Tutsis keep fragile peace in Burundi

Press, 31 August 1977, Page 26

Tutsis keep fragile peace in Burundi

From the “Economist.” London

After Nigeria, Burundi had the bloodiest record in Africa until President Amin’s Uganda seized that title. Some 200,000 members pf Burundi's majority tribe, the Hutus, died in 1972 when the Tutsi-dominated

Government set out to avenge a Hutu uprising by massacring all Hutus with any education or position. The Hutus were effectively neutralised as an opposition force but the tribal hatred has lived on. Now Burundi’s new Government has set about t< heal these bitter divisions.

Real power remains in the hands of soliders and Tutsis. But Colonel Jean Bagaza. the handsome well-educated Tutsi who led the coup against General Micombero nine months ago, has installed an all-civilian Cabinet. Its average age is 32. which must make it one of the world’s youngest Governments. One sign that Colonel Bagaza genuinely wants a reconciliation with th? Hutus is the inclusion of four of them in his Government.

The tall aristocratic Tutsi, who make up only 14 per cent of Burundi’s 4M people, have always tried to run the show. After Burundi became independent in 1962, the Hutu majority was given equal representation in the governments appointed by the king. But since 1966 when Colonel Micombero over-threw the monarchy the Tutsis have ruled supreme. General Micombero’s tribal policy was not only brutal: it reduced Burundi to economic stagnation. The average annual income is $6O a head for a population crammed into only 11,000 square miles. The soil is over-used and eroded, forests are being cut back and the huge, long-homed cattle, which used to be status sumbols for their owners, run free everywhere.

And perhaps the country’s biggest burden is being landlocked. Its trade route to the sea involves a tortuous shipping service down Lake Tanganyika to Kigoma, where goods are reloaded on the not very efficient Tanzanian rail system for shipment through the congested port of Dar es Salaam. This adds about 16 per cent to the costs of Burundi’s trade. Colonel Bagaza is trying to encourage foreign investment. He has promised that there will be no socialist-style takeovers and that foreigners’ property will be sacrosanct. A 5000-strong Greek and Belgian business community in Bujumbura is not stopped from importing luxuries and is served by Greek-owned supermarkets which are as well-stocked as any in Africa. Coffee, with its rapidly rising price, provides Burundi’s best hope of generating more wealth. Some 22,000 tons were exported last year. There is also a slender chance that Burundi could get into the mineral league. Important deposits of nickel and uranium have been found and are now being surveyed by Rumanians. But the country’s poor infrastructure, lack of power and the long, hard route to the sea present fearsome obstacles. The Italians seem to think that tourism has prospects. They have just opened an expensive and elegant hotel overlooking Lake Tanganyika. But Burundi is largely kept going by the injections of aid from the E.E.C., Germany, Belgium and France. Whether the planned development projects which are to absorb this aid will actually improve life for its people depends on the slender thread of ethnic peace. This will survive only if the tall Tutsis allow the smaller Hutus a fair share of money and power.