Burundi

Country in east central Africa, bounded north by Rwanda, west by the Democratic Republic of Congo, southwest by Lake Tanganyika, and southeast and east by Tanzania.

Government

Burundi has a transitional multiparty political system, with a presidential executive. The president is elected by universal suffrage for a maximum of two five-year terms. The president nominates two vice-presidents who, along with a council of ministers (cabinet) appointed by the president, forms the executive. There is a two-chamber legislature, comprising a 118-member lower house, the national assembly, and a 49-member upper house, the senate. Lower-house members are directly elected for five-year terms through proportional representation. Senators also serve five-year terms, but are indirectly elected, through electoral colleges of local councillors. Extra seats are added to the assembly and senate in accordance with ethnic and gender quotas.

History

Originally inhabited by the Twa pygmies, Burundi was taken over by Bantu Hutus in the 13th century. The Hutu and Twa lived together in harmony, but were overrun in the 15th century by the militarily more advanced Tutsi. Despite comprising less than a seventh of the population, the Tutsi dominated through a military-based monarchy and oppressed the Hutu majority community. In 1890, ruled by a Tutsi king and known as Urundi, it became part of German East Africa and during World War I was occupied by Belgium. Later, as part of Ruanda-Urundi, it was administered by Belgium as a League of Nations (and then United Nations) trust territory.

The 1961 elections, supervised by the United Nations (UN), were won by UPRONA, a party formed by Louis, one of the sons of the reigning king, Mwambutsa IV. Louis was assassinated after only two weeks as prime minister and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, André Muhirwa. In 1962 Urundi separated from Ruanda and, as Burundi, attained internal self-government and then full independence.

Republic

During the first four years after independence, Burundi remained under the control if its Tutsi monarchy. In 1966 King Mwambutsa IV, after a 50-year reign, was deposed by his son, Charles, with army help, and the constitution was suspended. Later that year Charles, now Ntare V, was deposed by his prime minister, Capt Michel Micombero, a Tutsi, who declared Burundi a republic. The country was controlled thereafter, until 1993, by a succession of Tutsi military dictators.

1972 genocide and one-party state

In 1972 the deposed Ntare V was killed, allegedly by the Hutu. This provoked the Tutsi to massacre tens of thousands of Hutu in the first of a series of post-independence mass genocides. In 1973 amendments to the constitution made Micombero president and prime minister and in 1974 UPRONA was declared the only political party.

In 1976 Col Jean-Baptiste Bagaza deposed Micombero in a bloodless military coup. There was a return to civilian rule in 1977, leading to a drive against corruption land reform and introduction of a plan to promote Hutus to government positions. In 1978 the post of prime minister was abolished and a new constitution, providing for a national assembly, was adopted in 1981.

Bagaza was re-elected in 1984, as the sole candidate. His new government began to crack down hard on opposition activities and the country's human rights record deteriorated. In September 1987 Bagaza was overthrown in a military coup and replaced by a Military Council for National Redemption headed by Maj Pierre Buyoyá, a Tutsi. The 1981 constitution was suspended and opposition parties dissolved.

Second genocide

During 1988 relations between the majority Hutu community and the Tutsi governing elite deteriorated. This led to violent confrontations between Hutus and Tutsi hardliners, which led to a further genocide. In August 1988 Burundi's Tutsi-controlled army massacred thousands of Hutus. In all, around 150,000 people were killed and tens of thousands made refugees, many fleeing to neighbouring countries.

Hutus win presidency, leading to outbreak of civil war

In 1991, a new constitution was adopted which provided for a non-ethnic government and a presidential executive. The first direct presidential elections were held in 1992 and were won by Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu from the Hutu-dominated Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), who defeated Buyoya. In June 1993 FRODEBU also won a landslide victory in the national assembly elections. But in October 1993 President Ndadaye was assassinated by Tutsi army officers who attempted a coup. This triggered a further wave of interethnic violence across the country, claiming tens of thousands of lives, marking the start of a civil war. The coup collapsed as its leaders sought to distance themselves from the killings, and Prime Minister Sylvie Kiningi was able to retain control of government.

After a period of uncertainty, Cyprien Ntaryamira of FRODEBU was elected president in January 1994. He was killed three months later when an aircraft he was flying in with the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, crashed near the Rwandan capital, Kigali, apparently shot down by opponents of the Rwandan president. The speaker of the national assembly, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, became acting president, and while talks were underway on finding a permanent head of state, violence between Hutu and Tutsi armed groups spread. Meanwhile, the resulting genocide in Rwanda led to the influx into Burundi of hundreds of thousands of refugees which further destabilized the situation.

