1993 ethnic violence in Burundi
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Mass killings of
Tutsi The Tutsi (), or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi (the other two being the largest Bantu ethnic grou ...
s were conducted by the majority-
Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the prin ...
populace in
Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
from 21 October to December 1993, under an eruption of ethnic animosity and riots following the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye in an attempted
coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
. The massacres took place in all provinces apart from Makamba and Bururi, and were primarily undertaken by Hutu peasants. At many points throughout, Tutsis took vengeance and initiated massacres in response. The United Nations Population Fund and the Government of Burundi conducted study in 2002 which concluded that a total of 116,059 people died during the events. The question of whether the killings of Tutsis arose from a planned
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
or from spontaneous violence remains heavily disputed among academics and Burundians who lived through the events.


Background

From the mid-1960s, the country of
Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
was politically dominated by its
Tutsi The Tutsi (), or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi (the other two being the largest Bantu ethnic grou ...
ethnic minority at the expense of the
Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the prin ...
majority.
Union pour le Progrès National The Union for National Progress (french: Union pour le Progrès national, UPRONA) is a nationalist political party in Burundi. It initially emerged as a nationalist united front in opposition to Belgian colonial rule but subsequently became an i ...
(UPRONA), which served as the legal ruling party from 1966, was overwhelmingly made up of Tutsis. Military officers dominated the presidency, coming to power through coups. During this time there were instances of ethnic repression, particularly in 1972 when the Burundian Army quashed a Hutu rebellion and then murdered thousands of civilians. In 1987
Pierre Buyoya Pierre Buyoya (24 November 1949 – 17 December 2020) was a Burundian army officer and politician who served two terms as President of Burundi in 1987 to 1993 and 1996 to 2003. He was the second-longest serving president in Burundian history. An ...
became President of Burundi following a coup. He initially ignored the country's ethnic strife and perpetuated Tutsi domination of public life. In August 1988 violence broke out and the army massacred thousands of Hutus. Facing substantial foreign pressure, Buyoya initiated reforms designed to end Burundi's systemic ethnic violence, while UPRONA attempted to incorporate more Hutus into its ranks. The Tutsi establishment in the army and security forces nevertheless resisted change. A commission appointed by the president produced a constitution which provided for democratic elections. The document was adopted via referendum in March 1992 followed shortly thereafter by the creation of new political parties. Buyoya scheduled free elections in 1993 and offered himself as UPRONA's presidential candidate. UPRONA's main challenger became Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi (FRODEBU), a party largely associated with Hutus. In the 1 June presidential election Buyoya faced Melchior Ndadaye, who was backed by FRODEBU. Ndadaye won the election in a landslide, earning 64 percent of the popular vote. In the subsequent parliamentary elections on 29 June, FRODEBU won 71.4 percent of the vote and earned 80 percent of the seats in the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
. The party also took over most local administration.


Prelude

Rumours circulated in Burundi that the army would attempt to intervene to disrupt the transition. A plot from a handful of officers discovered on 3 July to seize Ndadaye's residence failed due to a lack of support from other components of the military, resulting in several arrests. Ndadaye was sworn-in as President on 10 July. He assembled a government of 23 ministers, including 13 FRODEBU and six UPRONA members. Nine of the ministers were Tutsi, including Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi, a member of UPRONA. Ndadaye's tenure was largely peaceful, but during his time in office Burundi was subject to several social and political disruptions. Among the former, the media—recently liberalised—often used its freedom to discuss public issues in an inflammatory manner. Thousands of Burundian Hutu refugees who had fled during the violence of 1972 began returning ''en masse'' and demanding the reclamation of their property. Though Ndadaye suggested resettling them in vacant lands, many local officials made room for them by evicting others from their homes. Politically, Ndadaye's government reexamined several contracts and economic concessions made the by the previous regime, posing a threat to Tutsi elite business interests. Military reforms also led to the separation of the gendarmerie's command from the army, the replacement of the chiefs of staff of the army and gendarmerie, and new requirements for enrollment into the army were introduced. The army was due to open its annual recruitment drive in November, and there were fears among some Tutsi soldiers that this process would be altered in a way that would threaten their dominance of the institution. At some point a group of army personnel began planning a coup against Ndadaye's government. Their exact identity remains disputed.


