history of Burundi

history of Burundi, a survey of notable events and people in the history of Burundi. The landlocked country is located in east-central Africa, south of the Equator. Gitega, a town rich with cultural and historical significance, was designated the country’s political capital in 2019. At the same time, the previous capital, Bujumbura, was designated the country’s economic capital.

This discussion focuses on Burundi from the 16th century. For a treatment of earlier periods and of the country in its regional context, see Central Africa.

Precolonial Burundi

Unlike the borders of most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the boundaries of Burundi were not drawn by European powers. Rather, they reflect a state that was developed by the Burundian monarchy. The country was originally populated by the Twa, a Pygmy hunter-gatherer population. Beginning about 1000 ce, Hutu farmers, who now constitute the largest proportion of the population, arrived in the region. Sometime later the Tutsi entered the country, and a Tutsi monarchy developed in the 16th century, founded by Ntare Rushatsi (Ntare I). According to one tradition, Ntare I came from Rwanda; according to other sources, he came from Buha in the southeast, from which he laid the foundation of the original kingdom in the neighboring Nkoma region. The relationship between the different groups in the state was complex. The king (mwami) was Tutsi, but a princely class (ganwa), which consisted of the potential heirs to the throne, interceded between the king and the Tutsi and Hutu masses.

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Burundi: History of Burundi

Identification as either a Tutsi or Hutu was fluid. While physical appearance did correspond somewhat to one’s identification (the Tutsi were generally presumed to be light-skinned and tall; the Hutu, dark-skinned and short), the difference between the two groups was not always immediately apparent, owing to intermarriage and the use of a common language (Rundi) by both groups. Tutsis were traditionally cattle owners (cattle were a symbol of wealth in precolonial Burundi), while the Hutu were agriculturalists. However, by societal standards a rich Hutu could be identified as a Tutsi, and a poor Tutsi could be identified as a Hutu.

Burundi under colonial rule

Europeans did not enter Burundi until the second half of the 19th century. The terrain that had made it difficult for slave traders to exploit the country also created problems for European colonizers. English explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke, generally credited as the first Europeans to visit Burundi, entered the country in 1858. They explored Lake Tanganyika as they searched for the source of the Nile. In 1871 two more Britons, Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone, also explored the lake.

Burundi, along with Rwanda and Tanganyika, became part of the German Protectorate of East Africa in 1890. Burundi and Rwanda (as the mandate of Ruanda-Urundi) were awarded to Belgium after World War I (1914–18), when Germany lost its colonies. Under the Belgian colonial administrators, Burundi was reorganized in the late 1920s, with the result that most chiefs and subchiefs were eliminated.

It would be overly simplistic to blame all of Burundi’s postcolonial ethnic troubles on European ignorance of African culture, but such ignorance did contribute significantly to these problems. Assuming that ethnicity could be clearly distinguished by physical characteristics and then using the ethnic differences found in their own countries as models, Germany and especially Belgium created a system whereby the categories of Hutu and Tutsi were no longer fluid. The Tutsi—because of their generally lighter skin and greater height and as a result of European bias toward those physical characteristics—were considered superior to Hutu and given preference in local administration. Thus, power continued to be concentrated in the Tutsi minority.

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After World War II (1939–45), Burundians began to press for independence. Although the traditional leaders of Burundi and Rwanda were denied legal status for a political party they formed in 1955, three years later Unity for National Progress (Unité pour le Progrès National; UPRONA) was established in Burundi. In 1959 the mwami was made a constitutional monarch in Burundi.

Legislative elections were held in 1961 and resulted in victory for UPRONA. Of the 64 legislative seats, the ethnically mixed party won 58, of which 22 were held by Hutu members of UPRONA. The party leader was Prince Rwagasore, a Tutsi and the eldest son of Mwami Mwambutsa. Rwagasore represented populist aspirations and was the strongest supporter of the monarchy. He became prime minister and formed a new government. His assassination on October 13, 1961, ushered in a crisis from which the country has struggled to recover ever since. Despite this crisis, Burundi became independent on July 1, 1962.

