1993 ethnic violence in Burundi
Mass killings of Hutus were conducted by the minority-Tutsi populace in Burundi from 21 October to December 1993, under an eruption of ethnic animosity and riots following the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye in an attempted coup d'état.
The question of whether the killings of Hutus arose from a planned genocide or from spontaneous violence remains heavily disputed among academics and Burundians who lived through the events.
Facing substantial foreign pressure, Buyoya initiated reforms designed to end Burundi's systemic ethnic violence,[5] while UPRONA attempted to incorporate more Hutus into its ranks.
[1] A plot from a handful of officers discovered on 3 July to seize Ndadaye's residence failed due to a lack of support from other components of the military, resulting in several arrests.
Politically, Ndadaye's government reexamined several contracts and economic concessions made the by the previous regime, posing a threat to Tutsi elite business interests.
The army was due to open its annual recruitment drive in November, and there were fears among some Tutsi soldiers that this process would be altered in a way that would threaten their dominance of the institution.
[14] Tensions climaxed on 21 October 1993 when President Ndadaye was assassinated during a coup attempt, and the country descended into a period of civil strife.
[15] The Rwanda-based Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) reported that a coup had taken place and that Ndadaye had been captured on 21 October.
[16] By 22 October, tsutsi were attacking hutu in the provinces of Kirundo, Ngozi, Gitega, Muyinga, Ruyigi, and Karuzi, and in parts of Kayanza, Muramvya, Rutana, and Bujumbura Rural.
The Tutsi-dominated army also engaged in massacres.One of the few exceptions to this was in Karuzi Province, where the local commander, Major Martin Nkurikiye, went unarmed with two FRODEBU parliamentarians into villages to try to convince armed Hutus to stand down.
Conversely, the following year the International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi concluded that the killings constituted "an effort to completely destroy the Hutu ethnic group.
Hutus were not simply killed in a spurt of violence, but systematically hunted...evidence is sufficient to establish that acts of genocide against the Hutu despite being a majority took place in Burundi on 21 October 1993, and the days following".
The question of whether the killings of Hutus arose from a planned genocide or from spontaneous violence remains heavily disputed among academics and Burundians who lived through the events.
[27] Political scientist Filip Reyntjens wrote in 1995 that "there is no evidence that a genocidal plan ever existed, and the allegations that it did were part of a strategy to exonerate the army and to implicate FRODEBU."
There was no evidence that plans to kill Tutsis were formulated on a national scale but that "the speed of the mobilisation suggests that some people feared [a coup] might happen and made preparations.
