• World Report 2012: Burundi
    Jan 22, 2012
    Violence increased in Burundi in 2011 as the country’s political situation failed to stabilize. Reciprocal killings by members of the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) and the former rebel group the National Liberation Forces (FNL) increased, particularly in Bujumbura, the capital,  and in Bujumbura Rural Province. Impunity for these crimes remains one of the most serious obstacles to peace. The single largest incident of killings took place in September in Gatumba, near the Congolese border.
  • World Report 2011: Burundi
    Jan 24, 2011
    Burundi held local and national elections between May and September 2010. Following communal elections on May 24, the electoral commission announced an overwhelming majority for the ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD). Opposition parties cried fraud and boycotted subsequent elections. Government officials banned opposition meetings and tortured political opponents. Both CNDD-FDD and opposition supporters carried out acts of political violence. International observers, relieved that Burundi had not descended into mass violence, described the elections as “calm.”
  • Burundi
    Jan 20, 2010
    Burundi’s 16-year civil war ended in April 2009 after the government and the last active rebel movement, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), resolved most issues that had impeded the implementation of a September 2006 ceasefire agreement. The FNL laid down its arms and became a political party. FNL fighters and political leaders were integrated into the security forces and government.
  • Burundi
    Jan 14, 2009
    Efforts to resolve conflict between the government and the last active rebel group, the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People-National Liberation Forces (Palipehutu-FNL), made halting progress.
  • Burundi
    Jan 30, 2006
    In 2005 Burundians went to the polls for the first time in twelve years, choosing a president, Pierre Nkurunziza, who declared his commitment to establishing the rule of law in a country marked by years of widespread human rights abuses. His government took office under a new constitution that guarantees power-sharing between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups and among political parties. The constitution, adopted by over 90 percent of voters at a February 28, 2005 referendum, also requires that 30 percent of parliamentary seats be reserved for women, the first time they have held this much power in the legislature.
  • Burundi
    Jan 30, 2005
    Most of Burundi enjoyed relative peace for the first time in a decade during 2004, but the province of Rural Bujumbura just outside the national capital remains a battleground between the rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) on one side and the combined Burundian Armed Forces and the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) on the other. The FDD is a former rebel movement that joined the government at the end of 2003. The FNL, drawn largely from the majority Hutu population, remains outside the peace process that has brought together other Hutu-dominated groups, including the FDD, with parties of the Tutsi minority who have dominated political and military life for generations. All forces in the country-wide civil war and those involved in the more recent limited combat outside the capital committed grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, killing and raping civilians and pillaging their property.