2005/12/21 by Filip Reyntjens · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #International Development and Aid #African studies and sociopolitical issues #African cultural and philosophical studies #Political science #Politics #Transition (genetics) #International relations #Spanish Civil War #Media studies #Law #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1093/afraf/adi092
openalex publication_date 2005/12/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Burundi’s previous democratic transition ended in disaster. The opposition party Frodebu (Front pour la démocratie au Burundi) decisively beat the former single party Uprona (Union pour le progrès national) during the June–July 1993 presidential and parliamentary elections. Frodebu’s leader, Melchior Ndadaye, was both the first democratically elected, and the first Hutu, president in the country’s history. On 21 October, 1993, the Tutsi-dominated army staged a coup and killed a number of Frodebu leaders, including Ndadaye. Massive violence immediately erupted all over the country. Tutsi and even Hutu sympathizers of Uprona were killed, while both the army and local Tutsi attacked Hutu and Frodebu members. By the end of the year, about 50,000 people were dead, more or less as many Hutu as Tutsi. As the coup collapsed in the face of its rejection both internationally and at home, the conspirators devised other, more covert, and subtle ways to control the political situation. A ‘creeping coup’ followed, which aimed at destroying the legitimacy, and indeed the very existence of Frodebu and at imposing a de facto constitutional order that in effect consolidated the achievements of the October 1993 coup. This strategy increasingly radicalized political life and handicapped the search for a peaceful solution. While some Frodebu leaders engaged in talks in early 1994, others decided to enter into armed rebellion. In June, 1994, Léonard Nyangoma, until then the Minister of the Interior, created the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD) and its armed wing, the Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (FDD). Two older rebel movements, the Front national de libération [FNL — an armed faction of the Palipehutu (Parti pour la libération du peuple hutu)] and Frolina (Front pour la libération nationale), stepped up their actions. This was the beginning of a decade-long civil war which caused the death, internal displacement, or exile abroad of over a million people.