Historical Dictionary of Burundi (African Historical Dictionaries Historical Dictionaries of Africa)

249 Pages·2006·6.54 MB·English

by  Ellen K. Eggers

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africa history
EGGERS
HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES OF AFRICA, NO. 103
THIRD EDITION
The Republic of Burundi, a small but densely populated country in sub-
Saharan Africa, gained its independence from Belgium in 1962. It is
most widely known for the fierce and bloody warfare between its two
main ethnic groups—Hutus and Tutsis. Years of ethnic fighting have claimed
hundreds of thousands of lives, and only recently has there been a lessening H
i
of bloodshed. However, with democratically elected leaders replacing military s
t
dictators and peace becoming more prevalent than conflict, the future is
o
looking bright.
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This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Burundiis an important reference,
ba
especially due to the lack of information available on the country. It is not
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only about the present and the recent past but also about the country’s early
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history, which reveals sources of conflict. This book includes a chronology, a
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list of acronyms and abbreviations, an introductory essay, appendixes, a c
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bibliography, and several hundred cross-referenced dictionary entries on t
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Burundi’s history, politics, economy, society, and culture. io
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burundi
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Ellen K. Eggersteaches linguistics and English at California State University, r
Chico. She lived and worked in Burundi from 1985 to 1986 on a Fulbright y

grant, teaching at the University of Burundi and collecting Kirundi data for a o
linguistics project. f
For orders and information please contact the publisher
Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of THIRD
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. EDITION
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706 ELLEN K. EGGERS
1-800-462-6420 ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-5302-7
ISBN-10: 0-8108-5302-7
fax [phone]
www.scarecrowpress.com
9 780810 853027
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Historical Dictionary
of Burundi
Third Edition
Ellen K. Eggers
The Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
2006
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SCARECROWPRESS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Awholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.scarecrowpress.com
Estover Road
Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom
Copyright ©2006 by Ellen K. Eggers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eggers, Ellen K., 1955–
Historical dictionary of Burundi / Ellen K. Eggers. — 3rd ed.
p. cm. —
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-5302-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8108-5302-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Burundi—History—Dictionaries. I. Title. II. Series.
DT450.68.E37 2006
967.572003—dc22
2006013959
(cid:2)™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
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For Paul
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Contents
Editor’s Foreword Jon Woronoff vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Reader’s Note xiii
Acronyms and Abbreviations xv
Map xix
Chronology xxi
Introduction xlvii
THE DICTIONARY 1
Appendixes
A Kings (Bami) of Burundi 167
B Postcolonial Prime Ministers 169
C Postcolonial Presidents 171
Bibliography 173
About the Author 207
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Editor’s Foreword
Burundi, like its neighbor Rwanda, is a small, poor, and remote country
that, along with the usual political, economic, and social problems, must
cope with the most serious of all: ethnic divisions and friction. For some
time, it seemed to have avoided the worst, until a prolonged period of
warfare and sheer terror broke out, and it is only now, after 12 horrible
years of bloodshed, that it seems to be getting back to “normal” and
there is some hope for the future. Although small, poor, and remote, Bu-
rundi’s situation is not without interest to others, especially its neigh-
bors, but also Africa more generally and in some modest degree the
world. For, if Burundi can overcome its handicaps, perhaps others can
do so as well, and if it cannot, as history has shown, any troubles could
spill over.
Admittedly, although there is a genuine attempt at reconciliation, no-
body knows what the future will bring. Fortunately, this new edition of
Historical Dictionary of Burundioffers some basis for at least evaluat-
ing the present and speculating more intelligently about the future. And
it does so, among other things, by reaching back into the past to show
how the state, previously a colony, and before that small kingdoms, has
evolved. This is done first in the chronology, which, given the many
twists and turns, is particularly useful. The introduction sets out a more
general context. Then the dictionary, with many more entries than the
previous edition, provides considerable information on important na-
tional figures, the political parties, and above all the army. Other entries
deal with significant aspects of the economy, society, and culture. The
bibliography, while hardly vast, suggests further reading on a country
on which little exists in English (or even French) and thus helps the
reader to round out the picture.
This was not an easy book to write, since it has been even harder than
before to obtain reliable information on a country that, to begin with,
vii
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viii • EDITOR’S FOREWORD
was not that well researched nor—until the recent disaster—of much in-
terest to the media. Thus, the author, Ellen K. Eggers, deserves special
credit for having shed so much light on the current situation while also
providing a good look at the past. At present Dr. Eggers teaches English
and linguistics at California State University in Chico. She first got to
know Burundi in 1985–1986 when she lived in Bujumbura and taught
English and linguistics at the University of Burundi. Since then, she has
followed the situation closely and also wrote the previous edition of
Historical Dictionary of Burundi, which she has now substantially up-
dated and expanded. This is her contribution to international under-
standing, and an important one for those who want to know more about
this elusive country.
Jon Woronoff
Series Editor
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Preface
Jan Vansina, an oral historian, says the following about Burundi:
The political system did not favor historical memory. . . . It was in every-
one’s interest to forget the past, whether it was the ganwawho had taken
the land, the subchief who had been dismissed, or the king himself who
relied now upon one faction, now upon another. The former senior regent
of the country told me that history was of no interest at the court so there
were practically no historical accounts. The political system shows why.
(1985, 115)
Vansina’s view of the history of Burundi may very well be the cor-
rect one. Certainly, this is not the first historical work on Burundi to
quote him nor, in all probability, will it be the last. However, Vansina
speaks mostly of a country’s oral tradition—a primary method by which
a country becomes familiar to the rest of the world, but not necessarily
the only method—and he seeks the truth. Perhaps the truth is something
that is never known precisely; historical truth, at least, is dependent
upon the givers and the receivers of it. Earlier, Vansina says of truth:
Not all societies have the same idea as to what historical truth is. . . . In
the Congo, “truth” is what has been transmitted by the ancestors as hav-
ing really happened. . . . The Rundi have the same idea of historical truth,
and as soon as something is accepted as a historical truth, they do not
trouble to think whether it could have happened or not, or whether it re-
ally happened in the way the tradition describes. In their eyes, analysis of
a testimony is meaningless. (“Use of Process Models in African History,”
1964, 102–3)
It is difficult to ever know if what we learn of a people and of a cul-
ture is “true.” Do those inside the culture have a better perspective, or
does the necessary objectivity come from outside? These questions may
ix