Kenya: Tale of Two Sister Nations Going in Opposite Directions

Posted to the web 21 July 2008 Josh Kron Nation Nairobi On the slick beach-street bars of Burundi's capital Bujumbura, on Lake Tanganyika, 10 Rwandans pass time drinking gin and slapping the sides of their girlfriends. They are a mix of former students of the University of Rwanda in Butare, near the Burundi border, and the children of those who fled across the border in 1959. They are mostly Tutsi, a powerful but minority group in both Burundi and Rwanda. They and are not necessarily proud of it, but they are vocal. There are also Burundians at the bar, and Hutu, the vast majority of the population in the country. They eat, drink and laugh together, while simultaneously referring to one another by ethnicity. Ethnic conflict Strange for a country immortalised in African history as a land of ethnic conflict that has killed... [read full story]