II ~I ~ ~II~ ~~ ~II ~ ~II - IFES

ill. THE ETHNIC SITUATION IN BURUNDIIt is impossible to describe the prospects for democracy in Burundi without first understandingthe country's ethnic situation. The majority Hutu tribe comprises 85 percent of the population,the Tutsis 14 percent and the Twa 1 percent.The Belgian colonial administration (1919-1962) strengthened the already dominant Tutsi byeducating them and excluding all others from the administrative and business life of thecountry. With ethnicity an increasingly absolute determinant of socioeconomic status, and withthe abolition of the stabilizing force of the monarchy after independence, Hutu-Tutsi tensionsexploded to produce some of the worst violence in history. Thousands of educated Hutus weremassacred in 1965, and in 1972 some 100,000 to 200,000 died when virtually all Hutu whohad advanced beyond the first years of secondary education were targeted. In 1988, tribaltensions again erupted and an estimated 20,000 were killed. An estimate on the number whodied in renewed fighting in the Fall of 1991 is 1,000 to 3,000.Government officials with whom the IFES team met spoke as if ethnic identification is aWestern construct that exists only among a few educated people in the city. It is quick to pointout that it does not keep figures on the ethnic composition of various institutions and that itslast general census (August 1990) was not conducted along ethnic lines. However, the claimis somewhat disingenuous. To be sure, Burundians have been manipUlated by individualsoutside the Burundi Government (Belgians, Rwandans, Palipehutu, and old Royalists, forexample). However, they continue to have some dwindling measure of success only becauseBurundians - educated and illiterate, urban dweller and peasant - are very much aware of whotheir neighbors are.While language, geography, and an increasing sense of nationalism serve to reinforce unity inBurundi, there .are a host of real and psychological forces that also serve to· keep ethnic tensionsalive: a fear of renewed tribal conflict and the loss of political dominance; an assertion ofgroup worth and place; the existence of negative remembrances and images kept alive by astrong oral tradition; evidence of a sense of superiority on the part of a politically andeconomically dominant minority; and the lack of modem associations around which people canalternatively organize.Most Burundians support the democratization and ethnic reconciliation processes launched by15