CNN WORLD News

More violence looming in Burundi

child

U.S. mulls intervention force

May 22, 1996
Web posted at: 11:55 p.m. EDT (0355 GMT)

From Correspondent Ralph Begleiter

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Clinton administration is considering whether to organize an American-led international military intervention in Burundi, the central African country that lies next-door to Zaire and Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people were massacred and many became refugees between 1993 and 1994.

1993 bloodshed
(664K QuickTime movie)

Since the massacres, thousands of Hutus and Tutsis have fled to refugee camps, mostly in Zaire and Tanzania, run and supplied by the United Nations and private humanitarian groups.

firehut

"Maybe it is time for the international community to show somewhat more force or will or determination, I would say, than what was the case in the past," said Joel Boutroue, U.N. refugee director in Goma, Zaire.

While the world's attention has been focused on Bosnia, recent violence between Hutus and Tutsis in Burundi threatens to erupt into another spate of brutal murders, refueling the cycle of hatred and revenge.

Some U.S. officials say they see the threat as quite imminent and dangerous.

"We could have 100,000 dead bodies by July, with concomitant images on worldwide television," one official told CNN.


bodies

But other officials are wary of intervention. They suggest Burundi has some self-limiting dynamics that will prevent another massacre on the Rwandan scale.

U.S. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake recently returned from the highest-level U.S. visit to date in Burundi. He is the latest in a series of high-ranking western officials to visit the country. Lake indicated to CNN that the Clinton administration is wary of intervention, saying U.S. combat troops will not be offered, only logistics.

"In the end, when it comes to heading off the crisis, that has to be a decision that is made by the Burundians," Lake said.

U.S. officials admit intervention in Burundi -- a place many Americans could not find on the map -- could prove risky in an election summer in the United States, especially with U.S. troops already deployed in Bosnia.

Some officials estimate that a "potential intervention force" in Burundi would require 5,000 to 25,000 troops, while some military officials suggest that up to 50,0000 troops might be needed, depending on the scope of the mission.

"There is no shortage of infantry troops in Africa," said U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry. "There's no shortage of troops that could provide the peacekeepers in this."

The proposed force would involve mostly troops from African countries such as Tanzania, Botswana and Ethiopia who have already volunteered. And a few hundred troops from the United States and equally small numbers from France and Belgium, which have strong colonial ties to Burundi. The U.S. troops would be used for logistics, airlifts and communications.

refugees

U.S. officials told CNN plans call for establishing "safe havens" in most of Burundi's towns to protect the ruling minority Tutsis from attack by the majority Hutus, who live mostly in the rural areas.

But U.S. government analysts said the "safe havens" plan resembles the U.N.'s failed peacekeeping operation in Bosnia, where some Muslim enclaves were overrun by Serbs.

According to CNN sources, the United States and its allies could justify intervention in Burundi on humanitarian and moral grounds, to solve the long-running refugee problem left by the last round of massacres and to avoid the impression that the Western world would stand aside and watch -- again -- until it is too late to prevent another tragedy.

Related stories

Related sites:


Feedback

Send us your comments.
Selected responses are posted daily.

[Imagemap]
| CONTENTS | SEARCH | CNN HOME PAGE | MAIN WORLD NEWS PAGE |

Copyright © 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.