Overview of Burundi‘s history

a kingdom founded in the 16th century

Knowledge of the origins of Burundi is based on oral tradition and archaeology. According to one of the founding legends, the Burundian nation was founded by a man called Cambarantama from Buha on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

The first archaeological traces of a Burundian state date back to the 16th century in the east of its current borders. It then gradually expanded, competing with Rwanda. It experienced its greatest expansion during the reign of Ntare IV, who ruled the country from 1796 to 1850 and doubled its area.

The kingdom of Burundi is characterized by a strong social hierarchy and economic exchanges of a tribal nature. The king, (mwami), is at the head of a princely aristocracy (ganwa) holding the majority of the lands and takes a tribute on the crops and herds of the farmers who exploit them. In the middle of the 18th century, the royal family consolidated its authority over the land, production, and distribution by developing a system of patronage, the ubugabire, the population receiving royal protection in exchange for its production.

German East Africa

The first European explorers and missionaries made brief incursions into the region from 1856. Unlike his Rwandan counterpart, who accepted the German proposals, King Mwezi IV Gisabo opposed any Western interference, refusing to wear European clothing and prohibiting the presence of missionaries and administrators. From 1899, the German forces inflicted heavy losses on the armies of the king but without achieving victory. They then supported one of the king’s sons-in-law, Maconco, in a revolt against the sovereign, which forced Gisabo to make allegiance to the Germans to control the insurrection. German East Africa, established in 1891, officially annexed Burundi and the adjacent small kingdoms on the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika on June 6, 1903.

Belgian colonial empire

In 1916, during the First World War, Belgian troops landed in the region. At the end of the war, Germany lost all its colonies and, at the Versailles conference in 1919, the kingdom of Belgium obtained a mandate over the province of Ruanda-Urundi, made up of present-day Rwanda and Burundi, a mandate renewed by the League of Nations in 1923. The kingdoms bordering the eastern shore of Tanganyika were, for their part, attributed to the protectorate of Tanganyika administered by the United Kingdom. Belgium administered the territory indirectly, relying on the Tutsi aristocracy.

After the Second World War, Ruanda-Urundi became a trust territory of the United Nations Organization under Belgian administrative authority. On November 10, 1959, Belgium agreed to reform the policy and legalized the multiparty system. Two political parties emerged: the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), a multi-ethnic party founded and led by the Tutsi prince and Prime Minister Louis Rwagasore and the Christian Democratic Party, supported by Belgium.

Independence (1962 -…)

In the legislative elections of September 18, 1961, the Burundians chose the Union for National Progress (UPRONA) and its leader Prince Louis Rwagasore. A month later, on October 13, Prince Rwagasore was assassinated. The country’s independence was proclaimed on July 1, 1962, this date then was chosen to celebrate the national holiday, and King Mwambutsa IV established a regime of constitutional monarchy.

Post-colonial era: a succession of massacres and coups
The history of Burundi, since the first years of its independence in 1962, has been marked by ethnic violence complicated by a bitter struggle for power within the Tutsi clan, who ruled the country in the beginning.

The Hutu are by far the most numerous, representing around 85% of the population (10.5 million inhabitants in 2013), while the Tutsi constitute 14%.

In 1972, a Hutu insurrection broke out against the government that still in the hands of the Tutsi minority was. This insurrection was marked by the killing of numerous Tutsi. The repression quickly turned into systematic massacres of members of the Hutu elite, causing an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 deaths. In 1988, new massacres bloodied the country.

In 1976, a coup d’etat brought Jean-Baptiste Bagaza to power. In 1987, he was overthrown by Pierre Buyoya who became head of state. The assassination of the first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, in October 1993 in an attempted coup d’etat fomented by Tutsi soldiers, was again followed by massacres. The assassination started a civil war between the army, led by the Tutsi ethnic group, and the Hutu rebels.

Mr. Ndadaye’s successor, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was killed in April 1994, along with Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, whose plane was shot down in Kigali.

In July 1996, a coup d’etat brought Pierre Buyoya back to power. He started negotiations with the political and armed opposition. A peace agreement was signed in 2000 in Arusha (Tanzania), but the two main rebel movements refused to join it.

At the end of 2003, the main rebellion, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Cndd-FDD), laid down their arms.

In 2006, the government and the rebels of the National Liberation Forces (FNL) signed a cease-fire. The civil war from 1993 to 2006 killed nearly 300,000 people, mostly civilians, and ruined the economy of the country.

Starting after the elections in 2010, the country experienced an upsurge in armed violence, including several incursions by rebel groups based in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In June 2010, Nkurunziza was re-elected for a second term in a presidential election where he was alone in the running – almost all of the opposition boycotted the poll, alleging fraud. The Cndd-FDD obtained a very large victory in legislative and senatorial elections. Nkurunziza was re-elected again in 2015, still in the same climate of suspicion. Nkurunziza then announced that he would not run for a 4th term in 2020.
The outgoing president P. Nkurunziza was no longer a candidate in the 2020 presidential elections, so the ruling CNDD-FDD party appointed its Secretary General, General Evariste Nadayishimiye as candidate. Nadayishimiye won the presidential election, which was marked by massive fraud and a ban on foreign observers. He was sworn in on 18 June 2020 following the unexpected death of former president Pierre Nkurunziza.

The landlocked country in central Africa, bordering Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi is one of the smallest states in Africa (27,834 km2) and one of the most densely populated in the continent. The Catholic Church represents between 75% and 80% of the population.

Burundi is an agricultural country, peasants constituting 89% of the population. The economy is based on exports of coffee and tea, but the war has devastated the country, one of the poorest on the planet, which lives on an infusion of international aid. 67% of the population lives below the poverty line. In 2018, GNI per capita was $ 280.