Double Genocide

The civil war in the tiny central African republic of Burundi ended more than a month ago; but the systematic murder of the Hutu tribesmen, who account for 85% of the country's 4,000,000 people, continues. In a sense, it is double genocide: the approximately 2,000 Hutu rebels who briefly proclaimed an independent republic a month ago had set out to murder their overlords of the Tutsi tribe. The Tutsi-dominated army quickly put down the revolt (TIME, May 22). Ever since, it has been attempting to destroy the Hutu to such an extent that they may never rise again. "The Tutsi fear has always been the same--to smash the Hutu or die," explains a foreign missionary. "But it has never been so manifest before."

The primary targets of the government's continuing "pacification drive" are the Hutu "elite"--meaning not merely the five Hutu cabinet ministers who were summarily executed at the beginning of the rebellion but practically anybody who can write his own name or afford a hut with a corrugated-iron roof instead of a thatched one. At one school, 140 Hutu boys and girls were shot or hacked to death by soldiers. Though the rate of killings had diminished by last week, troops were still descending on isolated villages at night and murdering the local leaders. Writes TIME Reporter David Martin, who returned from a four-day tour of Burundi last week: "The cowed, fatalistic Hutu continue to expect to be taken away and put to death. They seem to await their fate passively, as did the Jews in Nazi Germany."

Though the government of President Michel Micombero claims that the majority of the country's victims have been Tutsi, most foreign observers in Bujumbura believe the Tutsi dead number no more than 5,000 out of a total now estimated at perhaps 80,000. With their devastating pogrom, the Tutsi overlords have unquestionably bought themselves a few more years in power, but at a terrible price.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.