Burundi Massacre

The Burundi genocide is mind-boggling in its dimensions: 300,000 slaughtered in 1972, up to 5,000 butchered in 1988. Only William Raspberry (Op-Ed Page, Aug. 26) seems to have the moral outrage to question why the rest of us are not in the streets protesting. The numbers alone overwhelm the senses as did the “Final Solution”; the land is so far away, so isolated, so absent from the screen.

And from the political aspect neither Jesse Jackson, the NAACP, the Urban League nor Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda could expect to gain much mileage out of this. It’s a liberal non-event. Raspberry answers his own question when he says that “we will . . . simply shrug it off.” Back to South African boycotts, PLO hugs and other prime-time photo opportunities.

LARRY BRIGGS

Twentynine Palms