If Primus beer runs dry, Burundians will know the economy has collapsed, reports Chris McGreal from Bujumbura
Perhaps the safest way to get around Burundi is to hitch a ride on a Primus beer lorry. While other vehicles run the gauntlet of Hutu rebels, and the army moves with trepidation in many rural areas, there is no part of the country that central Africa’s best-loved beer cannot reach. And it does so unscathed.
The Brarudi brewery, bottler of Primus, is among the most valuable and closely guarded buildings in Bujumbura. Soldiers are on hand outside its barbed- wire-topped walls to ensure the rebels don’t hit where it hurts — and to claim a few bottles of beer for their effort.
The government is protecting a precious source of social stability — if the Primus runs out, Burundians will know the country is collapsing. And in three years of civil conflict, political chaos and economic decline, the brewery has become the bedrock of the economy.
The war and falling prices have driven the coffee industry into the ground. Foreign aid paid a good chunk of the government’s salaries until the United States and European countries cut it off in April. The sanctions imposed by Burundi’s neighbours after the military coup a fortnight ago are preventing exports. So it is left to the brewery to drip-feed the government’s coffers.
Last year beer taxes were the single largest source of revenue. This year they may account for up to half the government’s income. But the brewery and the government are not the only ones taking a slice of the pie. Lorries laden with Primus move freely because Hutu rebels exact their own “tax”.
While coffee convoys and other goods are a favoured target for the insurgents, it may take no more than a crate or two of beer for the armed men at the roadside to wave the Primus lorry on. Hauliers pay the biggest contributions — otherwise known as protection money — to the most organised of the rebel groups.
It is smart politics by the rebels. Hitting tea and coffee plantations is one thing. But who wants to be responsible for cutting off the beer supply?
Possibly the Dutch. The Brarudi brewery is 60% owned by Heineken, creating some dissent in the Netherlands, where the company is accused of helping to perpetuate Tutsi power and the slaughter of Hutu civilians.
The brewery’s Belgian manager “went on holiday” the night before the coup, leaving orders forbidding the Burundian staff to talk publicly about the brewery’s operations.
Besides Primus, Brarudi brews Amstel, holds the Coca-Cola concession and bottles water. But at the end of a hard day, most Burundians reach for a Primus. From early morning government soldiers can be seen swigging from the three free bottles they receive each day. Their officers insist it has no impact on their fighting abilities.
But the evidence from Rwanda suggests that it adds to their brutality. Many of those who contributed to Rwanda’s genocide could be seen drinking a Primus between killings. As Rwanda’s largely Hutu army retreated before the Tutsi rebel onslaught, the soldiers abandoned weaponry to the enemy in favour of hauling crates of beer on to their vehicles.
Those were good times for Burundi’s brewery. Rwanda’s war had shut down its own beer production, leaving an open and thirsty market. But now the Burundians have their own conflict, and the pressure of regional sanctions.
Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda are enforcing a blockade which has halted flights, sealed borders and cut fuel deliveries. The price of imports rises daily.
The brewery says it is more than prepared for siege. It has stockpiled ingredients and learned in the past three years how to survive political strikes, intimidation of workers, power cuts, water shortages and death threats against the management.