Burundi

From the drum-kingdom of the mwami to a republic forged in grief

Burundi grew from a precolonial kingdom ruled by a sacred mwami and a princely Ganwa aristocracy into a German, then Belgian, colonial territory within the Ruanda-Urundi mandate. Unlike Rwanda it kept its monarchy at independence in 1962, but assassination, coups and the abolition of the throne gave way to a Tutsi-dominated military republic. The mass killing of Hutu in 1972, the assassination of the first elected Hutu president in 1993, and a long civil war defined the late twentieth century; the Arusha peace process and the CNDD-FDD shaped the state that followed.