18.04.07 - BURUNDI/BOOKS REVIEW - PUBLICATION OF A BOOK ON THE 1972 BURUNDI CRISIS

Arusha, April 18, 2007 (FH) – Jean Francois Dupaquier and Jean-Pierre Chretien have published with Karthala Editions an account of the 1972 crisis in Burundi which some have characterized as genocide.   The two authors, who have already collaborated on a collective work “The Medias of Genocide” which appeared soon after the Rwandan genocide, are specialists in the region.  The first was in Burundi in 1972 and the second, a professor at CNRS has already written on the country.   Using French and Belgian diplomatic archives and conducting interviews between 1999 and 2002, they have reconstructed the history of the crisis during which time elites of Hutu origin were hunted down for 3 months.   Their analysis “weighs equally on the construction of contradictory propaganda and on the often-ambiguous plots of foreign powers,” their editor explained.   PB/KD © Hirondelle News Agency