Burundi Horror Amid The Green Hills

By Guy D. Garcia

Initial reports from the remote northern reaches of Burundi had a nightmarish quality. Mass panic. Thousands killed. Peasants wielding machetes and spears against soldiers armed with high-tech weapons. Waves of fleeing refugees. Widespread accounts of wanton revenge and murder.

As rumor gave way to fact, it became clear that the former Belgian colony had suffered a terrible horror. Last week the Burundian government confirmed that ten days of tribal massacres in the verdant, mountainous communities of Marangara and Ntega had left as many as 5,000 people dead and tens of thousands homeless. Western observers estimate that some 38,000 refugees have fled across the border into neighboring Rwanda, with more arriving every day.

The tragedy grew out of an ancient blood feud between Burundi's two main ethnic groups: the lanky Tusi, who are also known as the Tall Ones, and the stockier Hutu, the Short Ones. Although the Tusi represent only 15% of the country's population of 5 million, they have long dominated both the government and the military. The Hutu, by contrast, are mostly subsistence farmers. In 1972, after an aborted coup attempt by the Hutu, the Tusi launched a campaign of terror that resulted in an estimated 100,000 Hutu deaths.

Hutu refugees in Rwanda said the latest clash began three weeks ago, when troops of the all-Tusi Burundian army started rounding up educated Hutu in the hills of the Marangara district. Fearing another massacre, the Hutu struck first, using machetes and spears to kill the soldiers and hundreds of unarmed Tusi. Hutu refugees reported that the ensuing army reprisals included such atrocities as the bayoneting of unarmed prisoners and use of helicopters and machine guns to fire on fleeing Hutu women and children.

But a Western diplomat in Burundi denied seeing evidence of a military killing spree. "The idea that the army is massacring the Hutu is just not what we're hearing here," he said. "Nongovernmental sources, including missionaries coming down from the north, say the army is acting with a great deal of restraint."

The Burundian government attributed the unrest to Hutu activists in Rwanda, who it says incited fellow tribesmen to attack the Tusi. In a press conference last week, Burundi's President, Major Pierre Buyoya, who took power in a bloodless coup last September, said he regretted the need to use force but denied that the army used napalm.

The Burundian capital of Bujumbura was calm last week under a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew. Calling an end to all major military activity, Buyoya has mounted a program of pacification and has opened centers for returning Hutu refugees. At the same time, Burundi's President has made it clear that he will not tolerate any further violence. Said Buyoya: "Force will be used again if necessary."

With reporting by Eric Hanna/Bujumbura