ARMY TAKES OVER BURUNDI, INSTALLS ITS OWN PRESIDENT.

Byline: Donald G. McNeil Jr. The New York Times

After two days of confusion about who was running Burundi, the Tutsi-dominated army announced a coup Thursday, named a new president and dissolved Parliament.

The Burundi capital, Bujumbura, was reported to be quiet Thursday night after soldiers sealed the country's borders and airport, set up roadblocks and moved up the curfew from 9 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Political parties were banned, and the military said anyone who tried to start a demonstration would be punished.

The announcement increased fears of renewed fighting in Burundi, where the Tutsi minority controls the army and has traditionally dominated the government. An estimated 150,000 people have died in three years of clashes between Tutsis and the majority Hutus, some of whom have been waging a guerrilla campaign against the Tutsis. Both sides are accused of atrocities.

The newly named president, Maj. Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, is known as a moderate. He first came to power in a bloodless coup in 1987 and ran the country until 1993, when he arranged the democratic elections that led to the first Hutu presidency.

In 1994, close to a half-million people are believed to have been killed in the neighboring central African country of Rwanda, where the same ethnic mix prevails.

In an uneasy political balance in Burundi in recent years, the post of president has gone to a Hutu while the position of prime minister went to a Tutsi.

But on Tuesday, amid reports that the Tutsi-led Burundi military had surrounded government buildings, President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya sought refuge in the American ambassador's residence, where he remained Thursday. And on Wednesday, the main Tutsi political party said it was withdrawing support for the government.

In New York, the United Nations struggled to assemble a military force that could intervene in the event of major violence between the ethnic groups. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali condemned the coup and said that ``the international community will on no account accept a change of government by force or other illegitimate means in Burundi.''

A senior diplomat in Burundi, reached by telephone and describing himself as a pragmatist, said, ``We're handling things under the table,'' by which he meant negotiations were going on with the coup's backers to prevent a civil war.

Officials in the Tutsi-led military said the coup was necessary to halt the increasing violence in the country. ``The politicians have failed to solve the problems, and we have decided the country cannot continue like this,'' a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Longin Minani, told the Associated Press.

But not all statements were so reassuring. In a BBC radio interview, Minani said: ``We don't care if the Hutus see this as a green light for war. We're going to fight them properly now, without their leaders.''

In Washington, a White House official said the United States condemned the coup. At the same time, officials were careful to praise Buyoya, the new president, as a moderate who had brought democracy to the country.

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Photo

PHOTO Maj. Pierre Buyoya

Newly named Tutsi president