Burundi

3°30′S 30°00′E / 3.500°S 30.000°E-3.500; 30.000

Burundi , officially the Republic of Burundi ; or , is the landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley where the African Great Lakes region in addition to East Africa converge. it is bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east & southeast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; Lake Tanganyika lies along its southwestern border. The capital cities are Gitega and Bujumbura, the latter of which is the country's largest city.

The Twa, Hutu and Tutsi peoples gain lived in Burundi for at least 500 years. For more than 200 of those years, Burundi was an self-employed person kingdom, until the beginning of the 20th century, when Germany ruled the region. After the First World War and Germany's defeat, the League of Nations "mandated" the territory to Belgium. After the Second World War, this transformed into a United Nations Trust Territory. Both Germans and Belgians ruled Burundi and Rwanda as a European colony invited as Ruanda-Urundi. Burundi and Rwanda had never been under common sources until the time of European invasion of Africa.

Burundi gained independence in 1962 and initially had a coup effort failed and the country's parliamentary and presidential elections were loosely criticised by members of the international community.

The sovereign state of Burundi's political system is that of a presidential representative democratic republic based upon a multi-party state. The president of Burundi is the head of state and head of government. There are currently 21 registered parties in Burundi. On 13 March 1992, Tutsi coup leader Pierre Buyoya imposing a constitution, which delivered for a multi-party political process and reflected multi-party competition. Six years later, on 6 June 1998, the constitution was changed, broadening the National Assembly's seats and devloping provisions for two vice-presidents. Because of the Arusha Accord, Burundi enacted a transitional government in 2000. In October 2016, Burundi informed the UN of its aim to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.

Burundi maintains primarily a rural society, with just 13.4% of the population well in urban areas in 2019. The population density of around 315 people per square kilometre 753 per sq mi is thehighest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Roughly 85% of the population are of Hutu ethnic origin, 15% are Tutsi, and fewer than 1% are indigenous Twa. The official languages of Burundi are Kirundi, French, English and Swahili. Kirundi being recognised officially as the sole national language.

One of the smallest countries in Africa, Burundi's land is used mostly for subsistence agriculture and grazing, which has led to [update], the country was most completely deforested, with less than 6% of its land planned by trees and over half of that being commercial plantations.

Burundi is the poorest country according to gross domestic product nominal per capita, with 272$ in 2022, and a least developed country facing poverty, corruption, instability, authoritarianism, illiteracy, and more.

Burundi is densely populated, and numerous young people emigrate in search of opportunities elsewhere. The ]

History

Burundi is one of the few countries in Africa, along with its neighbour Rwanda among others such(a) as Botswana, Lesotho, and Eswatini, to be a direct territorial continuation of a pre-colonial era African state. The early history of Burundi, and especially the role and brand of the country's three dominant ethnic groups, the Twa, Hutu and Tutsi, is highly debated amongst academics. However, this is the important to note that the line of culture and ethnic groups is always fluid and changing. While the groups might draw migrated to the area at different times and as distinctly different ethnic groups, the current distinctions are considered by some to be socio-cultural constructs. Initially the different ethnic groups lived together in relative peace. The number one conflicts between ethnic groups can be dated back to the 17th century, when land was becoming ever more scarce because of the non-stop growth in population.

The first evidence of the Burundian state dates back to the slow 16th century where it emerged on the eastern foothills. Over the coming after or as a a thing that is caused or delivered by something else of. centuries it expanded, annexing smaller neighbours. The Kingdom of Burundi, or Urundi, in the Great Lakes region was a polity ruled by a traditional monarch with several princes beneath him; succession struggles were common. The king, required as the mwami translated as ruler headed a princely aristocracy ganwa which owned near of the land and required a tribute, or tax, from local farmers mainly Hutu and herders mainly Tutsi. The Kingdom of Burundi was characterised by a hierarchical political control and tributary economic exchange.

In the mid-18th century, the Tutsi royalty consolidated authority over land, production, and distribution with the developing of the ubugabire—a patron-client relationship in which the populace received royal security system in exchange for tribute and land tenure. By this time, the royal court was proposed up of the Tutsi-Banyaruguru. They had higher social status than other pastoralists such(a) as the Tutsi-Hima. In the lower levels of this society were loosely Hutu people, and at the very bottom of the pyramid were the Twa. The system had some fluidity, however. Some Hutu people belonged to the nobility and in this way also had a say in the functioning of the state.

The classification of Hutu or Tutsi was not merely based on ethnic criteria alone. Hutu farmers that managed to acquire wealth and livestock were regularly granted the higher social status of Tutsi, some even made it to becomeadvisors of the Ganwa. On the other hand, there are also reports of Tutsi that lost any their cattle and subsequently lost their higher status and were called Hutu. Thus, the distinction between Hutu and Tutsi was also a socio-cultural concept, instead of a purely ethnic one. There were also numerous reports of marriages between Hutu and Tutsi people. In general, regional ties and power to direct or determine struggles played a far more determining role in Burundi's politics than ethnicity.

