BURUNDI TUTSI GOVT VS HUTU REBELS
Also called: Burundi Civil War
Years: 1991-2005 | Est. deaths: 150 000
Published prior to 2013
The Burundi Civil War (1993-2005) is driven by ethnic rivalries between Hutu and Tutsi tribal factions of Burundi. Rivalry escalated into a bloody power struggle following the presidential election of June 1993. The swearing in of Pierre Nkurunziza as president in August 2005 was seen as a formal endpoint to the conflict, but one major rebel group remained outside the peace process. Over 300,000 people perished in the war. (comment: the number 300,000 probably includes excess deaths, Globalsecurity puts the figure at 200,000 and UUCD states 7125 battle-deaths)
Background
Burundi’s first multiparty national elections were held on June 27, 1993. Melchior Ndadaye of the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU) won the presidential election, the first person from the Hutu tribe to become the president since the country secured independence from Belgium in 1962. Hutus are the majority ethnic group, at about eighty-five percent, in the country, but the government has been dominated by Tutsis, through the Union for National Progress (UPRONA) political party. Ndadaye was killed in a coup d’état by Tutsi military officers on October 21, 1993.
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UCDP: "The most basic way of viewing the parties to the conflict is as a Tutsi government fighting Hutu rebels. However, both sides in the conflict are more complex than this, and have both – to varying extent – altered and evolved over the years. The government side in the conflict has indeed through most of the conflict years been represented by a Tutsi dominated military regime, but its outlook has changed over the years."