Slavoj Zizek's The Fragile Absolute Summer Reading Some of our favorites. Africa in Agony By G. Pascal Zachary Bujumbura, Burundi T he governor's office is reached by a dirt road that winds south from the capital through a hillside jungle stretching along the east side of Lake Tanganyika. Major Bathalzar Ntamahungiro, the governor, won't travel the Nelson Mandela excoriated the leaders of both groups for failing to redress the imbalance of power between Hutus and Tutsis. Six months ago, he says, the rebels wreaked havoc on the main road and often killed peasant farmers. The peasants, guarded by government troops, can leave their temporary mud homes during the day but must return in the evening.
Conditions are abysmal.
Hundreds of people are crammed onto a small patch of bare hillside. They lack running water, electricity, schools or health clinics. Families live in small, mud-walled huts covered by plastic tarps. In the camp, surrounded by government soldiers and cut off from their crops and homes, it is harder for them to help the rebels, the governor says. But when you're fighting a guerrilla war, you don't win overnight.