The Democratic Republic of Congo has pulled all of its diplomats out of neighbouring Burundi following the slaughter of Congolese Tutsi refugees there last week, its foreign minister said on Friday. The decision was taken after Congolese Tutsis held violent protests outside Congo's embassy in Bujumbura earlier in the week, breaking windows and tearing its flag to shreds, he said. "We thought that the security conditions were not right for the diplomats. We haven't broken diplomatic relations but we thought that, in the general context, they should come back," Foreign Minister Ramazani Baya told Reuters. "I'm not sure how long this will be for, but it depends how the situation evolves," he said. The massacre of 160 Congolese refugees a week ago at a camp in western Burundi has raised fears that Africa's volatile Great Lakes region could slide back into war. A Hutu rebel group fighting in Burundi claimed responsibility for the attack, but Tutsi rebels in Congo have accused the Congolese army of playing a role. Both Rwanda and Burundi have said they might send troops into Congo if the government in Kinshasa fails to disarm Hutu rebels and their allied militia still on its territory. Rwanda has invaded Congo twice in the last eight years, both times saying it had done so to defeat Hutu extremists who killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the 1994 genocide before fleeing to eastern Congo.
