Burundi
Sir: In his article, 'The racism of Black Africa' (6 February), Mr Andrew Kenny, writing about the genocide in Burundi, says:
This atrocity produced not one peep of protest from the United Nations or the Organisation of African Unity or the BBC or the World Council or Churches or any part of the anti-apartheid movement. Dr Julius Nyerere of neighbouring Tanzania made not a murmur of protest. The newspaper editors and statesmen of the world remained silent . . . . In all the world outside Burundi, there was no one to shed a tear.. .
That is very nearly true, but not quite. In April 1976, I wrote an article in the Times about Burundi, in which I portrayed it as a rather comical place; I was wholly ignorant of the massacres. When my article appeared, Mr Ben Whitaker, head of the Minority Rights Group, sent me a report which his organisation had commissioned and published, by Professor Rene Lemar- chand and Mr David Martin, which told the hideous story; the report was called Selective Genocide in Burundi. The rappor- teurs were exemplary in their thorough- ness, objectivity and tone, though even they greatly underestimated the numbers of the slaughtered, and the case histories which they recounted matched — indeed, in some cases exceeded — the worst of the Holocaust.
Having in my innocence made light of Burundi, I deemed it my duty to straighten the record, and a few weeks later I published a longer article, summarising and commenting upon the MRG report. I, too, pointed out that neither the UN nor the OAU had said a word on the subject, and that both Tanzania and Zaire had sent supplies to the killers, and I quoted the report's evidence of the complicity of France: 'French military assistants. . . were holding the helicopters steady while Burundi soldiers were machine-gunning Hutu rebels out of the side windows.'
The credit must go the MRG; I was only fugleman to their report. But as far as I know, there was no other comment or protest, and I would not be surprised to learn that between my article in May 1976 and Mr Kenny's last week, there has not been another word about it.
Bernard Levin
London W1
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