The First and Second republics

Discord and violence have marked Burundi since independence. Although bloodshed has not occurred on the scale seen in Rwanda, ethnic conflict has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people being displaced from their homes. The first incident did not occur until January 1965, when Pierre Ngendandumwe, a Hutu, took office as prime minister for the second time, at the request of the constitutional monarch Mwambutsa. Ngendandumwe was assassinated by a Tutsi gunman on January 15, before he had a chance to establish a government. Joseph Bamina, another Hutu, then served as prime minister until elections could be held later that year. Although elections gave the Hutu a clear majority of seats in the National Assembly, Mwambutsa ignored the results and appointed a Tutsi—Léopold Biha, his private secretary—prime minister. Mwambutsa insisted that power would continue to rest with the crown, even when he chose to leave the country after an unsuccessful coup led by a group of Hutu officers in October; he decreed that his son, Prince Charles Ndizeyeto, was to rule in his absence.

Control of Burundi fell completely into the hands of the Tutsi before the end of the next year. After the abortive coup, some 34 Hutu officers were executed, and Tutsi control was further strengthened when Michel Micombero was appointed prime minister in July 1966. A Tutsi-Bahima from Bururi province, Micombero had played a key role in thwarting the 1965 coup and in organizing anti-Hutu riots in the countryside. Also in July 1966 Mwambutsa was deposed by his son, who began what was to be an extremely short reign, as he himself was deposed by Tutsi politicians in November. With the formal overthrow of the monarchy and the formal proclamation of the First Republic (with Micombero as president), the last obstacle in the path of Tutsi domination was removed.

No other event cast greater discredit on the First Republic than the genocidal killings perpetrated against the Hutu community in April and May 1972. Although Hutu initially killed some 2,000 Tutsi, ultimately an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Hutu were killed, as well as another 10,000 Tutsi. The carnage took the lives of approximately 5 percent of the population and virtually eliminated all educated Hutu, as well as causing more than 100,000 Hutu to flee the country. Besides creating deep and lasting hatred on both sides of the ethnic divide, the events of 1972 became the source of considerable tension within the Tutsi minority, thus paving the way for the overthrow of Micombero in 1976 and the advent of the Second Republic under the presidency of Jean-Baptiste Bagaza. Though himself a Tutsi-Bahima from Bururi (like Micombero), Bagaza set out to reinvigorate the UPRONA on an unprecedented scale. At the same time, every effort was made to bring the Roman Catholic Church firmly under the control of the state, as the Tutsi-controlled government thought the church’s policies favored the Hutu. As a result of the government’s efforts, the activities of the church were repressed.

The Third Republic

The crisis in church-state relations was the critical factor behind Maj. Pierre Buyoya’s decision to overthrow the Second Republic in September 1987 and proclaim a Third Republic. Buyoya, also a Tutsi-Bahima from Bururi, took the title of president and presided over a country that was ruled by a 30-member military junta, the Military Committee for National Salvation.

The 1987 coup signaled an important shift of policy on the issue of church-state relations and, by implication, on the Hutu-Tutsi problem. Buyoya repealed many of the restrictions placed upon the church and released political prisoners he felt had been improperly detained by the previous administration. Ironically, Buyoya’s call for liberalization, while significantly raising the expectations of the Hutu masses, did little to alter the rigidly discriminatory practices of Tutsi civil servants in the provinces. The gap between Hutu expectations and the realities of Tutsi control lay at the root of the killings that erupted again in August 1988.

More than 20,000 people were killed in the northern parts of Burundi, the overwhelming majority of Hutu origin. As in 1972 the initial outburst of violence—in the wake of countless provocations by local Tutsi officials—came from Hutu elements. Unlike his predecessor in 1972, however, President Buyoya’s response to the crisis was surprisingly conciliatory. For one thing, the existence of a Hutu-Tutsi problem was explicitly recognized by the government, along with the need for appropriate solutions. Moreover, a conscious effort was made to achieve parity of ethnic representation within the government, as evidenced by the cabinet Buyoya formed in October 1988, which contained a Hutu majority. Finally, and most importantly, a national commission was established to make specific recommendations to the government to “protect and strengthen the unity of the people of Burundi.”

