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Last week the U.N. offered peacekeeping troops to prevent further fighting. Burundi's ruling Hutu party and the Tutsi-dominated army both refused. Meanwhile, the economy is sinking fast. All international aid to Burundi has been suspended until a new President is named. As a result, industrial production has dropped 20%; by the end of November, the government may not even be able to meet its payroll.
The only thing now holding the country together is a delicate equilibrium of fear. On one hand there is each ethnic group's terror of the other. Counterbalancing that is the fear that if either side gives in to its worst impulses, Burundi will detonate as Rwanda did. "It's a tense, threatening atmosphere," says Irish aid worker Orla Quinlan. "Every time someone is attacked or killed, you say that's it. That's the trigger that will blow Burundi apart."