About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (May 14, 2001)

handle is hein.crs/crsahpx0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Order Code RS2091 0 May 14, 2001 Burundi: The Peace Process and U.S. Policy Ted Dagne Specialist in International Relations With the Assistance of Jessica I. Verner, Research Associate Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division Summary Burundi, a small Central African nation of 6 million people, has been in political turmoil since the assassination of the democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, in 1993. An estimated 200,000 people have died over the past decade due to ethnic violence. Since the mid 1990s, Burundi' s neighbors have tried to mediate between the government and various political and armed factions. In August 2000, the government of Burundi and most of the opposition groups signed a peace agreement in Arusha, Tanzania under the auspices of former President Nelson Mandela, nominated as the facilitator of the peace talks in October 1999. President Clinton attended the signing ceremony with over a dozen heads of state. Notwithstanding the August agreement, several armed groups have not signed the agreement and fighting between government security forces and rebel groups has intensified. Background Since independence from Britain in 1962, the politics of Burundi have been largely dominated by the Tutsi-led military and political establishment. In June 1993, Major Pierre Buyoya, who came to power in a bloodless coup in September 1987, ended the political grip of the military when he accepted his defeat by Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, in a multi- party election that he had called. However, the transfer of power to a Hutu-led government did not end the influence of the Tutsi, who represent 14% of the population, while the Hutu are about 85%. Ndadaye attempted to implement a number of important changes in local government, to build a multi-ethnic cabinet coalition, and to increase diversity in the army. Critics charged that his reforms increased divisions in the country and threatened the Tutsi. Opposing these changes, a small group of Tutsi army officers attempted a military putsch in October 1993, assassinating Ndadaye along with several of his ministers. The putsch failed, but sparked ethnic violence in which an estimated 100,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed. The ethnic violence subsided and the political crisis was resolved after prolonged negotiations between the ruling Hutu-dominated Burundi Democratic Front (Frodebu) and the Tutsi-dominated Union for National Progress (Uprona), the former Congressional Research Service CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web The Library of Congress

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most