"But there are three, sometimes four hundred people sleeping here now and it's become, well, rather dirty." This was a considerable understatement. The high, tiled rooms of the bungalow are sickly with the smoke of clove cigarettes, and the meeting rooms are a clutter of orange peel and empty pop bottles. Grubby youths in red T-shirts and berets sleep sprawled on mats on the floor, and in a chaotic front office, middle-aged party workers manoeuvre between fax machines, bags of rice, and megaphones. Posters and slogans cover the walls, and red banners are draped over the compound's metal gates. Jakarta - "Before the trouble started, this place used to be very clean," my guide to the headquarters of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), assured me. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, became interim president from April and was sworn in as president in September 1994 in a power-sharing deal called the Convention.. But elements in the Tutsi army refused to accept a Hutu leader and they staged a failed coup in October 1993, assassinating Ndadaye and other leading Hutus.Ndadaye's murder unleashed a wave of Hutu- Tutsi slaughter throughout Burundi in which up to 50,000 people were killed.Cyprien Ntaryamira, a Hutu who succeeded Ndadaye, was killed on 6 April 1994 along with Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana in a rocket attack on their plane. Micombero was overthrown in 1976 by Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, whose 1977 land reforms put an end to Tutsi feudal overlords.

Pierre Buyoya, who ousted Bagaza in a bloodless coup in 1987, named a Cabinet divided between the two tribes, giving Hutus their first real voice in government in 20 years and naming the first Hutu premier since 1965.In the first free elections, in 1993, he was beaten by Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu who garnered most of the votes of his majority tribe allowed to vote for the first time. Tutsis dominate the security forces.ECONOMY: It is one of the world's poorest countries with per capita income estimated by the World Bank at $259 (pounds 170) a year.HISTORY: Tribal hatred has exploded several times since independence. An estimated 100,000 people, mainly Hutus, were massacred in 1972.Burundi was governed by Tutsi military men after Captain Michel Micombero overthrew King Ntare V in 1966. Micombero ended the system of alternately appointing Hutu and Tutsi prime ministers and helped the Tutsis consolidate control. The rest mainly follow traditional religions, although 1 per cent of the population is Muslim.CAPITAL: Bujumbura, population about 180,000. Most Burundians live in the densely populated countryside.ARMED FORCES: The army has about 22,000 men.

The 150-man air force has three combat aircraft while a navy of 50 men has three patrol boats There is also a 1,500-man gendarmerie. There are small numbers of the pygmy Twa. Hutus and Tutsis speak the same language.Discrimination in favour of the Tutsis assured them control of government and army for most of the time since independence from Belgium in 1962.RELIGION: More than 60 per cent of the people are Christian, mostly Catholic. These are some key facts about Burundi, which was yesterday in the throes of a coup, after a massacre at the weekend in which more than 300 civilians died POPULATION: An estimated 5.6 million. The largest tribe is the Hutu, who account for about 85 per cent The Tutsi make up about 15 per cent. "Nobody in Burundi wants outside intervention, so do you impose yourself? And if you do, what is your mission when you get there?"President Bill Clinton, who faces elections this year, will be especially cautious of involvement in Burundi.After weeks of canvassing governments about a peace-keeping force, Mr Annan has so far mustered commitments for a battalion each from Malawi, Chad and Zambia.He hopes additional troops can be provided by the countries most involved in regional political efforts to find a settlement, namely Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda.. The US and Britain have sent military experts to the area and have offered to provide logistical and transport assistance should any force be created."It is the Somalia-Liberia scenario all over again," a Western diplomat said. What we need and what we are seeking now is the political will to act." He suggested that any force should be UN-funded.However, Mr Annan knows that without the commitment of troops and military leadership by one of the Western powers, preferably the United States, Britain or France, putting together a sufficiently credible force will be difficult.He noted that the UN erred in both Somalia and Bosnia in the early stages of both operations by sending in only 50 unarmed observers.So far, however, there is still no sign of any Western government reversing public statements vowing to keep their troops out of Burundi.

The Council is haunted by events in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994, when conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes led to the massacre of hundreds of thousands. Neither has it forgotten the largely disastrous UN peace- keeping efforts in Somalia and Liberia. The UN Secretariat has, meanwhile, said it is trying to assemble a military force which could be sent to Burundi to restore order and prevent further killings.The effort is being led by the Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping, Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, who envisages a force of perhaps 20,000 soldiers that could attempt to create areas in which members of the different tribes could find shelter."We have to move very quickly before everything blows up in our faces," Mr Annan said in New York."As it is, history will judge us rather severely for Rwanda I don't think we can repeat that experience in Burundi. The United Nations Security Council agonised yesterday over what to do to prevent the turmoil in Burundi exploding into all-out civil war as the main Western powers continued to show no willingness to contribute ground troops to any intervention force. The Speaker of Parliament, Leonce Nyendakumana, and the Foreign Minister, Venerand Bakevyumusaya, are understood to be in the German embassy. The Minister of Finance, Salvator Toyi, is in hiding at the residence of the European Commission's head of delegation.The Belgian embassy has received Mrs Ndadaye, widow of the assassinated president. The president of the Frodebu party, Jean Minani, has fled to Kenya.President Ntibantunganya had told his American host that he wished to remain in office, and in the last few days he has been pleading with the military not to intervene.However, by yesterday, as he failed to come out of hiding, his position had clearly become untenable.. The US has repeatedly warned the Tutsi-dominated army that it will not tolerate a coup in Burundi, and will not recognise any regime installed by force.Before the coup, Hutu ministers in the doomed government sought sanctuary in European embassies in the capital.