BACK GROUND OF BURUNDI:-
Burundi officially the Republic of Burundi (Kirundi: Republican y'Uburundi, French: République du Burundi is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa, bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the
west. Its capital is Bujumbura. Although the country is landlocked, much of the southwestern border
is adjacent to Lake
Tanganyika.
The Twa, Hutu and Tutsi peoples have lived in Burundi
for at least five hundred years and, for over two hundred years, Burundi was
ruled as a kingdom. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, however, Germany and Belgium occupied the region and
Burundi and Rwanda became a European colony known as Ruanda-Urundi. Social differences between the Tutsi and Hutu have since contributed
to political unrest in the region, leading to civil war in the middle of the
twentieth century. Presently, Burundi is governed as a presidential representative democratic republic.
Burundi is one of the five poorest countries in the world. It has one of the lowest per capita
GDPs of any nation in the world.[6] The country has suffered from warfare, corruption, poor access to
education and the effects of HIV/AIDS. Burundi is densely populated and
experiences substantial emigration. According to a 2012 DHL Global Connectedness Index, Burundi is the
least globalised of 140 surveyed countries.
After its defeat in World War I, Germany
handed control of a section of the former German East Africa to Belgium. On October 20, 1924, this
land, which consisted of modern-day Rwanda and Burundi, became a Belgian League of
Nations mandate territory, in practical
terms part of the Belgian colonial empire, known as Ruanda-Urundi. However, the Belgians allowed Ruanda-Urundi to continue its kingship
dynasty.
Following World War II, Ruanda-Urundi
was a United Nations Trust Territory under Belgian administrative authority.
During the 1940s, a series of policies caused divisions throughout the country.
On October 4, 1943, powers were split in the legislative division of Burundi's
government between chiefdoms and lower chiefdoms. Chiefdoms were in charge of
land, and lower sub-chiefdoms were established. Native authorities also had
powers. In 1948, Belgium allowed the region to form political parties. These
factions would be one of the main influences for Burundi's independence from
Belgium.
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