86 Scarcity and Surfeit
Burundi's prima facie environmental problem is the extreme scarcity of
land in this small country where the majority of the population lives off sub-
sistence agriculture. There are many kinds of scarcity, which for a rural, sub-
sistence population can be life threatening. But there is also an abundance of
resources. We argue, therefore, that the immediate problem of scarcity of
resources like land, and the seemingly immediate competition for such
resources among groups in the community, is not a direct cause of the wide-
spread violence that has wracked Burundi for the last 35 years. The violence
in which Tutsis have killed Hutus and Hutus, Tutsis is a result of elite com-
petition for control over the state.
Belligerents and analysts alike frame the conflict in the context of ethnici-
ty. The reality, however, presents a more complex and seemingly intractable
picture of competition for resources, competing urban and rural development
and investment policy priorities and industrial and agricultural demands.
Furthermore, there is a glaring schism between the country's southern and
northern regions, with far-reaching implications for the conflict. The ethnic
mask has served to draw attention away from the concrete structural conflict
of interests between the elite and the rural majority.
Even though the overt conflict does not reflect the structure of competi-
tion for resources, the character of Burundi's natural resources nonetheless
directly shapes how the state functions and why it resorts to violence. The
small base of most African economies, often monocultural like Burundi,
their disproportionate agrarian orientation, and their dependence on cash
crops have conspired with the legacy of colonial economic structures to
make many African countries extremely economically vulnerable and
unstable. In Burundi, more than 80% of foreign exchange receipts come
from one cash crop alone, coffee. This has ensured that the country's eco-
nomic health is held to ransom by the vagaries of international market
forces.
The vulnerability of Burundi's economy and ecology has been exacerbat-
ed by the predatory nature of the state, proverbially biting the hand that feeds
it. Neglect of the agricultural sector and the hinterland have ensured that over
time primary producers are discouraged, land is under increasing strain of
degradation, and hunger looms.
Burundi's, and indeed the entire Great Lakes region's, future is contingent
on the peaceful coexistence of their inhabitants. Although it must be clearly
stated that the Hutu majority has suffered the most from Tutsi elite exclusion
and repression, we here note that there is extreme structural violence against
all Burundians who are not members of the narrow urban ruling elite,
because they suffer poverty, illiteracy and ill health from the distorting effects
of the predatory policies of the elite-controlled state. The challenge, then, is
to redress the structural bases of the conflicts in the region, for example the
coffee sub-sector in Burundi.