Word: micombero
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Burundi's handsome Tutsi President Colonel Michel Micombero, 33, who came to power seven years ago by ousting the decadent royal clan, denies any intent to exterminate the Hutus. He likes to point out that many of them belong to his Uprona Party, and claims that much of the killing has resulted from invasion attempts by Hutus living in exile in Tanzania. Seated in the summer house of his lakeside palace while two crested cranes paced back and forth in a nearby cage, Micombero explained: "Just as in the U.S. and most other countries, it is the political majority...
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...
Such are the scenes of genocide in Burundi, where the Hutu tribal majority revolted last month against their traditional overlords, the Tutsi tribesmen,* and the Tutsi-controlled government of President Michel Micombero (TIME, May 22). The revolt was put down after two weeks of fighting, but not before tens of thousands of Tutsis had been slain. In the town of Nyanza-Lac alone, a single Catholic priest presided over the mass burial of 15,000 Tutsis...
...first Micombero insisted that the uprising was a plot by Tutsi royalists who were trying to free the King. Soon, though, it became clear that the rebels were Hutu revolutionaries whose real aim was to overthrow the Micombero government...
...that point, President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (formerly known as the Congo) decided to help Micombero by airlifting to Burundi a planeload of veterans from his own army. Among other things, Mobutu wanted to get rid of a handful of onetime Congolese rebels-the notorious Simbas-who had paddled across Lake Tanganyika and joined in the fighting on the Hutu side. Mobutu's tough troops enabled the loyalist forces to put down the rebellion. Last week the Burundi radio announced that all leaders of the aborted coup had been captured-and appealed to the world for food...