The landlocked Central African country of Burundi was originally colonized as part of German East Africa but in 1923, Belgium won a League of Nations mandate. Burundi, along with Rwanda, was given to Belgium. After World War II, when the League of Nations was dissolved, Belgium became a U.N. trust territory.
Next-door neighbor Rwanda, another former German East African colony, was also granted independence by Belgium on July 1, 1962. Although Rwanda and Burundi were ethnically and culturally united, and once known as Ruanda-Urundi, they were granted independence separately.
In 1933 Belgium made all people in Burundi carry an identity card that indicated their tribal ethnicity as Hutu or Tutsi. This created a distinction between the tribes that continued for the rest of the century. Since independence, the landowning Tutsi aristocracy has dominated Burundi.
In the late 1950s Belgium created local governments to prepare Burundians for self government. Around the same time, Tutsi prince Louis Rwangazore founded a multi-ethnic party — the Union for National Progress (UPRONA). He was assassinated in 1962 before independence.
Although prince Rwangazore was murdered before independence, his UPRONA party led the first independent government in collaboration with King Mwambutsa IV, a Tutsi.
After independence, the country was controlled by Mwami Mwambutsa IV, a Tutsi king. Like in neighboring Rwanda, Burundi struggled with clashes between the Hutu and dominant Tutsi tribes who made up the majority of its population. Hutu are the most dominant ethnic group — about 85 percent of the population. The Tutsis are about 14 percent of the population. The Twas (Pygmy) make up about 1 percent of the population. From 1993 to 2006, the country saw civil war driven by ethnic tensions.
Sources: U.S. State Department
Following a Hutu rebellion, the Tutsi king was deposed by his son Ntare V in 1966.
The traitorous son didn’t last long in control either. He was overthrown in 1966, the same year he took control, in a military coup that put another Tutsi in control — Premier Michel Micombero.
Belgium gave up Burundi without violence, but the violence escalated after the Europeans left. Between 1970 and 1971 a civil war erupted that left more than 100,000 Hutu dead. Over the next 40 years more wars would wage between the two tribes leaving hundreds of thousands more dead.
Today, Burundi ranks one of the five poorest countries in the world, with a gross domestic product of just $640 per capita, according to projected 2013 per capita GDP figures from the International Monetary Fund.
The April 25, 2015 announcement by President Pierre Nkurunziza that he would seek a third term in violation of the Arusha Agreement resulted in protests and multiple deaths.
Source: U.S. State Department.