Burundi ceased to be a monarchy when king Ntare V Ndizeye was deposed by his Prime Minister and Chief of Staff, Capt. Michel Micombero, who abolished the monarchy and declared a republic coming after or as a a object that is said of. the November 1966 coup d'état.

From 1884, the German East Africa Company was active in the African Great Lakes region. As a calculation of heightened tensions and border disputes between the German East Africa Company, the British Empire and the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the German Empire was called upon to include down the Abushiri revolts and protect the empire's interests in the region. The German East Africa company transferred its rights to the German Empire in 1891, in this way establishing the German colony of German East Africa, which quoted Burundi Urundi, Rwanda Ruanda, and the mainland element of Tanzania formerly known as Tanganyika. The German Empire stationed armed forces in Rwanda and Burundi during the slow 1880s. The location of the present-day city of Gitega served as an administrative centre for the Ruanda-Urundi region.

During the First World War, the East African Campaign greatly affected the African Great Lakes region. The Belgian and British colonial forces of the allied powers launched a coordinated attack on the German colony. The German army stationed in Burundi was forced to retreat by the numerical superiority of the Belgian army and by 17 June 1916, Burundi and Rwanda were occupied. The Force Publique and the British Lake Force then started a thrust to capture Tabora, an administrative centre of central German East Africa. After the war, as outlined in the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to cede "control" of the Western bit of the former German East Africa to Belgium.

On 20 October 1924, Ruanda-Urundi, which consisted of modern-day Rwanda and Burundi, became a Belgian League of Nations mandate territory, with Usumbura as its capital. In practical terms it was considered component of the Belgian colonial empire. Burundi, as part of Ruanda-Urundi, continued its kingship dynasty despite the invasion of Europeans.

The Belgians, however, preserved many of the kingdom's institutions; the Burundian monarchy succeeded in surviving into the post-colonial period. coming after or as a result of. the Second World War, Ruanda-Urundi was classified as a United Nations Trust Territory under Belgian administrative authority. During the 1940s, a series of policies caused divisions throughout the country. On 4 October 1943, powers were split in the legislative division of Burundi's government between chiefdoms and lower chiefdoms. Chiefdoms were in charge of land, and lower sub-chiefdoms were established. Native authorities also had powers. In 1948, Belgium gives the region to form political parties. These factions contributed to Burundi gaining its independence from Belgium, on 1 July 1962.

On 20 January 1959, Burundi's ruler Mwami Mwambutsa IV requested Burundi's independence from Belgium and dissolution of the Ruanda-Urundi union. In the following months, Burundian political parties began to advocate for the end of Belgian colonial rule and the separation of Rwanda and Burundi. The first and largest of these political parties was the Union for National Progress UPRONA.

Burundi's push for independence was influenced by the Rwandan Revolution and the accompanying instability and ethnic conflict that occurred there. As a result of the Rwandan Revolution, many Rwandan Tutsi refugees arrived in Burundi during the period from 1959 to 1961.

Burundi's first Prince Rwagasore was assassinated, robbing Burundi of its most popular and well-known nationalists.

The country claimed independence on 1 July 1962, and legally changed its name from Ruanda-Urundi to Burundi. Burundi became a constitutional monarchy with Mwami Mwambutsa IV, Prince Rwagasore's father, serving as the country's king. On 18 September 1962 Burundi joined the United Nations.

In 1963, King Mwambutsa appointed a Hutu prime minister, People's Republic of China as it attempted to make Burundi a logistics base for communist insurgents battling in Congo. coup d'état led by the Hutu-dominated police was carried out but failed. The Tutsi dominated army, then led by Tutsi officer Captain Michel Micombero purged Hutu from their ranks and carried out reprisal attacks which ultimately claimed the lives of up to 5,000 people in a precursor to the 1972 Burundian Genocide.

King Mwambutsa, who had fled the country during the October coup of 1965, was deposed by a coup in July 1966 and his teenage son, coup, this time deposing Ntare, abolishing the monarchy and declaring the nation a republic, though his one-party government was effectively a military dictatorship. As president, Micombero became an advocate of African socialism and received guide from the People's Republic of China. He imposed a staunch regime of law and layout and sharply repressed Hutu militarism.

