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“AMBASSADOR ROBERT KRUEGER” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Senate section on pages S5652-S5653 on May 24, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
AMBASSADOR ROBERT KRUEGER
Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, our former colleague in the Senate, Ambassador Robert Krueger, has been nominated to be Ambassador to Botswana after serving as Ambassador to Burundi. A report that he sent around to some friends about Burundi is worth reading for anyone interested in that troubled nation.
I ask that Ambassador Krueger's report be printed in the Record.
The report follows:
Burundi: An Oklahoma City Massacre Every Hour
(A Report by Ambassador Robert Krueger, April 24, 1996)
Summary: The situation in Burundi is more threatening to human life and democracy, with a greater chance for major conflagration, than at any time in the last two years. A European diplomat says that ``if the world gives up on Burundi . . . perhaps a million may die'' there. (End summary.)
On the weekend of April 19, Americans mourned again and reflected on the worst terrorist attack in our history: 168 people killed a year ago in Oklahoma City. Television cameras covered the scene; dignitaries spoke on the occasion; and citizens everywhere questioned how terror could strike so unexpectedly, shattering lives in an instant and a sense of security for years.
But if we adjust proportionately for the difference in populations, Burundi has an Oklahoma City-size massacre every hour of the day. Burundi's population is only about one-forty-second (1/42) that of the USA. Hence, 4 people being killed in Burundi are numerically equivalent to 168 killed in the USA. Regrettably, a reasonable estimate is that 100 people are killed daily in Burundi; or, four every hour, 24 hours a day.
Understandably, cameras in America focussed, on April 19, 1996, on Oklahoma City; or on Lebanon, where at least 75 were killed. And world attention naturally follows the camera. Yet, normally there are no international camera crews in Burundi. But the filling continues.
This cable is a reminder that in an obscure country in the heart of Africa, the killing is proportionately vastly heavier than what the cameras are covering; or, indeed, than in almost any place else in the world. And as the protagonist of Arthur Miller's play ``Death of a Salesman'' said,
``Attention must be paid.''
I recently sent a summary report (Secstate 80807) stating that I had perceived a steady destruction of democracy and an increase in mayhem during my almost two-year tenure as ambassador to Burundi. And the situation now seems to me worse than when the cable was first drafted several weeks ago. Even though I have not been in Burundi for the past 7\1/2\ months, and I must rely on the reports of various individuals whom I learned to trust when I was there, I am regrettably but firmly convinced that the situation in Burundi is at this moment more precarious, with a larger possibility of massive bloodshed, than at any time since my arrival in Burundi in June, 1994.
In 1994, and often in 1995, visitors would regularly ask,
``Will Burundi be another Rwanda?'' with, of course, all the fears of historically large genocide which the question carries. My response was ``I won't predict for more than two months or so into the future; but, no, we will not have a Rwanda-type disaster in that period.'' And that much proved true.
But today, I find that the president of the large political party, Dr. Minani of Frodebu, has openly written in official public documents, just two weeks ago, that the believes Burundi is in a situation like that of Rwanda before April 6, 1994, the onset of the deluge. Other Burundi leaders and foreign diplomats with whom I have spoken sound more ominous tones than anything I had heard in Burundi during my time there.
``The center will not hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.''--
W.B. Yeats
While the international community and those who support democratic institutions in Burundi have both hoped that political centrists and moderates would gain greater control, the country has instead become increasingly polarized. As the poet Yeats said, writing of another revolution, ``The center will not hold.'' Certainly it has not held in Burundi, and the risk is increasing of mere anarchy being loosed--if not upon the world--then at least upon Burundi and other countries in Central Africa.
The president and prime minister no longer travel together, and are said to be openly at odds. The prime minister's party, Uprona, has renewed its periodic call for the president's resignation. Moreover, the divisions are not only inter-party, but intra-party. Many Hutu members of parliament are now more sympathetic with Nyangoma than with their official leadership. And divisions among the Tutsi community--in the army itself, within Uprona, within the various minor parties--are forcing people more and more to the extremes.
prime minister tells the populace to defend itself against ``enemies''
As is well known, the prime minister several weeks ago called upon the population to defend itself against its
``enemies.'' But, as Dr. Minani pointed out in a recent Frodebu announcement, the Prime Minister did not define who those enemies were. That determination was left to the minds of the arming populace. Such calls to self-defense, it is reliably reported, have been repeated in the prime minister's visits to various locations in the countryside. Meanwhile, the FDD and other guerrilla groups have enlarged their attacks. And in face of an impotent civilian government incapable of protecting them, the majority of the population have sometimes given support to guerrillas even as they spread terror.
immolation and murder
Consider some of the events of the last several weeks, reported to me from several sources that have proven reliable in the past.
