One of the most perplexing features of the welter of events that led to the slaughter of 1972 has to do with the emergence, or the resurgence, of intra-Tutsi rivalries. These were particularly noticeable in the months immediately preceding the holocaust and involved among other things a struggle for power between the so-called Tutsi-Hima and the Tutsi-Banyaruguru. The following passage is excerpted from Father Rodegem’s article “Burundi: La Face Cachée de la Rébellion” (Intermédiaire, 15 June 1973) in which the author emphasizes the historical dimensions of the Hima-Banyaruguru conflict. One may or may not agree with the facts and interpretations presented by the author; however, the article suggests at least one possible explanation for the scale of the massacre: by systematically killing all educated Hutu elements, the Hima elites also destroyed the basis for a potential alliance between Hutu intellectuals and Tutsi-Banyaruguru.

Father Rodegem spent many years in Burundi and is intimately acquainted with the traditional aspects of Rundi culture. He is the author of Sagesse Kirundi (Tervueren: 1961) and “Ainsi Parlait Samandari: Analyse ethnolinguistique d’un phénomène de déviance dans une société à caractère empirique” (Anthropos, Vol. 69, 1974). The latter is a pioneering effort to penetrate the political culture of Burundi through techniques of analysis borrowed from ethnolinguistics.