History

Recent History

Peace talks staggered on during the conflict, though they stalled in late 1999 following the death of the convenor, former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere. His replacement, the revered Nelson Mandela, soon found trying to mediate between people with such ingrained hatreds a daunting challenge, and ceasefires rarely lasted more than days.

A breakthrough came in April 2003 when President Buyoya handed power over to the Hutu leader Domitien Ndayizeye. Following this concession, both sides promised to work towards elections in late 2004. Despite the breakthrough however, fighting continues to flicker sporadically in the countryside and in the capital. In the last decade alone, it's estimated that at least 300,000 Burundians have been killed by inter-tribal violence.

Modern Day History

In the 1950s, a nationalist organisation based on unity between the tribes was founded under the leadership of the mwami's eldest son, Prince Rwagasore. However, during the lead-up to independence, the prince was assassinated with the connivance of the colonial authorities, who feared their commercial interests would be threatened if he came to power.

Despite this setback, the Hutu challenged the concentration of power in Tutsi hands when independence was granted in 1962, and for a brief period it appeared that Burundi was headed for a majority government. But, following the 1964 elections, Mwami Mwambutsa refused to appoint a Hutu prime minister, even though Hutu candidates attracted the majority of votes. Hutu frustration boiled over about a year later, and Hutu military officers and political figures staged an attempted coup. Although it failed, the coup led to the flight of the Mwambutsa into exile in Switzerland, and he was soon replaced by a Tutsi military junta.

A wholesale purge of Hutu from the army and bureaucracy followed, and in 1972 another large-scale revolt resulted in the deaths of more than 1000 Tutsi. In response, the Tutsi military junta responded with targeting killings that bordered on genocide: any Hutu with wealth, a formal education or a government job was rooted out and murdered, often in a horrific manner. After three months, 200,000 Hutu had been killed and another 100,000 had fled to Tanzania, Rwanda and Congo (Zaïre).

In 1976 Jean-Baptiste Bagaza came to power in a bloodless coup. As part of a so-called democratisation programme, candidates (mostly Tutsi) were voted into the National Assembly during the elections of 1982. The elections gave the Hutu a modicum of power in the National Assembly, though it was severely limited. During the Bagaza years, there were some half-hearted attempts by the Tutsi government to remove some of the main causes of intertribal conflict, though these were unfortunately nothing more than cosmetic PR stunts.

Bagaza was toppled by a coup in September 1987 that was led by his cousin Major Pierre Buyoya. The new regime attempted to address the causes of intertribal tensions yet again by gradually bringing Hutu representatives back into positions of power in the government. However, in August of 1988, there was a renewed outbreak of intertribal violence in northern Burundi; thousands were massacred and many more fled into neighbouring Rwanda.

Buyoya finally bowed to international pressure in June of 1933, and multiparty elections were held soon after. These brought a Hutu-dominated government to power, led by Melchior Ndadaye, himself a Hutu. However, a dissident army faction staged a bloody coup in late October the same year, which resulted in the assassination of the new president. The coup eventually failed when army generals disowned the plotters, but in the chaos that followed the assassination, thousands were massacred in intertribal fighting. As a result of the conflict, an estimated 400,000 refugees fled across the border into Rwanda.

In April 1994 the new president, Ntaryamira (a Hutu), was killed in the same plane crash that killed Rwanda's President Habyarimana, which sparked the attempted genocide of Rwandan Tutsi that led to nearly one million deaths.. Following the crash, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya was immediately appointed as the interim president. Nevertheless, both Hutu militias and the Tutsi-dominated army went on the offensive. No war was actually declared, but at least 100,000 people were killed in clashes between mid-1994 and mid-1996. In July 1996, the former president, Pierre Buyoya, again carried out a successful coup, and took over as the country's president with the support of the army. Since then, intertribal fighting has continued between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated government and Tutsi militia. Hundreds of thousands of political opponents, mostly Hutus, have been herded into 'regroupment camps', and bombings, murders and other horrific activities have continued throughout the country.

Pre 20th Century History

The indigenous peoples of Burundi are the Twa Pygmies, who were gradually displaced from about AD 1000 by the Hutu. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the country experienced another wave of migration: the tall, pastoral Tutsi from Ethiopia and Uganda. The Tutsi gradually subjugated the Hutu in a feudal system similar to that of medieval Europe. The Tutsi became a loosely organised aristocracy with a mwami (king) at the top of each social pyramid. Under this system, the Hutu relinquished their land and mortgaged their services to the nobility in return for cattle - a symbol of wealth and status in Burundi.

At the end of the 19th century, Burundi and Rwanda were colonised by Germany, but they were so thinly garrisoned that the Belgians were easily able to oust the Germans during WWI. After the war, the League of Nations mandated Burundi (then known as Urundi) and Rwanda to Belgium.

Taking advantage of the feudal structure, the Belgians ruled indirectly through the Tutsi chiefs and princes, granting them wide-ranging powers to recruit labour and raise taxes. The Tutsi clearly were not averse to abusing these powers. The establishment of coffee plantations, and the resulting concentration of wealth in the hands of the Tutsi urban elite, further exacerbated tensions between the two tribal groups.