Stoking the fires

de Arms Project (Human Rights Watch)

"This report was written by Kathi L. Austin ... and by Joost R. Hiltermann"--Acknowledgments. "Since 1993, a vicious war of ethnic slaughter has raged in Burundi. The army has employed increasing violence against the Hutu population purportedly to counter attacks by Hutu rebel groups and protect the Tutsi minority. The majority Hutu population, organized by several political groups, have waged a steadily growing insurgency, with significant links to the Rwandan exile armies in neighboring states. In this conflict, a seemingly unstoppable flow of arms to all sides has greatly contributed to the serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law that have taken place, including the killing of tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, often solely because of their ethnicity, and the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of others"--Back cover.