Burundi - The Country

Each day at nightfall in Burundi's capital of Bujumbura, the streets are empty. Grenade blasts (grenades can be had for a mere US$7) and machine-gun fire from both the city and the surrounding hills shatter the night silence. Occasionally, there is screaming and crying. The impression is that you're suddenly being caught in the middle of an invasion. Then, in the morning, it is calm. You're surprised to discover that corpses do not litter the streets. There is little, if any, evidence of fighting. When inquiring among locals about the cause of the evening's disturbance, you will be answered with two words: "Burundi's problem." It would seem "the Switzerland of Africa" has a bit of a problem. A problem that has existed for over 30 years.

It wasn't always like this. The Twa pygmies used to live in peace under the triple canopy rain forest. The pastoral Bantu Hutus migrated into this fertile region and were followed by the tall-nomadic Tutsis. The Tutsi immediately showed the less warlike folks how things should be run and gained the favor of the colonial masters.

Burundi endured one of Africa's worst tribal wars in 1972. War is not the right word. Genocide fits better. It all happened after King Ntare V returned in April of that year. Usually, when the president of the country promises safe conduct to a returning monarch, the chances are pretty good the red carpet will be rolled out. Well, that wasn't exactly what Burundi president Michel Micombero had in mind for the return of the man he overthrew. Not even a party. No sooner had Ntare V stepped off the plane than he was judged and executed by Micombero. Hell of a homecoming. What happened afterward defies explanation.

Thousands of invading exiled Hutus attending Ntare V's return to Burundi were slaughtered by the rival Tutsis. But the Tutsis didn't stop there. Over the next eight weeks, nearly a quarter of a million native Burundi Hutus were massacred by the Tutsis. The genocide was followed by coup after coup after coup, until Burundi's first democratically elected leader, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, assumed the presidency in June 1993. All's well that ends well? Hardly.

Tutsi paratroopers assassinated Ndadaye on October 21, 1993, abruptly ending the four-month experiment with democracy in the central African state. The predawn coup was led by army chief of staff Colonel Jean Bikomagu and former president Jean Baptiste Bagaza, who was himself overthrown in 1987. The paratroopers arrested Ndadaye and detained him at the Muha barracks on the outskirts of Bujumbura before executing him. The coup was the fifth since the country's independence in 1962, and led to unprecedented violence and death. More than 200,000 deaths were caused by the unrest, equaling if not exceeding the casualties that occurred in the 1972 genocide that swept the country. Tribal massacres drove nearly a million Burundians into neighboring countries to escape the slaughter.

The coup collapsed, but it hardly made any difference. Burundi itself had already collapsed. Ethnic fighting between the Hutus and the minority Tutsis, who controlled the military and have dominated politics since Burundi's independence from Belgium in 1962, continued to ravage the country. Pictures revealed hundreds of bodies, devastated towns, destroyed farms and a countryside that had been set on fire. Corpses littered the landscape, after the army stood by and watched as Tutsis and Hutus slaughtered each other. Thousands of Burundians marched through the streets of Bujumbura, urging the remnants of Ndadaye's government to emerge from hiding and lead the country from the chaos caused by the military revolt. As many as 500,000 refugees had fled to Rwanda alone.

But even the foiled coup failed to bring stability to Burundi. The presidents of both Burundi and Rwanda were aboard a plane that was blasted out of the sky by rocket and gun fire as it was landing at Kigali airport in Rwanda on April 6, 1994. Intense fighting broke out in neighboring Rwanda. During the ensuing 14-week civil war in Rwanda, Tutsi rebels swept across the country, decimating the mainly Hutu government.

On April 29, 1994, hundreds of people fled shelling in Bujumbura, after the expiration of a government ultimatum to militants to turn in their weapons. Although Burundi escaped much of the 1995 fighting between the two ethnic groups, Hutu militants of the "People's Army" declined to comply and surrender their weapons.

The Trash War

The morning was foggy, and we had driven up the slippery slopes from Tanzania. When we camped for the night, we saw no one. Now we were surrounded by a circular wall of people. They pressed in slowly, curious to see what these visitors might have. They began to touch at first, and then grab. Fighting back, we chased them off. As they ran and tripped, they grabbed anything they could pry looseÑempty water bottles, scraps of paper. As the bolder ones tried to grab and run back into the crowd, they were immediately pounced upon by other Hutus, who ripped and tore whatever meager trophy they had retrieved until they possessed minuscule scraps in their hands. The Hutus were stealing trash, fighting for trash. As we quickly jumped in our vehicles and drove off, we watched them continue to beat and fight each other for trash until, finally, the battle was lost in the fog.

Violence, perhaps a precursor to a total breakdown in Burundi, again broke out in January 1996, as Burundi government troops attacked a Rwandan Hutu refugee camp and killed 20, wounding scores of others. This sparked a mass exodus of more than 14,000 terrified Hutus who beat tail for Tanzania, already crammed to the brim with more than 700,000 Hutu refugees from both Burundi and Rwanda. Although the Burundi ruling coalition has been sternly warned by both the United Nations and the United States about ethnic violence, and the army particularly about overthrowing the precarious government, the raid in northeast Burundi was seen as a highly choreographed attempt in a multiphased plan to force Hutu rebels into permanent exile.

Strongman Major Pierre Buyoya became the president of Burundi in a Tutsi military-backed coup in July 1996. The Hutu former president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya hotfooted it to the American ambassador's home, a place we remember well from our pleasant lunch. He didn't emerge until June 1997. Another coincidence is that we also met the new prez (and former major in the army) at a whoop-up in '91 while he was president (from 1987 to 1993). The only change we found was an embargo imposed by Burundi's neighbors. Buyoya's army of some 20,000 men will be busy fighting the 3,500 Hutu rebels who represent the 85 percent of Burundians who are Hutu.

Gentlemen, sharpen your machetes. Because pencils at the peace talks in ArushaÑin northern TanzaniaÑin 1999 don't seem to be sharp enough to sign anything.

For the latest on peace in Burundi, contact:

Farah Stockman

Internews International

Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Phone from Africa: 057-4207/11; ext 5235

Fax: 057-4000

Phone from USA:1 (212) 963-2850; ext 5235

Fax: 1 (212) 963-2848/49

The 1:30 to Paris

Our arrival was not an important event, but reason enough for lunch at the embassy. After a brief tour, including meeting the grizzled marine security officer, we had lunch high up in the hills overlooking Bujumbura. In between polite conversation, a silence would fall as an airliner took off from the airport. Without looking, our hosts would rattle off the flight and carrier, as if repeating a religious chant.