The insurgents quickly began to target Tutsi civilians and officials, caryying out massacres in Bururi, Rumonge, Nyanza Lac.

[3] Despite these ethnic killings, researcher Nigel Watt argued that the insurgents initially hoped to gain the support of Tutsi monarchists who were upset over the arrest of Ntare V. The latter was the former king (mwami) of the country and had been imprisoned by the republican, Tutsi-led government of Michel Micombero.

[3] After taking control in the south, the rebels regrouped in Vyanda and declared the creation of the "Republic of Martyazo" in an attempt to "build a political base".

[8] After the rebellion's suppression, the Burundian government continued a campaign of mass murder targeting the Hutu population as well as political opposition, resulting in the killing of more than 100,000 people in a period dubbed "Ikiza".

[1] Researchers Warren Weinstein, Robert Schrere, and later Catherine Scott argued that the Hutu rebellion represented an "attack by the countryside against the town", an attempt to stop intrusions into local village life by Micombero's government.

In this sense, the three researchers framed Martyazo as a popular republic whose declaration was possibly supposed to signify the overthrow of the "managerial elite" by "the peasants".