Hutu

In Burundi

Located in Africa of the Big lakes, of a surface of 27.834 km2 with 9,09 million inhabitants (estimate of 2006, World Fact Book), Burundi knew since its independence, a history marked by fatal conflicts. Years 1965,1972,1988,1991 and 1993 were remembered by confrontations and massacres in ethnic matter opposing the Hutus to Tutsis, the two large ethnic components of Burundi. Placé under German protectorate in 1884 after four centuries of peaceful founded royal mode at the 15th century, the country passes under mandate of the SDN in 1919 and supervision of UNO in 1946 with like agent and tutor the Kingdom of Belgium.

After its acquired independence on July 1st, 1962, Burundi remained under a monarchical mode until the inversion of the king Ntare V on November 28th, 1966 by the captain Michel Micombero, thus marking the advent of the Republic of Burundi. The mode is characterized by political instability, on funds of political exclusion and regionalism, materialized by the rumors of coup d'etat of 1969 and 1971. Blind repression with the attack of an Hutu rebellion in April 1972 carried the major part of the Hutu elite. It is estimated that there were 100.000 died and 300.000 refugees. The mode will not be concerned any, and Lieutenant Général Michel Micombero will be replaced by Colonel Jean Baptiste Bagaza. After five years of relative good governance, President Bagaza joins again with exclusion, regionalism and the clanism, without forgetting the dictatorship which ended up drawing up it against the Catholic church. This policy ends up isolating the capacity and on September 3rd, 1987, Major Pierre Buyoya deposits Colonel Bagaza with the satisfaction of the population, the Catholic church and the International community.

The bloody events to the North of the country into 1988 lead president Buyoya (Tutsi) to open a Government of national union directed by Hutu a Prime Minister. Its government undertakes at the same time a broad public awareness campaign of the population which ends on February 5th, 1992 to a referendum on the unit of Barundi (says itself of the Burundian people, all confused ethnos groups).

Major Buyoya is also the president who launched the country on the way of the democracy by organizing the pluralist elections which carried to the presidential armchair its principal opponent, president Melchior Ndadaye, on June 1st, 1993. The assassination of the democratically elected president, Ndadaye Nickel silver, in an coup attempt of State of the army with prevalence tutsy, on October 21st, 1993, plunged the country in an unprecedented crisis which because more than 300.000 dead. The Hutus, wanting to avenge death for the democratically elected Hutu president, attacked their neighbors tutsis. The army wanting to protect the latter was caught some with the Hutus. The successor of Ndadaye, president Cyprien Ntaryamira, died on April 6th, 1994 in an air crash which also cost the life to the Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana. After political long negotiations carried out during one very tormented time, president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya reaches the capacity in October 1994 and will be évincé by Major Buyoya who took again the capacity in July 1996. With the support of the international community, the African Union and the Under-Area, the government set up by Buyoya, from return to the capacity, will be harnessed to sit the peace process so much inside that outside the country thus leading on August 28th, 2000 to the signature of the Agreement of Arusha for peace and the Reconciliation under the mediation of the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. From November 2001, Burundi enters during one 36 months transitional period within the framework of the implementation of the signed peace agreements in Arusha. A transition government, a Parliament and a senate extended to all the Burundian political actors, including the representatives of the armed factions are set up. The first section of transition 18 months is controlled by president Buyoya until April 30th, 2003, date on which it passes the witness to president Domitien Ndayizeye.

In November 2003, the transition government succeeds in signing the agreements of cease-fire with the CNDD-FDD, one of the most important armed movements which had refused to take part in the government. The entry of this movement in the institutions of transition whose government and the military high command left an opening to a durable peace.

The support of the international community to this chance of peace led the Burundian people in the space of less than one year to carry out four polls (a constitutional referendum; elections communal, parliamentary and senatorial; and a presidential ballot) under the observation of the United Nations which, since June 1st, 2004, had deployed a gripping force of peace in Burundi. Meanwhile, president Ndayizeye sees his mandate prolonged until August 26th, 2005, day of the nomination of the new president, Pierre Nkurunziza of the CNDD-FDD, the old rebel movement become political party. Thus arriving at the capacity after one decade of intense combat which put at evil the indicators of development of Burundi, the current capacity is seen confronted with many challenges of which: that to negotiate a permanent cease-fire with the PALIPEHUTU-FNL, another great armed movement which until very recently still fought the capacity of Bujumbura; to reform the bodies of defense and safety; to demobilize, reintegrate and reinstate the war veterans; to guarantee the human rights; and to improve the living conditions of most of the population which sank in chronic misery since the bursting of the crisis in October 1993. The sustained efforts of the government of Pierre Nkurunziza within the framework of its negotiations with the PALIPEHUTU-FNL succeed on September 7th, 2006, thanks to the South-African Facilitation and the support of the international community, with the signature of a total cease-fire in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania.

After two years and half of presence in the country, the mandate of the Operation of the United Nations in Burundi (ONUB) arrived in the long term on December 31st, 2006. Conscious of the challenges to which the new government must face, the Safety advice of the United Nations, in his Resolution 1719, decides to establish an Office integrated of the United Nations into Burundi (BINUB) to succeed the ONUB in order to continue to support the new authorities for a final consolidation of peace in this country. Meanwhile, creation by the Safety advice and the General meeting of the Commission of consolidation of peace in December 2005 come at the right moment to name when this one chooses the Sierra Leone and Burundi to benefit its first from it. The Commission which gathers a large range of competences and experiments as regards prevention of the conflicts, mediation, maintenance of peace, respect of the human rights, rule of law, humanitarian aid, rebuilding and development long-term, intends to put all this capital at the service of Burundi to help it definitively to leave its 13 years of conflict.

In Rwanda

In 1960, the Hutu seized the capacity, with the assistance of the colonizing Belgian combined a long time with the Tutsi. Idelogic victims of the currents of the beginning of XX^e century, which also generated the Nazism in Europe, the colonizers were convinced of the superiority of the Tutsi, in which they saw “white Negros”, and reinforced their monarchy at the point to make it monolithic to Rwanda. When the Tutsi started to assert independence, the Belgian colonizers reversed in the name of the democracy their alliance with the profit of the Hutu, deviating against the Tutsi the claims of independence. The Hutus with the capacity, with Gregoire Kayibanda as president, organized exactions (massacres, destruction of assets, etc) against Tutsis of which several thousands took the way of the exile towards the adjoining countries. They are the descendants of the latter which drove out the genocidary mode of Juvénal Habyarimana, person in charge of more than one million victims, primarily Tutsi, but also of the Hutu democrats opposed to the dictatorship.

Since the accession with the capacity of the patriotic Face Rwandan (FPR) at the conclusion of the genocide in 1994, the Rwandan capacity attempted to destroy the bases of this Ethnisme in the Rwandan company. The constitution adopted by referendum in 2003 very clearly confirmed by the law this engagement. But with the political plan the forces of the old majority and those of the current opposition dispute this political will that they regard as a frontage which would hide the will of domination of a minority group.

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