundi, the United Nations Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, warned yesterday.
Dr Boutros Ghali said he strongly urges all concerned to uphold the constitution and bear in mind that the international community will on no account accept a change of government by force or other illegitimate means in Burundi".
He called on all sides to show restraint and said he backed calls for a regional summit meeting "that should be urgently convened to discuss ways of calming the situation".
South Africa condemned the coup and said it would not recognise any new government that came to power through force of arms.
The UN High commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Jose Ayala Lasso, called Burundi a nation on the brink of tragedy and appealed to those in power to respect the basic rights of the people.
The UN has been co ordinating plans for a possible deterrent military intervention which would not require the permission of Burundian authorities. But so far only three countries - Chad, Malawi and Zambia have offered to contribute troops.
Washington has said it would offer airlift and logistical support, but no US ground troops for the multinational force which so far has no leader.
A senior US official, commenting on yesterday's developments, said that "it would be hard to see a major deployment in the next few days". The US ambassador, Ms Madeleine Albright, said that if such an intervention took, place it would be "humanitarian".
France urged the UN Security council to send a mission to the central African state, the Foreign Ministry in Paris said yesterday.
Having sent troops on a unilateral humanitarian mission to Rwanda at the height of ethnic conflicts two years ago, France says, it wants to do "no more, no less" than its partners in Burundi.
Officials said Paris was ready to back the implementation of objectives laid down by the Arusha accords. These were drawn up to avert genocide between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes and adopted in Tanzania last month.
According to the ministry, some 200 French nationals are in Burundi, chiefly members of religious orders and other associations and tradesmen. "For the past few months, we have advised all those whose presence is not essential to leave Burundi. We have just repeated this advice," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Paris.
Belgian paracommandos are ready to evacuate the 300 Belgian nationals in Burundi, a spokesman for the armed forces said in Brussels yesterday. Burundi is a former Belgian protectorate.
But the Belgian Defence Minister, Mr Jean Pol Poncelet, promptly denied that the troops were on any special state of alert. One diplomatic source said the government was anxious not to give the wrong signal to the factions in Burundi, although the UN has decided to withdraw some of its staff and the EU is pulling out most of its people.
The European Commission has asked its handful of staff in Burundi to leave, but the EU's charge d'affaires in Bujumburu will remain. A spokesman for the commission said the EU was "extremely concerned" about the situation and was seeking contact with allies to plan action.
. Rwandan army raids against Hutu extremists this month has left well over 100 people dead, many of them unarmed civilians, UN human right observers said yesterday.