Profile of Burundi Conflict 

• Problem of defining the concept of “ethnicity” in Burundi based on cultural differences (language, geography, physical features (clichés); 
• Severity: Number of deaths and number of refugees (see table 1); 
• Impact: As a result of the current war, 22.5 percent of household heads are widowed, 77 percent have been directly affected by the crisis, of which 57 percent were strongly affected; 28 percent lost close relatives while 23 percent were displaced due to fighting (ISTEEBU). 

Pattern 

• No inquiries are undertaken to identify and punish the culprits because the government is responsible for the repression, as army commanders belong to the same group controlling power (see table 2). 
• Opinion manipulated: As the culprits are never officially named, there is collective blame (the government and the army say the Hutu are responsible and the Hutu say the Tutsi are). Collective blame serves those responsible in both camps. 
• The Tutsi feel “avenged” while innocent Hutu feel betrayed by their government. This sense of injustice increases resentment and more radicalisation among the Hutu, which increases the likelihood of future conflict along the same lines. 

Main Actors and Their Motivations 

• Government and army: Maintaining status quo favouring those in power at the expense of those out (politics in Burundi is a zero-sum game). 
• Armed opposition: changing status quo not to improve the nature of the political game but rather to play the same game but from the winners’ seat. 
• No clear political agenda other than taking and enjoying power. 
• Internal splits due to asymmetric motives of leaders and fighters. 
• Unarmed opposition: Usually content with government posts in function of their relative strength. 
• No clear agenda other than being associated to power. 
• Internal splits due to different (changing) leadership visions (see fig. 1). 
• Foreign agents: 
• Rwanda has always been an important variable in Burundi’s political equation: Until 1994, model for Burundi Hutu and anti-model for Tutsi; 
• Some allege Rwandan services under Habyalimana helped Hutu to attack Burundi (Mugabe, 2000); 
• Congo and Zimbabwe: Have assisted Burundi rebels as a way of “sending back” the Congo War where it came from; 
• Tanzania: Has maintained a blind eye on cross border raids from refugees based on its territory; 
• Mediation: Has put a lot of pressure on the government and the military to reform but with no corresponding pressure on the opposing side, especially armed rebellion, to stop their attacks. This asymmetry gave a boost to rebels and their sympathisers’ morale. 

 

Economic Causes of Conflict in Burundi 

• High dependency on primary commodities: coffee accounts for 80 percent of exports. 
• High rates of poverty: 60 percent of Burundians lived below the monetary poverty line in 1998. 
• High illiteracy rate: Adult illiteracy rate stood at 65 percent in 1995. 
• Poor economic performance: sluggish growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s with negative growth rates from 1993 to 1996. 
• High population density: With 236 inhabitants per square km, Burundi is the second highly populated country in Africa. 

How Do Economic Factors Fuel Conflict? 

Most of Burundi leading elite in the army and state institutions come from one province, Bururi. Burundi’s elite seeks economic security in government employment. Those in prominent posts wreak havoc to keep them and those excluded take up arms to gain them by force. For both, the alternative is misery. Why? 

• Economic activity is state controlled such that the state machinery provides the only instrument of economic security and wealth accumulation (public employment accounts for 80 percent of full-time employment in the modern sector and, on average, a civil servant is paid the equivalent of 15 times the country’s per capita income) through legal but predatory avenues (wages, cheap credit, travels abroad) and illegal (corruption, patronage, nepotism; see table 3). 
• An average civil servant is among the richest 6 percent of the population, against an average of 13 percent for sub-Saharan Africa, 30% for the Middle East and North Africa region, 33 percent for Asia, 40 percent for Latin America and Caribbean, 76 percent for Eastern Europe and former USSR and 63 percent for OECD countries. 
• The private sector is very small and under the control of politicians and bureaucrats: they decide who gets access to the cheap official foreign currency to import (According to Greenaway and Milner (1990) estimates, the amount of rents associated with the discretionary allocation of quota import licenses in 1984 was equivalent to rent transfers of about 17 percent of government revenue); they allocate public contracts to their associates, extract rents through taxation and redistribute them among themselves). 
• Another example of discretionary power associated with bureaucratic functions is that in 1993, import duty exemptions represented 50 percent of total potential import duty revenue. Most of those controlling these decisions do not hesitate to monetised them. 
• For example, in 1996, resources invested in 37 fully state controlled firms accounted for 48 percent of the country’s GDP. A close look at the identity of the managers suggests that the firms are used as a way of redistributing economic rents among the leaders/politicians (see table 4). 

As Reyntjens (1994) has noted, among the factors that led to the assassination of Ndadaye, a non-Bururi Hutu democratically elected president in 1993, triggering the beginning of the now eight-year old war, at least three are economic: 

• The reduction of the bid bonds of 80 percent, to allow small businessmen, among them many Hutu, to benefit from privatization of state-owned enterprises. 
• The attempt to reconsider the conditions under which the Belgian firm “Affimet” had been authorized to refine and export gold under a free zone license a few weeks before the June 1993 elections. 
• The attempt by Hutu refugees, back from neighboring countries, to recover their property (houses and land), especially those in powerful hands. 

• A number of studies or data sets have shown that apart from Bujumbura, the capital city, Bururi province has the best educational infrastructure and records the highest school enrolment ratio [Alert (2001), Ngaruko and Nkurunziza (2000), Nyamoya (2001), World Bank (1999), ISTEEBU (2001)]. 
• In return, exclusion from education breeds conflict (revolt) through two channels: the traditional one (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998) and the feeling of being marginalized (Ngaruko and Nkurunziza, 2000). 

