History of Burundi
Urewe civilisation Hutu, Tutsi and Twa origins
Kingdom of Burundi German East Africa 1891–1919 Ruanda-Urundi 1922–1962 Ruzagayura famine 1943–1944
Road to independence Parliamentary elections 1961 Prince Rwagasore assassination 1961 Independence 1962
Burundi 1962–present Army coup attempt 1965 Ndizeye coup Jul 1966 Micombero coup Nov 1966 Genocidal massacre of Hutus 1972 Bagaza coup 1976 Buyoya coup, 1st 1987
Burundian Civil War Genocidal massacre of Tutsis 1993 Buyoya coup, 2nd 1996 Titanic Express massacre 2000 Army coup attempt 2001 Itaba massacre 2002
Current Second Congo War 1998–2003 Burundian unrest 2015–present
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Since Burundi's independence in 1962, there have been two events called genocides in the country. The 1972 mass killings of Hutus by the Tutsi-dominated army,^[1] and the 1993 mass killings of Tutsis by the majority-Hutu populace are both described as genocide in the final report of the International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi presented to the United Nations Security Council in 1996.^[2]

Background[edit]

The demographics of Burundi through the 1960s and 1970s were roughly 86 percent Hutu, 13 percent Tutsi, and 1 percent Twa (Mann, M., 2005. The Dark Side of Democracy, p. 431). For most of this period, the Tutsi maintained a near monopoly on senior government and military positions. Burundi gained its independence from Belgium in 1962, and in May 1965 the first post-independence elections were held. The Hutu candidates scored a landslide victory, capturing 23 seats out of a total 33. But, instead of appointing a Hutu prime minister, the king Mwambutsa IV appointed a Tutsi prince, Léopold Biha, as Prime Minister. On October 18, 1965, Hutus, angry with the king's decision, attempted a coup. The king fled the country, but the coup ultimately failed.^{[citation needed]}

Years later, the weeks approaching April 29 in 1972 were rustling with political interest from the events related to the return of the former king, Ntare V. From complex of elements agitated with Byzantine intrigues, Ntare went to Uganda first. Uganda’s president, Idi Amin, claimed he received a written guarantee from president Micombero that Ntare could return to Burundi and live there as a private citizen. Using the helicopter at his disposal from the Uganda chief of state, Ntare arrived where he and his ancestors had ruled as kings, in March 1972. Within a few hours he was put under house arrest in the former palace in Gitega. Soon after, an official radio broadcast proclaimed that Ntare was trying to instigate a mercenary invasion of Burundi to take back rule. Some ministers favored that he would be kept under restricted protection in Gitega, while others wanted him dead. The situation was unofficially resolved when Ntare was assassinated sometime between Saturday evening, April 29, and the following morning, under circumstances which are still unclear. Whether there was a conspiracy or his death was involved with a violent outbreak in Gitega has not been determined.^[3]

The genocides[edit]

1972[edit]

Initial violence preceding '72 killings[edit]

On April 27, 1972, a rebellion led by some Hutu members of the gendarmerie broke out in the lakeside towns of Rumonge and Nyanza-Lac declaring the establishment of the Martyazo Republic.^[4][5] Countless atrocities were reported by eyewitnesses, and the armed Hutu insurgents proceeded to kill every Tutsi in sight, as well as the Hutus who refused to join the rebellion.^[6] It is estimated that during this initial Hutu outbreak anywhere from 800 to 1200 people were killed.^[7]

Genocidal massacre of Hutus in '72[edit]

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Responding to the violence president Michel Micombero (Tutsi) proclaimed martial law. His armed forces killed Hutus en masse.^[8] The initial phases of the genocide were clearly orchestrated, with lists of targets including the Hutu educated—the elite—and the militarily trained. Once this had been completed, the Tutsi-controlled army moved against the larger civilian populations.

Number of victims of the '72 genocide[edit]

The Tutsi-controlled government authorities originally estimated that roughly 15,000 had been killed, while Hutu opponents claimed number was much closer to 300,000.^[9] Today, estimates hover in between these two figures, at between 80,000 and 210,000 killed.^[9][10]

Several hundred thousand Hutu are estimated to have fled the genocide into Zaire, Rwanda, and Tanzania.^[10][11]

Counterattacks by the Hutus after '72 genocide[edit]

During 29–30 April, the Burundi (Hutu) armed rebels allied with Zairian (Zaire) exiles (mulelists) and attacked southern Burundi, Gitega, and Bujumbura. They were trying to make a Hutu-dominated republic and get rid of the Tutsis. The Hutu government states there were about 50,000 deaths, the majority being Tutsis. However, most observers of the event believe that the figure of 50,000 is greatly exaggerated. Observers also concluded evidence that there was an attempt of Hutu elements to overthrow the government of Micombero. There was around 4-5 thousand Hutus involved in this attack. They did not have a count, but estimated 3,000 Tutsis killed within the first week. There is no evidence that Mulelists were involved with the violence but Mulelists signs, garb, and chants were used. This was part of a historical pattern of majority group resenting domination by a minority.^[12]

Foreign aid during the '72 violence[edit]

Burundi was declared to be a disaster area on May 1. After using $25,000 from the aid contingency fund of the World Disaster Relief Account, Burundi asked the United States for another $75,000, which was immediately granted. Most of the money was used to purchase goods locally or from nearby countries; items included blankets, two ambulances, food, clothes and transportation.^[13]

Assessment of the '72 violence as a genocide[edit]