(A) In an act of ethnic purification, over Easter weekend, 22 Hutu domestic workers were immolated in Nyakabiga quarter in Bujumbura by their Tutsi employers.
(B) Reportedly, 50 Hutus, including community leaders, were killed in the city of Gitega: all were members of Frodebu and related Hutu minor parties. The head of the agriculture department for that region and several teachers in secondary schools were among those murdered. The provincial governor has now fled, as have other Hutu political leaders from Gitega, the second-largest city in Burundi. To judge from recent government actions in other provinces, the civilian governor's departure will offer an excuse to replace him with yet another military governor.
(C) Even the national radio, known to favor Tutsi interests, and likely to underestimate the killing, has acknowledged that at least 300 people were killed in Gitega province between April 5-12.
(D) Tutsi extremists have driven the Red Cross from the city of Gitega so hat it will be unable to witness and possibly report on the carnage.
(E) The FDD attacked and killed a large number of Tutsi students in an urban center (the name of which I failed to record).
(F) After an attack by the FDD against the army, at Bukeye, on April 10 the army killed more than 30 Hutu civilians in revenge.
(G) An official in the security service has confirmed that members of the military are recruiting Tutsi civil servants and students, training them, and issuing them weapons for use against their ``enemies'' in the countryside.
(H) A university official has confirmed that a letter circulating now on campus has been signed by over 100 Tutsi students, urging their classmates to stop academic work and take up arms with them against Nyangoma and his allies (i.e. Hutus) in the Bujumbura quartiers of Mutanga Nord, Kinama, and the countryside.
(I) Lt. Col. Nzeyimana Dieudonne, a high-ranking officer in the gendarmerie, was assassinated on 20 April (reportedly by Sans Echec) in Bujumbura.
(J) The Hutu parliamentarian Gahungu Gerard, from the Province of Cibitoke--a moderate with a Tutsi wife, was killed by a gunman in Ngagara.
(K) On 20 April, at least 7 (perhaps more) Hutus were killed in the Bujumbura quartier of Nyakabiga, having been kidnapped and brought there from other parts of the city.
(L) Over 30 Hutus were massacred in the commune of Rutovo by Tutsi militias, assisted by the army.
(M) A secondary school (lycee) in Kayanza was attacked with grenades; two students were killed, others injured.
``Perhaps a million will die. . .''--a European diplomat
The above are a few illustrations of what is happening. They form but a fraction of the total picture. I have received reports of fighting during the past two weeks in Bubanza, Gatumba, Ngozi, Mutare, Karuzi, Gitega, Rutama, Bururi, and other locations. One reliable source said that at least 75-80% of the country is currently shaken by violence. A respected Western diplomat told me that every province except Bujumbura was now subject to attack by guerilla forces.
Perhaps most poignantly, I was asked by a very experienced European diplomat who once served in the USA and now serves in Burundi, ``Please, I know the generosity of the American people. Do what you can to see that the USA remains concerned. I am afraid, (he continued) that most of the world is about to give up on Burundi. But if the world gives up, there is a risk that not just thousands, but perhaps a million will die in a rage that no one can justify.''
I am not suggesting that I expect a million people to die. I do not. And I would be shocked if Burundi suffered carnage on anything approaching that scale. Nor do I believe Burundi has yet arrived at a situation similar to Rwanda on April 6, 1994.
But when I observe that the president of the majority political party and an experienced and balanced European diplomat foresee such possibilities, it should give us pause. Two years ago, very few people in Burundi used such severe terms. These two would not have. Today, many others might do so.
If asked whether I am predicting the imminence of a major civil war I would say: no. But with qualifications. During the months I was present in Burundi, I said confidently that no such event would occur within the next two months. I can no longer confidently say that. I don't know if the probability of such an event is 5%, 10%, 20% or higher. I do know it is no longer an impossibility.
Reports from every quarter describe the situation as more precarious than in 1994 or 1995. The capacity of the Burundi populace to absorb horrendous punishment and yet to persevere is awesome, but not infinite. I don't know the trigger point of national rage. And I have only the reports of others, not of my own eyes. But all their eyes see the situation as deteriorating more rapidly than before.
An unclassified cable is not the place to explore suggestions for possible ways to address all these problems. Yet, as ambassador, I want without delay and without reticence to offer a partial account of some of the events and attitudes that now prevail in Burundi. They sound the most threatening and dangerous toward peace, justice, democracy and human life that I have heard during the period that I have been privileged to serve as ambassador to Burundi.
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