104 Scarcity and SurfeitThis example illustrates the central characteristic of this kleptocratic and
predatory form of state formation: the lack of differentiation between the
political and economic spheres. Control over the state and political power is
synonymous with control over economic opportunity, individually and as an
elite group. This conflation of politics, economics and the power of coercion
is a recipe for violence; and violence is a basic ingredient in its creation and
maintenance.
Gaining and Retaining Access to the Predatory Bureaucracy
The framework of a state machinery structured around the purpose of rent
seeking was established during the colonial period, as we have seen. We have
also already noted the historical rise to pre-eminence of the Tutsi over the
Hutu in gaining access to this state apparatus through colonial education
policies, supported by racist ideology.
Unequal access to education remains one of the main means of control-
ling access to the bureaucracy. This applies to the exclusion of Hutu students,
but also reflects the regional bias of the regime, thereby disadvantaging
northern Tutsi as well. Ngaruko and Nkrunziza51 show that state investment
in educational infrastructure is regionally skewed to privilege the southern
provincial origins of the ruling elite and the capital city. Bujumbura, as well
as the southern province of Bururi, has the lowest students per classroom
and per teacher ratios, and southern provinces are generally better off than
underprivileged northern provinces.
Differential access to education is, however, not the only means used to
prevent certain groups from becoming competitors for state access. The con-
centration of wealth and power in the hands of the minority Tutsi communi-
ty has not just been the function of 'ordinary' institutionalised discrimina-
tion. Competition was systematically prevented through the physical exter-
mination of educated Hutu and those with leadership potential, and through
the inculcation of fear. Many Hutu families did not send their children to
school after 1972 since they did not want them to be targets in the next round
of killing.
Although this most extreme mechanism of exclusion was primarily target-
ed at Hutus, one should remember that other groups were also denied access
to the state and its prospects for economic advancement. These groups
include most Tutsi not from Burnri, generally mostly rural youth, who are
given no alternative channels for improving their life chances, all Twa, and
often forgotten, most women.
The logic of such a predatory system has led to a highly skewed distribu-
tion of resources according to two dimensions: sectorial and regional. These
dimensions reflect the twin raisons d'Etre of a predatory state: the maximisa-
tion of the rent-seeking potential for the existing elite within the centralised
state, and secondly, the creation and maintenance of structures which reflect,