9781422280683

BURUNDI

B urundi lies between DR Congo and Lake Tanganyika (Tanzania); it also includes part of the Great Rift Valley. The terrain is hilly or mountainous, sloping to a high plateau in the east. Inhabited by Bantu-speaking Hutu and Tutsi peoples, Burundi has German East Africa from the 1890s until the First World War, when it came under Belgian administration as Urundi. It became an independent monarchy in 1962 and a republic in 1966. Multi-party elections in 1993 brought the Hutus to power for the long been divided by ancient rivalries. The area was part of

Words to Understand Cease-fire: An agreement to temporarily stop fighting a war with a view to reconciliation. Monarchy: A form of government in which a country is ruled by a king or queen.

Sanctions: Actions that are taken to force a country to obey international laws.

first time, rather then the Tutsis, who had long been used to having the upper hand; this led to massacre and violence within a few months and the murder of the first democratically elected Hutu

president in 1993. In 1996 the Tutsi army seized power but the ethnic cleansing continued, despite sanctions and international censure. Since then, around 200,000 Burundis have perished, while hundreds of thousands more have been displaced or have fled to neighboring countries. In 1998 Burundi troops briefly joined the conflict in DR Congo. An internationally brokered power-sharing agreement between the Tutsi-dominated government and the Hutu rebels in 2003 paved the way for a process of transition, leading to an integrated defense force, the drafting of a new LEFT: Sunset in Burundi with lush vegetation in the foreground. OPPOSITE : A map of Burundi.

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