The African union has warned that the warrants against Mali-based Buyoya and 17 former Burundi officials could reignite ethnic conflict in that Great Lakes country.

With a regional summit looming on conflict in Burundi, President Pierre Nkurunziza is trying to deflect attention away from the problems caused by his power grab.

He’s arrested former military officials for alleged involvement in the 1993 assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye, four months after he became Burundi’s first democratically elected Hutu President.

Now he’s issued arrest warrants for former President Pierre Buyoya and 17 other officials.

The AU warns this could inflame ethnic tensions in a country where more than 300000 died in the civil war following Ndadaye’s murder.

Buyoya was instrumental in negotiating an end to that conflict.

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Moursi is likely to remain in jail indefinitely  for offenses related to espionage and inciting violence.

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The annulment of the  death sentence of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, who was thrown out by the military in 2013, suggests government reluctance to execute leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood,.

Death sentences on five leaders  of the Brotherhood were annulled with Moursi’s.

There remains a degree of public support for the  Brotherhood, which held power for just over a year.

It’s been classified as a terrorist group by the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former military leader who is now president

Thousands of the group’s leaders and members have been jailed or killed or have gone into exile.

Even so, observers widely believe that executing top leaders like Moursi could lead to a new surge of violence.

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