In September 1994 the leaders of all Burundi's political factions signed a power-sharing agreement and the following month Ntibantunganya was formally elected president. The election of a Hutu to the post of parliamentary speaker in December provoked renewed outbreaks of ethnic violence and the withdrawal from the coalition of the Tutsi leader of UPRONA. Violence flared up again in March 1995 after a massacre of Hutu refugees, apparently initiated by dissident Tutsi, and there were fears that it might spread uncontrollably.

Coup by Buyoya

In July 1996, the Hutu-dominated government was overthrown by the Tutsi leader Buyoya, as ethnic violence continued. The coup provoked economic sanctions by other African countries. Buyoya assumed the presidency and in August 1996 appointed a ‘government of national unity’, led by Pascal-Firmin Ndimira.

Civil war continues

During 1996–98 the country's civil war between its Tutsi-led army and Hutu rebels continued, with thousands more killed. In June 1998 the warring factions agreed to a ceasefire and to hold peace talks. This prompted the leaders of seven east African countries to suspend sanctions imposed in 1996. Nevertheless, military clashes and atrocities continued during 1999.

UN-brokered peace deal

In January 2000 Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, took on the role of mediator in the discussions, with UN backing. He appealed for the armed rebels to be included in the peace process, as the civil war grew worse, with around 5,000 refugees fleeing across the Tanzanian border each day. Mandela and the UN condemned the resettlement camps in which tens of thousands of civilians in Burundi were forced to live in inhumane conditions, and an agreement was made to close them.

Peace talks were renewed in March 2000, but rebel activity resumed in July 2000, following an attack on rebels made by Burundi's army, in response to the killing of five government soldiers. US president Bill Clinton went to Arusha, Tanzania, in August 2000, for the signing of a Hutu-Tutsi power-sharing deal intended to end the seven-year civil war, but some Tutsi parties refused to sign.

Fighting continued in February 2001 with attacks on Bujumbura by Hutu rebels. But in July 2001 there was a breakthrough in the Mandela-chaired peace talks. The country's 19 political parties agreed on a power-sharing deal under which Buyoya, a Tutsi, would remain president for the first 18 months of a new 3-year transitional government. A Hutu politician, Domitien Ndayizeye, would be vice-president, and their roles would be reversed halfway through the term. Once a total ceasefire had been agreed, countries including South Africa and Nigeria agreed to send peacekeepers.

The peace deal came close to being derailed when Tutsi extremist soldiers tried to overthrow President Buyoya. But they were unsuccessful, and the 8-year civil war, which had claimed 200,000 lives, was ended.

Power-sharing government

In October 2001 the first 700 South African peace-keeping troops arrived in Burundi. They would form part of a 1,400-strong peacekeeping force which would protect Hutus returning from abroad. On 1 November 2001, a power-sharing government was sworn in. But two armed Hutu rebel groups, the Forces for National Liberation (FNL) and Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), pledged to fight on and killings continued.

In January 2002, the Hutu leader of FRODEBU, Jean Minani, was elected president of Burundi's transitional assembly. Also in January 2002, the government promised to withdraw troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo in return for a promise from Congo to stop supporting rebels in Burundi.

In April 2003, Ndayizeye, the FRODEBU leader, replaced Buyoya as president in line with the power-sharing timetable. In November 2003 a ceasefire was signed with the largest Hutu rebel group, National Council for the Defence of Democracy-FDD (CNDD-FDD). The CNDD-FDD agreed to become a political party and that its soldiers would be integrated, from 2005, into Burundi's army, which comprised both Tutsis and Hutus.

In late 2004, UN and government forces disarmed thousands of Burundi soldiers and former rebels after the FNL killed 160 Congolese Tutsi rebels in a UN camp near the Congo border.

Parliamentary elections and ex-rebel president

In January 2005 voters approved a new constitution. This allowed parliamentary elections to be held, in July 2005, the first since the start of the civil war. The elections were won by the Hutu-dominated CNDD-FDD and in August 2005 the two chambers of parliament elected the CNDD-FDD leader Pierre Nkurunziza president.

Nkurunziza called for forgiveness of the Tutsis for the past genocides against the Hutu and for national reconciliation. In April 2006 the night curfew, in force across the country since 1993, was lifted as security conditions improved. In September 2006 the last rebel group, the FNL, signed a ceasefire. It agreed to demobilize and integrate with the national army, although a breakaway wing continued to maintain arms, fighting government troops in spring 2008.

In January 2007, the UN closed its peacekeeping operations in Burundi and set up a UN Integrated Office in Burundi to support efforts to rebuild the infrastructure and economy of one of the world's poorest countries. But the political situation remained strained, as the new Hutu-dominated government became increasingly authoritarian, arresting critics and tightly controlling the media.

Burundi (redirected from Republic of Burundi)