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1993 ethnic violence in Burundi

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Since Burundi's independence in 1962, there have been two events called genocides in the country. The 1972 mass-killings of Hutu by the Tutsi army, [1] and the 1993 killing of Tutsi by the Hutu population are both recognised as genocides in the final report of the International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi presented to the United Nations Security Council in 2002.[2]

Burundian history

The demographics of Burundi through the 1960s and 1970s were roughly 86 percent Hutu, 13 percent Tutsi, and 1 percent Twa. However, for most or this period the Tutsi maintained a near monopoly on senior government and military positions. Burundi gained its independence in 1962, and in May of 1965 the first post-independence elections were held. The Hutu candidates scored a landslide victory, capturing 23 seats out of a total 33. Instead of a Hutu prime minister being appointed, the king appointed one of his Tutsi friends. On October 18, 1965, Hutus, angry with the king decision, attempted a coup. The king fled the country, never to return, but the coup ultimately failed. [citation needed]

May to July, 1972

On April 27, 1972, a rebellion led by some Hutu members of the gendarmerie broke out in the lakeside towns of Rumonge and Nyanza-Lac and declaring the "Martyazo Republic".[3][4] Countless atrocities were reported by eyewitnesses, and the armed Hutu insurgents proceeded to kill every Tutsi in sight, as well as the Hutus that refused to join the rebellion.[5] It is estimated that during this initial Hutu outbreak, anywhere from 800 to 1200 people were killed.[6]

President Michel Micombero (Tutsi) proclaimed martial law and systematically proceeded to slaughter Hutus en masse.[7] The initial phases of the genocide were clearly orchestrated, with lists of targets including the Hutu educated--the elite--and the militarily trained. Once this had been completed, the Tutsi-controlled army moved onto the larger civilian populations. The Tutsi-controlled government authorities originally estimated that roughly 15,000 had been killed while Hutu opponents claimed that the number was actually far closer to 300,000.[citation needed] Today, estimates hover in between these two figures, at between 80,000 to 210,000 killed.[8][9] Several hundred thousand are estimated to have fled the genocide into Zaire, Rwanda, and Tanzania.[9][10]

If only because of its "selective" character – the elimination of an ethnically defined elite group – the case of Burundi does not fit into the Holocaust (or the Rwanda) paradigm. It cannot be described as a total genocide, and for that reason some may quibble about the appropriateness of the genocide label. Jacques Sémelin’s definition – "that particular process of civilian destruction that is directed at the total eradication of a group, the criteria by which it is defined being determined by the perpetrator" (Sémelin 2007, 340) – might conceivably offer conceptual ammunition to those who would challenge the view that anything like a genocide has been committed against Tutsi or Hutu. By the same token, as defined by the perpetrator as the group to be eradicated, there can be little doubt that the extermination of the Hutu elites stands as a tragic illustration of the genocidal urge to "purify and destroy"(Ibid.) Once all is said and done, no amount of retrospective ratiocination about the applicability of the genocide label can ever erase from their collective memories the agonies suffered by Hutu and Tutsi in the time of ikiza.

— René Lemarchand (2008)[11]

1993

In 1993, the Hutu Party, "Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi", FRODEBU, and its presidential candidate, Melchior Ndadaye, won the election forming the first Hutu government in Burundi. On 21 October 1993, President Ndadaye was assassinated, throwing the country into a period of civil strife. Some FRODEBU structures[12] responded violently to Ndadaye's assassination, killing "possibly as many as 25,000 Tutsi".[13] Trying to bring order back, elements of the Burundian army and Tutsi civilians[12] launched attacks on Hutus, including innocent civilians as well as the rebels, resulting in "at least as many" deaths as had been caused by the initial rebellion[13]. In 2002 the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi called the 1993 mass-killing of Tutsi a genocide.[14]

Rwandan connection

The genocide of 1972 left a permanent mark in the collective memory of the Hutu population, both in Burundi and in neighbouring countries. Tens of thousands of Hutu civilians fled the country during the violence into their northern neighbor: Rwanda. The increased tensions in Burundi and Rwanda sparked episodes of civil and cross-border violence in Burundi, which inevitably resulted in more large-scale killings by both sides of the conflict. These episodes further radicalized elements of the Hutu population in Rwanda who also faced pressure from a militant Tutsi opposition known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front. In 1994, a Hutu-led genocide was perpetrated in Rwanda, which, along with the civil war that had been going on since 1990, claimed the lives of between 700,000 and 1,000,000 people.[citation needed]

Notes

  1. ^ Staff. pastgenocides, Burundi resources on the website of Prevent Genocide International lists the following resources:
    • Michael Bowen, Passing by;: The United States and genocide in Burundi, 1972, (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1973), 49 pp.
    • René Lemarchand, Selective genocide in Burundi (Report - Minority Rights Group ; no. 20, 1974), 36 pp.
    • Rene Lemarchand, Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide (New York: Woodrow Wilson Center and Cambridge University Press, 1996), 232 pp.
    • Edward L. Nyankanzi, Genocide: Rwanda and Burundi (Schenkman Books, 1998), 198 pp.
    • Christian P. Scherrer, Genocide and crisis in Central Africa : conflict roots, mass violence, and regional war; foreword by Robert Melson. Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2002.
    • Weissman, Stephen R. "Preventing Genocide in Burundi Lessons from International Diplomacy", United States Institute of Peace
  2. ^ International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi (2002). Paragraphs 85,496.
  3. ^ Lemarchand (1996), p. 89
  4. ^ Lemarchand, (2008). Section "B - Decision-Makers, Organizers and Actors"
  5. ^ Totten, p. 325
  6. ^ Lemarchand, (2008). Section "B - Decision-Makers, Organizers and Actors" cites (Chrétien Jean-Pierre and Dupaquier, Jean-Francois, 2007, Burundi 1972: Au bord des génocides, Paris: L’Harmattan. p. 106)
  7. ^ Lemarchand (1996, p. 97
  8. ^ White, Matthew. Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century: C. Burundi (1972-73, primarily Hutu killed by Tutsi) 120,000
  9. ^ a b International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi (2002). Paragraph 85. "The Micombero regime responded with a genocidal repression that is estimated to have caused over a hundred thousand victims and forced several hundred thousand Hutus into exile"
  10. ^ Longman, p. 12
  11. ^ Lemarchand (2008) cites: Sémelin, Jacques, 2007, Purify and Destroy : The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, London: Hurst and Company.
  12. ^ a b International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi (2002). Paragraph 486. Cite error: The named reference "ICIBFR-486" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  13. ^ a b Totten, p. 331
  14. ^ International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi (2002). Paragraph 496.

References

  • International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi: Final Report Source Name: United Nations Security Council, S/1996/682; received from Ambassador Thomas Ndikumana, Burundi Ambassador to the United States, Date received: 7 June 2002
  • Lemarchand, René (1996). Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521566231
  • Lemarchand, René (27 June 2008). Case Study: The Burundi Killings of 1972, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence supported by Sciences Po. CERI/CNRS
  • Longman Timothy Paul (1998), Human Rights Watch (Organization), Proxy Targets: Civilians in the War in Burundi, Human Rights Watch, ISBN 1564321797

Totten , Samuel; Parsons, William S. Charny Israel W. (2004) Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts Routledge, ISBN 0415944309, 9780415944304

Further reading

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