If only because of its "selective" character – the elimination of an ethnically defined elite group – the case of Burundi does not fit into the Holocaust (or the Rwanda) paradigm. It cannot be described as a total genocide, and for that reason some may quibble about the appropriateness of the genocide label. Jacques Sémelin’s definition – "that particular process of civilian destruction that is directed at the total eradication of a group, the criteria by which it is defined being determined by the perpetrator" (Sémelin 2007, 340) – might conceivably offer conceptual ammunition to those who would challenge the view that anything like a genocide has been committed against Tutsi or Hutu. By the same token, as defined by the perpetrator as the group to be eradicated, there can be little doubt that the extermination of the Hutu elites stands as a tragic illustration of the genocidal urge to "purify and destroy"(Ibid.) Once all is said and done, no amount of retrospective ratiocination about the applicability of the genocide label can ever erase from their collective memories the agonies suffered by Hutu and Tutsi in the time of ikiza.

— René Lemarchand (2008)^[14]

1990–94[edit]

Tensions between Burundi and Rwanda raise in the '90s[edit]

In October 1990, Rwandan exiles, mostly Tutsi, who had served for years in the Ugandan Armed Forces, invaded Rwanda. The next three years consisted of war between the Hutu government and the invading forces known as the Rwanda Patriotic Front.
In 1993 emissaries from the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) made a peace agreement. A ceasefire was in effect from then on until April 6. On April 6, 1994, the presidents of both Burundi and Rwanda were returning to the Rwandan capital of Kigali with other regional leaders from peace talks in Tanzania. The Rwandan president was under strong international pressure to implement the 1993 peace agreement.

Ethnic polarization escalates in Burundi during the '90s[edit]

While the plane approached the capital of Kigali, it was shot down. The government quickly erected road barriers in the Rwandan capital, and the presidential guard began killing known Tutsi opponents.^[15]

In June 1993 in Burundi, the Hutu Party, "Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi", FRODEBU, and its presidential candidate, Melchior Ndadaye, won the election and formed the first Hutu government in the country. Tensions began to escalate almost immediately. Small bands of Hutu and Tutsi 'gangs' consistently fought both in and around the capital, Bujumbura, often growing into larger groups armed with machetes and attacking each other.

Genocidal massacre of Tutsis in '93[edit]

Tensions finally reaching the boiling point on 21 October 1993 when President Ndadaye was assassinated, and the country descended into a period of civil strife. Some FRODEBU structures^[16] responded violently to Ndadaye's assassination, killing "possibly as many as 25,000 Tutsi".^[17] Trying to bring order back, elements of the Burundian army and Tutsi civilians^[16] launched attacks on Hutus, including innocent civilians as well as the rebels, resulting in "at least as many" deaths as had been caused by the initial rebellion.^[17]

U.N. response to '93 violence[edit]

In 2002 the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi called the 1993 mass killing of Tutsis a genocide.^[18]

Rwandan connection[edit]

The genocide of 1972 left a permanent mark in the collective memory of the Hutu population, both in Burundi and in neighbouring countries. Tens of thousands of Hutu civilians fled the country during the violence into their northern neighbor: Rwanda. The increased tensions in Burundi and Rwanda sparked episodes of civil and cross-border violence in Burundi. These precipitated large-scale killings by both sides of the conflict. These episodes further radicalized elements of the Hutu population in Rwanda, who also faced pressure from a militant Tutsi opposition, Rwandan Patriotic Front. In 1994, the Hutus led a genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Thousands of Tutsi refugees sought safety in Burundi.

In the press there was a report on May 1973, that young militant Hutu student leaders in Rwanda, Tanzania and Zaire had inspired and coordinated a three-pronged attack on Burundi.^[19]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

• 
  International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi: Final Report by the United States Institute of Peace, United Nations S/1996/682; received from Ambassador Thomas Ndikumana, Burundi Ambassador to the United States, 7 June 2002


• Lemarchand, René (1996). Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-56623-1
  


• Lemarchand, René (27 June 2008). Case Study: The Burundi Killings of 1972, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence supported by Sciences Po. CERI/CNRS
  


• Longman Timothy Paul (1998), Human Rights Watch (Organization), Proxy Targets: Civilians in the War in Burundi, Human Rights Watch, ISBN 1-56432-179-7
  


• Totten, Samuel; Parsons, William S. Charny Israel W. (2004) Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts Routledge, ISBN 0-415-94430-9, ISBN 978-0-415-94430-4
  

Further reading[edit]

• 
  Rutamucero, Diomède (2009). Le génocide contre les Tutsi au Burundi, un crime avoué mais impuni (in French). Bujumbura: Unibook.com. ISBN 9781935038610.  Contains source materials, registers, and statistics.


• United Nations Committee on the elimination of racial discrimination, Fifty-first session, Summary record of the 1239th meeting . Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, 20 August 1997, Seventh to tenth periodic reports of Burundi (continued) (CERD/C/295/Add.1)
  
  • 
    Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination : Burundi. 18 September 1997.


• René Lemarchand. "The Burundi Genocide". Century of Genocide. Ed. Samuel Totten et al. New York: Routledge, 2004. 321-337.


• 
  "Selective Genocide in Burundi", Report on the 1972 genocide by René Lemarchand and David Martin (1974)


• 
  "Burundi Since the Genocide", Report tracing the consequences of the 1972 genocide, by Reginald Kay (1987)


• 
  "Burundi Genocide", News about Burundi crimes since 1962, by Agnews (2000)