Burundi: A Boot for the Boy King

While President Mobutu celebrated the first anniversary of his military regime in the Congo last week, everyone showed a special interest in his highest-ranking official guest, King Ntare V, 19, of neighboring Burundi. At a round of parties, guests wondered openly how the shy boy King would fare in Maryland-sized, blood-torn Burundi, from which he only last July ousted his own royal father.

Suddenly they had their answer. Ntare’s Prime Minister Michel Micombero, 26, who had supervised Ntare’s overthrow of his dad, announced that he had decided to chuck the monarchy altogether and rule the country himself. Fear immediately arose among his neighbors that he might invite back the Red Chinese, who were expelled by the old King in 1965 for meddling in Burundi affairs. Soon the capital of Bujumbura began to fill up with leftist emissaries from Nasser and from Guinea’s ambitious Sékou Touré.

Micombero warned that if King Ntare tried to return to Burundi he would be treated “as a criminal.” No difference. Ntare could find little support for any comeback attempt. Mobutu offered his sympathy, but was not about to do more. An ex-King at an age when he still has time to pick a less perilous career, Ntare sadly abandoned the Congo and headed off for Europe.