Sir, - I have just returned from the Great Lakes region of Africa where there is mounting concern that the ethnic cleansing in Burundi will plunge the country into another Rwandanstyle bloodbath.
The country is locked in an orgy of killing. The Government has lost control and the Tutsi army and Hutu rebels are committing daily atrocities. Politicians, diplomats and aid workers fear a bloodbath. Most recently the UN's High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, who visited Bujumbura warned that Burundi was now in a civil war situation.
Two years ago the international community stood idly by and watched the genocide of one million people in Rwanda. Tens of, thousands more died in the cholera epidemic that swept through the refugees after their exodus into Zaire. Today there are over one million people still dependent on food donations in the refugee camps on the Rwandan border. They are a forgotten people.
Burundi today is ready to erupt, but senseless slaughter can be avoided. Intervention, now, by the international community will save countless lives.
A climate of fear exists in the ,country. There is a curfew in the capital Bujumbura, there are restrictions on movement in the country and no one knows exactly people have been workers too have been targeted. Over 100,000 have been killed in the past three years.
There is a need now for inter,national intervention to avert a crisis. Unlike Rwanda which shares the same ethnic mix, Hutus and Tutsis live in ethnic enclaves with the vast majority of the Tutsis living in the capital, Bujumbura. Unless the international community can broker a lasting peace they should provide ,"an independent force to police ,the voluntary segregation already in place, and keep the killers at bay.
It has been done in Cyprus and Bosnia. There is no need for another Rwandan style isaster, The world cannot close its eyes and make it go away, it must see, what can be done and then act. - Yours, etc.,
Director, GOAL,
Dun Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.