Case Study:

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 F - General and Legal Interpretations of the Facts

Divergences in scholarly interpretations of the 1972 tragedy revolve around the concept of genocide: Should the killings of Hutu by the Tutsi army and the JRR be described as genocide? If so, on what grounds can one rule out the use of the term to describe the wanton killings of Tutsi civilians by Hutu insurgents?

The debate about genocide has tended to generate more heat than light, in part because of the absence of a consensus of opinion among scholars as to what constitutes genocide, in part also because the lack of solid empirical evidence about specific aspects of the tragedy. To this must be added the astonishing indifference of the international community about the events of 1972, which is all the more striking when compared to the sustained attention given to the Rwanda genocide. With few exceptions, the tendency among observers to hold up the case of Rwanda as a major reference point has all but excluded the case of Burundi as a legitimate candidate for the analysis of genocide.

Nonetheless, few knowledgeable observers would deny that the genocidal dimension is deeply inscribed in the atrocities committed in 1972. In his monumental history of the Great Lakes region, Jean-Pierre Chrétien refers to the repression as “a veritable genocide of Hutu elites” (Chrétien, 2000: 277), and in a 1974 report to the London-based Minority Rights Group, this writer used the term “selective genocide” (Lemarchand, 1974). This is in contrast with the tendency of Rwanda scholars to consistently refer to the Burundi as an example of “ethnic massacres” — and to the Hutu rebellion as a “purported [sic] rebellion” (Leonard and Straus, 2003: 73) — as if to speak of a Burundi genocide might somehow diminish the horrors of its vastly more destructive Rwanda counterpart.

When describing Burundi as a case of genocide, or “partial” or “selective” genocide, scholars generally have in mind the mass killings of Hutu by Tutsi; the massacre of Tutsi by Hutu, on the other hand, is seldom, if ever characterized as genocide. A major exception is the work of Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Jean-Francois Dupaquier, titled Burundi 1972: Au bord des génocides (2007). The substance of their argument is inscribed in the book’s intriguing sub-title: the implication is that we are here dealing not with one but two “near genocides”. The crimes committed by Hutu rebels are presented as a projet génocidaire, aimed at the physical liquidation of the Tutsi community; the main difference with the killings of Hutu, presumably, is that the projet never had a chance to fully materialize. But the element of “brinkmanship” in the sub-title suggests that neither in fact qualifies as a full-fledged genocide.

The Chrétien-Dupaquier argument raises some obvious questions: while uncritically endorsing the official version of the Burundi authorities at the time – the notion that the crimes committed by Hutu rebels were the harbinger of a genocide – the authors are at a loss to offer solid empirical data in support of their thesis and at the same time all too prone to turn a blind eye to counterfactual evidence. As shown above, the targeting included many Hutu as well as Tutsi; the participation of former Congolese ‘rebels’ (simba), or described as such by many observers, suggests the improvised character of the rebellion; so does the widely scattered, piecemeal aspect of the killings, and the absence of a coherent genocidal ideology other than what might be construed from anti-Tutsi slogans. To see in the killings of approximately one thousand Tutsi by scores of rural insurgents manipulated by a handful of radicalized intellectuals a parallel with the planned extermination of anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 Hutu carries little conviction, no matter how much genocidal intent might be read in the anti-Tutsi sloganeering of the Hutu rebels.

As noted earlier, there is no commonly accepted definition of genocide. Even among scholars who subscribe to the 1948 UN Convention, many would agree that its principal criteria – intent, targeting of racial, ethnic or religious groups, and the destruction “in whole or in part” of such groups – defy precise measurement. Nonetheless, they provide important analytic touchstones for differentiating the character of the Hutu insurgency from the ensuing carnage. The element of intent emerges with tragic clarity from the deliberate, systematic elimination of all Hutu elites and potential elites; ethnic targeting (except for the killing of Ntare) was far more consistent at every stage of the repression than during the rebellion; and while in both cases the targeted group was only “partially” eliminated, the virtual annihilation of Hutu elites is a commentary on the vastly more destructive consequences of the repression.

If only because of its “selective” character – the elimination of an ethnically defined elite group – the case of Burundi does not fit into the Holocaust (or the Rwanda) paradigm. It cannot be described as a total genocide, and for that reason some may quibble about the appropriateness of the genocide label. Jacques Sémelin’s definition – “that particular process of civilian destruction that is directed at the total eradication of a group, the criteria by which it is defined being determined by the perpetrator” (Sémelin 2007, 340) – might conceivably offer conceptual ammunition to those who would challenge the view that anything like a genocide has been committed against Tutsi or Hutu. By the same token, as defined by the perpetrator as the group to be eradicated, there can be little doubt that the extermination of the Hutu elites stands as a tragic illustration of the genocidal urge to “purify and destroy”(Ibid.) Once all is said and done, no amount of retrospective ratiocination about the applicability of the genocide label can ever erase from their collective memories the agonies suffered by Hutu and Tutsi in the time of ikiza.

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