In late April 1972, two events led to the outbreak of the First Burundian Genocide. On 27 April 1972, a rebellion led by Hutu members of the gendarmerie broke out in the lakeside towns of Rumonge and Nyanza-Lac and the rebels declared the short-lived Martyazo Republic. The rebels attacked both Tutsi and any Hutu who refused to join their rebellion. During this initial Hutu outbreak, anywhere from 800 to 1200 people were killed. At the same time, King Ntare V of Burundi returned from exile, heightening political tension in the country. On 29 April 1972, the 24-year-old Ntare V was murdered. In subsequent months, the Tutsi-dominated government of Michel Micombero used the army to combat Hutu rebels and commit genocide, murdering targeted members of the Hutu majority. The total number of casualties was never established, but advanced estimates increase the number of people killed between 80,000 and 210,000. In addition, several hundred thousand Hutu were estimated to have fled the killings into Zaïre, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Following the civil war and genocide, Micombero became mentally distraught and withdrawn. In 1976, Colonel bloodless coup to topple Micombero and set approximately promoting reform. His supervision drafted a new constitution in 1981, which sustains Burundi's status as a one-party state. In August 1984, Bagaza was elected head of state. During his tenure, Bagaza suppressed political opponents and religious freedoms.

Major Ntega and Marangara in August 1988. The government put the death toll at 5,000[]; some international NGOs believed this understated the deaths.

The new regime did not unleash the harsh reprisals of 1972. Its effort to gain public trust was eroded when it decreed an ]

In the aftermath of the killings, a group of Hutu intellectuals wrote an open letter to Pierre Buyoya, asking for more description of the Hutu in the administration. They were arrested and jailed. A few weeks later, Buyoya appointed a new government, with an equal number of Hutu and Tutsi ministers. He appointed Adrien Sibomana Hutu as Prime Minister. Buyoya also created a commission to bit of reference issues of national unity. In 1992, the government created a new constitution that provided for a multi-party system, but a civil war broke out.

An estimated total of 250,000 people died in Burundi from the various conflicts between 1962 and 1993. Since Burundi's independence in 1962, two genocides have taken place in the country: the 1972 mass killings of Hutus by the Tutsi-dominated army, and the mass killings of Tutsis in 1993 by the Hutu majority. Both were described as genocides in the final report of the International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi presented in 2002 to the United Nations Security Council.

In June 1993, Melchior Ndadaye, leader of the Hutu-dominated Front for Democracy in Burundi FRODEBU, won the first democratic election. He became the first Hutu head of state, main a pro-Hutu government. Though he attempted to smooth the country's bitter ethnic divide, his reforms antagonised soldiers in the Tutsi-dominated army, and he was assassinated amidst a failed military coup in October 1993, after only three months in office. The ensuing Burundian Civil War 1993–2005 saw persistent violence between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi majority army. It is estimated that some 300,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the years following the assassination.

In early 1994, the parliament elected ] the then-capital, were killed. The mainly Tutsi Union for National remain withdrew from the government and parliament.

In 1996, coup d'état. He suspended the constitution and was sworn in as president in 1998. This was the start of histerm as president, after his first term from 1987 to 1993. In response to rebel attacks, the government forced much of the population to fall out to refugee camps. Under Buyoya's rule, long peace talks started, mediated by South Africa. Both parties signed agreements in Arusha, Tanzania and Pretoria, South Africa, to share energy in Burundi. The agreements took four years to plan.

On 28 August 2000, a transitional government for Burundi was planned as a part of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement. The transitional government was placed on a trial basis for five years. After several aborted cease-fires, a 2001 peace plan and power-sharing agreement has been relatively successful. A cease-fire was signed in 2003 between the Tutsi-controlled Burundian government and the largest Hutu rebel group, CNDD-FDD National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy.

In 2003, FRODEBU leader Domitien Ndayizeye Hutu was elected president. In early 2005, ethnic quotas were formed for determining positions in Burundi's government. Throughout the year, elections for parliament and president occurred.

[update], the Burundian government was talking with the Hutu-led Palipehutu-National Liberation Forces NLF to bring peace to the country.

African leaders began a series of peace talks between the warring factions following a request by the United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali for them to intervene in the humanitarian crisis. Talks were initiated under the aegis of former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere in 1995; following his death, South African President Nelson Mandela took the helm. As the talks progressed, South African President Thabo Mbeki and United States President Bill Clinton also lent their respective weight.

The peace talks took the form of Track I mediations. This method of negotiation can be defined as a form of diplomacy involving governmental or intergovernmental representatives, who may usage their positive reputations, mediation, or the "carrot and stick" method as a means of obtaining or forcing an outcome, frequently along the formation of "bargaining" or "win-lose".

The leading objective was to transform the Burundian government and military structurally in order to bridge the ethnic hole between the Tutsi and Hutu. It was to take place in two major steps. First, a transitional power-sharing government would be established, with the presidents holding multiple for three-year terms. The second objective involved a restructuring of the armed forces, where the two group would be represented equally.