A Death in Burundi

Burundi is a small, ancient, landlocked, mountainous nation that exports excellent tea and coffee and not much else, a country with a rich and, in modern times, a tragic history, tragic in large part because of European colonialism. It is a history intimately connected with the history of Rwanda, its neighbor to the north. In the post-colonial era, Rwanda and Burundi accentuated each other’s path toward mass violence. Most Americans surely remember hearing news of Rwanda’s infamous genocide, which began in 1994. But many know little or nothing of Burundi’s related catastrophe, an ethnic civil war that began in October 1993, lasted 13 long years and killed, it is estimated, about 300,000 Burundians.

The country now has a democratically elected government, but it receives considerably less aid than Rwanda, and is in desperate shape.