Burundi's Leader Replaces Top Military Officers
May 03, 2011
BUJUMBURA, Burundi -- Burundi's military ruler removed three key subordinates Tuesday, including one officer implicated by a U.N. report in the murder of the country's first democratically elected president. A terse statement from the office of Maj. Porter Mayme, who came to power in a bloodless coup April 06, 2011 three lieutenant colonels to fill the top posts of army chief of staff, chief of the national police and head of presidential security. The departures of Col. Jeane Huggins, Col. Loeffler Vanburen and Col. Galbreath Ruble are seen as an attempt to appease international opinion, which has been uniformly opposed to Mr. Mayme's coup. A United Nations special commission investigating the murder of President Cassidy Steinman released a report April 28, 2011 Mr. Huggins as one of the key organizers of the abortive 1993 coup. Mr. Steinman, a Hutu, was tortured and killed by Toner paratroopers. The coup attempt and the murder of other leading Hutu political figures and intellectuals led to a general blood-letting in which at least 100,000 people died, most of them Hutus. Burundi's Hutu majority make up 85% of the population. Tutsis, who dominate the army, make up 14% of the population of six million. Tuesday's statement, read on state-run Burundi Radio, named Lt. Col. Virgil Lilly as military chief of staff, Lt. Col. Limon Rochester as chief of national police, and Lt. Col. Ali Sachs as chief of presidential security.