Massacres

Tensions finally reaching the boiling point on 21 October 1993 when President Ndadaye was
assassinated Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a ...
during a coup attempt, and the country descended into a period of civil strife. The Rwanda-based Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) reported that a coup had taken place and that Ndadaye had been captured on 21 October. This led young FRODEBU members to arm themselves and take Tutsis and Hutu UPRONA members hostage. Once RTLM announced later that day that Ndadaye was dead, the hostages were executed. By 22 October, Hutus were attacking Tutsis in the provinces of
Kirundo Kirundo is a city located in northern Burundi. It is the capital city of Kirundo Province Kirundo Province is one of the eighteen provinces of Burundi. Kirundo has three big lakes: Cohoha, Rweru, and Rwihinda. Lakes Cohoha and Rweru are loca ...
, Ngozi, Gitega,
Muyinga Muyinga is a city located in northern Burundi. It is the capital city of Muyinga Province Muyinga Province is one of the 18 provinces of Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili: '' ...
, Ruyigi, and Karuzi, and in parts of Kayanza,
Muramvya Muramvya is a city located in central Burundi. It is the capital city of Muramvya Province Muramvya Province is one of the 18 provinces of Burundi. The capital city is Muramvya. In 2007 the province was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tenta ...
, Rutana, and
Bujumbura Rural Bujumbura Rural Province is one of the 18 provinces of Burundi. Former President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira was born here. The province surrounds the former national capital Bujumbura. The provincial capital is Isale. Communes Bujumbura R ...
. Violence was less intensive in the
Cibitoke Cibitoke is a city located in northwestern Burundi, near the border of Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the capital of the Cibitoke Province. The city is the birthplace of Olympic judoka Odette Ntahonvukiye Odette Ntahomvukiye (born 14 Ju ...
and
Bubanza Province Bubanza is one of the 18 provinces of Burundi. Communes It is divided administratively into 5 communes: * Commune of Bubanza ( Bubanza) * Commune of Gihanga ( Gihanga) * Commune of Musigati ( Musigati) * Commune of Mpanda (Mpanda Mpanda ...
s in the northwest and Cankuzo Province in the east. Only the provinces of Makamba and Bururi completely avoided the violence. Hutu peasants were primarily involved, though in some instances FRODEBU members in provincial and communal governments engaged in anti-Tutsi violence. In Butzei, one FRODEBU administrator was reported to have arranged for over three dozen Tutsi civil servants to be burnt. In several instances Tutsis engaged in reprisals. The retaliatory violence was particularly acute in the provinces of Karuzi, Gitega, and Ruyigi. On 24 October in Ruyigi town, Tutsis murdered 78 Hutu
civil servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
who were seeking refuge at a bishop's compound. The Tutsi-dominated army also engaged in reprisal killings. One of the few exceptions to this was in Karuzi Province, where the local commander, Major Martin Nkurikiye, went unarmed with two FRODEBU parliamentarians into villages to try to convince armed Hutus to stand down. The army protected Tutsis by resettling them in fortified villages. Minister of Health Jean Minani—who was in Rwanda at the time—accused the army of committing genocide. In November the Permanent Francophone Council condemned the killings. Initial estimates of the death toll from the ethnic violence ranged from 25,000 to 500,000. A joint study conducted by the United Nations Population Fund and the Burundian government in 2002 estimated the number of people killed from 21 October to 31 December 1993 to be 116,059, with at least 100,000 deaths occurring in late October. It remains unclear what proportion of these victims were Tutsi and what proportion were Hutu.


Aftermath

In 1997, the Burundian government passed a law which penalised genocide and crimes against humanity. Later that year, the government charged hundreds of persons accused of responsibility in the killings of Tutsis, with 44 being sentenced to death. In 2014 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established to investigate crimes committed during ethnic violence since independence in 1962.


Assessment of the violence as genocide

In May 1994, a UN preliminary fact-finding commission determined that the massacres of Tutsis were not part of "any premeditated plan for the extermination of the Tutsi ethnic group by the Hutu". Conversely, the following year the International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi concluded that the killings constituted "an effort to completely destroy the Tutsi ethnic group. Tutsis were not simply killed in a spurt of violence, but systematically hunted...evidence is sufficient to establish that acts of genocide against the Tutsi minority took place in Burundi on 21 October 1993, and the days following". The commission noted that "the evidence is insufficient to determine whether or not these acts of genocide were planned or ordered by leaders at a higher level". FRODEBU accused the commission of bias and capitulating to demands of Tutsi politicians, church figures, and journalists to have their ethnic group's losses labeled genocide. The question of whether the killings of Tutsis arose from a planned genocide or from spontaneous violence remains heavily disputed among academics and Burundians who lived through the events. Burundian Tutsi authors maintain that the killings were premeditated. Political scientist Filip Reyntjens wrote in 1995 that "there is no evidence that a genocidal plan ever existed, and the allegations that it did were part of a strategy to exonerate the army and to implicate FRODEBU." Academic Nigel Watt considered the violence to be a "double genocide", with the first one being perpetrated by Hutus against Tutsis, and the second being by the army against Hutus. He also wrote that there was no evidence that plans to kill Tutsis were formulated on a national scale but that "the speed of the mobilisation suggests that some people feared coupmight happen and made preparations."


Legacy

The killings have received little coverage in international media or academia. Des Forges wrote that, "The lack of international response to the killing in Burundi led to the cataclysm in Rwanda". Burundian Tutsis attach more significance to the 1993 massacres relative to the 1972 Ikiza, which Hutus emphasise. Some Burundians perceive both events as genocides worthy of remembrance, but generally factions have formed to claim the precedence of one event over the other and commemorate them accordingly. Radical Tutsi ideologues, while stressing that the 1993 events were a genocide targeting Tutsis, often neglect to mention the thousands of Hutus killed by the army during the same period and the flight of thousands more as refugees to Rwanda. Tutsi academics tend to give Ndadaye's assassination only cursory attention in their histories of the violence. In contrast, Hutu writers usually emphasise the killing of Ndadaye and the massacres of Hutus inflicted by the army and ignore the killings of Tutsis. The Tutsi extremist group AC Genocide-Crimoso later established several monuments to commemorate Tutsis killed in 1993. The Burundian government erected a monument in 2010 to commemorate victims of all post-colonial violence in the country.


See also

*
Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu ...


References


Works cited

* * * * * *Lemarchand, René (1996). ''Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide'', Cambridge University Press, * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

*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.

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