Buyoya’s apparent progressive leadership led to the adoption of a new constitution in March 1992, which prohibited political organizations that adhered to “tribalism, divisionalism, or violence” and stipulated that all political parties must include both Hutu and Tutsi representatives. There followed the country’s first free, democratic election in June 1993, in which Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu who ran against Buyoya, was elected president. Ndadaye announced amnesty for many political prisoners and created a carefully balanced government of Hutu and Tutsi, including Sylvie Kinigi, a Tutsi woman, as prime minister.

Civil war in Burundi

Ndadaye was assassinated during an attempted military coup on October 21, 1993, and the wave of violence that followed sparked the country’s descent into civil war. As many as 150,000 Tutsi were killed in retribution, and perhaps 50,000 additional people were killed in smaller outbreaks. Amid the violence, leaders of the attempted coup and members of Ndadaye’s government vied for power. The main political parties finally chose Cyprien Ntaryamira, a Hutu, as president. Ntaryamira took office in February 1994, but two months later he and Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana were killed when the plane they were on crashed near the airport in Kigali, Rwanda. Fighting intensified, hundreds more were killed, and calls from the United Nations (UN) to halt the violence initiated nighttime curfews. In September 1994 a commission agreed to a power-sharing coalition government headed by Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu. Fighting continued throughout the country during the nearly two years of coalition government.

The Tutsi-led army staged yet another coup against the government in July 1996 and reinstalled Buyoya as president. He faced considerable internal and international protest, including economic sanctions against the country, and many countries throughout the world had not recognized Buyoya’s government by the end of the decade. Economic sanctions were eased in 1997, and an embargo was lifted in 1999.

The path toward peace

Peace talks that began in 1995 among the rival factions were initiated and moderated by Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania. Following Nyerere’s death in 1999, former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela assumed the role of mediator. A pact known as the Arusha Agreement was signed in 2000, but unresolved issues lingered on and fighting continued. The talks were successfully concluded in 2001. Under the terms of the Arusha Agreement, a multinational interim security contingent would enforce the peace in Burundi. A new government was installed on November 1, 2001. The country was to be led by a Tutsi president (Buyoya) for 18 months and a Hutu president (Domitien Ndayizeye) for the next 18 months. Sporadic fighting continued between Hutu rebel groups and the government, however.

In April 2003 Ndayizeye succeeded Buyoya as president under the terms of the agreement, and later that year Ndayizeye and rebel leaders signed peace accords that largely ended the civil war. A new power-sharing constitution was promulgated in 2005, and Pierre Nkurunziza, a Hutu, representing the National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie–Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie; CNDD–FDD), was elected president. Under the terms of the constitution, as the first post-transition president, he was elected by a two-thirds majority of Parliament, rather than by universal suffrage. The following year, the last remaining Hutu rebel group signed a peace agreement with the Burundi government, and there was hope that Burundians would be able to focus on promoting unity and rebuilding the country.

Burundi under Nkurunziza

In November 2006 Nkurunziza stewarded Burundi’s ascent into the East African Community (EAC) economic bloc, and in April 2007 he played an important role in reconstituting the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries, a trade organization including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda. Aided by World Bank funds, he also took the lead on infrastructure projects aimed at increasing the accessibility of water and electricity. These steps toward progress were undercut, however, by accusations that Nkurunziza’s administration persecuted journalists critical of its policies as part of its general refusal to acknowledge dissent. Concern by some that the country was moving toward single-party rule mounted in June 2010, when Nkurunziza was reelected with more than 90 percent of the vote following the withdrawal of all six of his challengers. Violence marred the campaign and election proceedings, contributing to a markedly low voter turnout.

