Tensions in Burundi

Abstract

The 10,739 square miles which make up Burundi constitute one of the smallest countries in Africa. Burundi's population of between 3.5 and 5 million experienced six governments during the three years between independence in 1962 and the eruption of major ethnic violence in 1965. In 1966 the army took power in a coup that proclaimed Burundi to be a presidential republic. The change was not sufficient to resolve ethnic tensions, however, and by 1969 these were further complicated by regional divisions. During that year ethnic violence erupted once again but received little notice in the foreign press. The violence has pitted factions of the Hutu majority against factions of the Tutsi minority. Burundi's pre-colonial social system (which was grounded in a traditional monarchy) and its particular colonial experience account for the fact that the Hutu have had very little power over the country's political and economic affairs.