It should also be clearly stated that conflict is not the result of one specific factor. Conflict erupts as a consequence of a complex web of factors, but we believe economic factors are prominent. 

We should also note that, sometimes, the link between “trigger factors” and “root causes” might not be obvious. This is the case in Burundi where there are no obvious economic factors showing the link to political conflict (there are no diamonds, oil, coltrane, etc). 

Way Forward 

• Breaking with the past, especially with collective blame by identifying those behind massacres and other serious crimes and bringing them to justice. Eradicating the culture of impunity must be the pillar of a just and equitable Burundi 
• Nurturing democracy: help to establish reputation-based politics where leaders are elected based on their value and are accountable to their constituencies 
• Develop the private sector as an alternative to government employment for economic security and wealth accumulation 

References 

Table 1: Duration and Incidence of War in Burundi

Year	Duration	Deaths	Refugees¦	Years from last episode	Region Affected (province)
1965	1 month	5000-25000	0	N.A.	Centre: Muramvya
1972	4 months	200000-300000	300000	6	Whole country
1988	2 months	5000-25000	?	16	North: Ngozi and Kirundo
1991	1 month	1,500-5,000	38300	3	Cibitoke, Bubanza, Bujumbura
1993…	96 months	200000-250000	687100 (11%)	2	Whole country
Total	104(24%)	411500-605000 (10%)		-	-

f: Number of Burundi refugees in DRC, Rwanda and Tanzania due to specific conflict (UNHCR data). It is the difference between total refugees and refugees a year before the crisis (long-term refugees)
 
 
 

Table 3: Ethnic Disparities in Public Senior Civil Service Posts in 1987
	Hutu*	Tutsi*	Twa*
Office of the President	1	98	0
Central Committee of Single Party (UPRONA)	2	50	0
Administration of Single Party	3	52	0
Ministers	5	13	0
Cabinet Directors	1	17	0
Ministry Permanent Secretaries	0	40	0
Province Governors	2	13	0
Ambassadors	1	21	0
Embassy Senior Diplomats	0	88	0
Army Barrack Commanders	0	20	0
Army Officers	2	398	0
Army Sergeant and Privates	30	11970	0
State Owned Companies Directors	5	252	0
Hospital Directors	1	19	0
University Lecturers	10	80	0
Secondary Schools Directors and Inspectors	6	89	0
Justice Prosecutors	0	66	0
Magistrates	5	92	0
Court Presidents	1	7	0
Judiciary Police Officers and Inspectors	0	400	0

Source: Ntibazonkiza, R. (1993). 

Note: The author of these statistics is a highly controversial figure and these statistics may exaggerate the extent of Tutsi domination. Nevertheless, we believe that the fact that the Tutsi dominate is unquestionable and, at the very least, this is the message the figures should convey. 

* The reported relative demographic weights of Hutus, Tutsis and Twa are respectively 85 percent, 14 percent and 1 percent, but these numbers are just indicative as they have certainly changed due to past population dynamics, including the influence of civil conflicts.
 
 
 

Source: Raw data from ICG 

ETHNIC AND REGIONAL COMPOSITION OF THE NEW TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT (31 OCTOBER 2001)
 

Post	Name	Ethnic Group	Region of origin
President  Vice-President  External Relations &  Cooperation  Interior and Public Security  Justice  Defence  Development Planning & Reconstruction  Trade and Industry  Communal Development  Reinsertion, Reinstallation of  Displaced  Mobilisation for Peace &  Reconciliation  Environment, Tourism & Land Mgt  Agriculture and Livestock  Handicrafts & Adult Literacy  Labour and Social Security  Civil Service  Finance  Good Governance and Privatisation  Education  Social Action & Promotion of  Women  Youth, Sports and Culture  Health  Communication & Gvt. Spokesperson Public Works and Equipment Post & Telecommunications Energy & Mines Instit. Reforms, Hum. Rig. &  Parliament Fight Against AIDS	Pierre Buyoya  Domitien Ndayizeye  Térence Sinunguruza  Salvator Ntihabose  Fulgence Dwima  Bakana  Cyrille Ndayirukiye  Andre Nkundikije  Charles Karikurubu  Casimir Ngendanganya  Ms Francoise Ngendahayo  Luc Rukingama  Gaetan Nikobamye  Pierre Ndikumagenge  Godefroy Hakizimana  Dismas Nditabiriye  Festus Ntanyungu  Edouard Kadigiri  Didace Kiganahe  Prosper Mpawenayo  Ms M. Goretti Nduwimana  Barnabé Muteragiranwa Jean Kamana Albert Mbonerane Balthazar Bigirimana Sévérin  Ndikumagenge Mathias Hitimana Alphonse Barancira Geneviève Sindabizera	Tutsi  Hutu Tutsi Hutu Hutu Tutsi Tutsi  Hutu Hutu Tutsi Hutu Hutu Tutsi Tutsi Tutsi Hutu Tutsi Tutsi Hutu Hutu Hutu Hutu Hutu Hutu Hutu Tutsi Tutsi Tutsi	Bururi  Kayanza Mwaro Rutana Bururi Muramvya Muramvya Bururi Gitega Bujumbura (R) Bururi Bubanza Kirundo Bururi Cibitoke Bururi Gitega Bujumbura (R) Kayanza Bujumbura (M) Cankuzo Kayanza Cankuzo Kirundo Ngozi Bururi Mwaro Bujumbura (M) Mwaro Bujumbura (M)

 
 

Top of page

Contents	Speeches and Issue Notes	EF Homepage
Preface	Programme	EF Texts and Reports
Summary of Discussions	List of Participants