Violence continued to persist after the election, with gun and grenade attacks in 2011, and there was concern that the CNDD–FDD was carrying out extrajudicial killings and torturing members of the opposition parties. Nkurunziza and his administration continued to face criticism during his second term in regard to their response to dissent and treatment of the media. A law passed in 2013 required journalists to reveal their sources for news stories concerning state security and banned reporting that could affect the country’s economy. It generated widespread domestic as well as international condemnation. Also of concern were the alleged actions of the Imbonerakure—the youth wing of the CNDD–FDD—who were said to be terrorizing opposition members and Burundians who did not support a controversial bid by Nkurunziza for a third term as president. The group’s actions as well as tensions in the run-up to the 2015 elections led tens of thousands of Burundians to flee the country beginning in early 2015.

Capital transfer from Bujumbura to Gitega

In 2007 Nkurunnziza had announced his intentions to eventually move the capital of the country from Bujumbura to some 40 miles (65 km) east at the small town of Gitega, noting that the latter city was more centrally located. Gitega was also known for its historical significance: for centuries it was the seat of the Burundian mwami and the capital of the kingdom of Burundi and also served as an administrative center when Burundi was under colonial rule. There was very little movement toward the goal of relocating the capital until December 2018, when Nkurunziza’s administration announced it was proceeding with the move.

The plan to move the capital to Gitega was criticized for multiple reasons, including a lack of funding—especially against the backdrop of other, more urgent expenses—and an absence of necessary infrastructure in place at Gitega. Some also accused Nkurunziza of attempting a “symbolic restoration” of the monarchy and, pointing to Bujumbura’s status as an opposition stronghold, alleged that he was trying to distance himself from the ongoing dissent on display there.

In January 2019 Parliament passed a law that formally designated Gitega as the country’s political capital and Bujumbura as the economic capital. It was promulgated by Nkurunnziza in early February. At that time, the government’s move to Gitega was expected to be concluded in or about 2022; it was not, however, and the transition efforts, including the construction of new government offices, continued in the following years.

The 2020 elections

In early 2020 the CNDD–FDD named Evariste Ndayishimiye as their presidential candidate for the upcoming election scheduled for May. This appeared to lay to rest lingering fears that Nkurunziza intended to stand for another term as president.

Elections were held on May 20, 2020. Ndayishimiye faced six other candidates in the presidential race, including Agathon Rwasa of the National Congress for Liberty (Congrès National pour la Liberté; CNL), the leading opposition candidate. Ndayishimiye was announced the winner, taking 68.72 percent of the vote; Rwasa, his nearest challenger, received 24.19 percent. In the parliamentary elections, the CNDD–FDD won about 68 percent of the vote, giving them 72 of the 100 elected seats; the CNL garnered about 22 percent, netting them 27 seats. CNL observers questioned the veracity of the results, noting several instances of electoral irregularities, and the party filed an appeal of the results with the Constitutional Court on May 28. Their observations and concerns were echoed by the Burundi Conference of Catholic Bishops, which also had deployed observers on election day. In early June, the court ruled to uphold the results of the presidential election.

On June 9 the government announced that Nkurunziza had unexpectedly passed away the previous day. Although the country’s constitution provided for the president of the National Assembly to be installed as interim president, on June 12 the Constitutional Court ruled that under the circumstances, President-elect Ndayishimiye, who was scheduled to be inaugurated in August, should take office sooner than planned. He was sworn in on June 18, 2020.

Ndayishimiye’s presidency

Early in his term Ndayishimiye pledged to restore the rule of law, fight corruption and impunity, and foster political tolerance—all of which would help lift the country from the international isolation that had occurred under Nkurunziza. Ndayishimiye was credited with making some improvements on those fronts, to the point that international sanctions that had been imposed after the 2015 unrest were eased in 2022. However, observers noted that there was no meaningful progress made with the country’s dismal human rights situation.

In early September 2022 Ndayishimiye spoke of discovering a coup plot against him and admonished those who would try to overthrow his government; days later he abruptly fired the prime minister, a powerful CNDD–FDD veteran, Alain-Guillaume Bunyoni. In April 2023 Bunyoni was arrested and charged with several counts, including having undermined national security and the economy and having engaged in illegal enrichment; he was also charged with having used witchcraft to threaten the president’s life. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2023. Bunyoni appealed the verdict in May 2024, but it was upheld the next month.