Word: tutsi
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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...
...verdant, mountainous beauty, the tiny African nation of Burundi (pop. 4,000,000) has a bloodied and tragic history. Untold thousands have been killed in both Burundi and its neighboring sister-state of Rwanda during periodic tribal wars involving the Hutu majority and the tall, legendary Tutsi overlords. Last week Burundi was recovering from a brief but violent civil war that left an estimated 10,000 dead -including the country's last Tutsi King-and at least 500,000 homeless...
...King was 25-year-old Ntare V, who had returned to Burundi in March after spending six years in exile. Ntare came home after receiving assurances from the man who deposed him, President Michel Micombero, who is also a Tutsi, that he would be free to live in Burundi "as an ordinary citizen." But as soon as Ntare reached the Burundi capital of Bujumbura, he was whisked off by helicopter to the old royal capital of Kitega and placed under house arrest in his former palace. When thousands of Hutu tribesmen revolted a month later, they stormed the palace...
...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...
Savage fighting spread throughout the country. In the south, armed bands of Hutus seized control of the towns of Bururi and Rumonge and killed hundreds of Tutsi. On the shore of Lake Tanganyika, a force of 600 rebels occupied the town of Nyanza-Lac and drove off low-flying military planes with cascades of fire. "Everywhere," reported one pilot, "you see dead bodies...