Forgotten World (131): Burundi
It’s time for another week of postings in my long-running series called Forgotten World – a look at parts of the world that hardly feature in our media or thoughts. You can check the previous 130 entries here.
Since independence in 1961, Burundi has been plagued by tension between the dominant Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority. In 1993 the country seemed poised to enter a new era when, in their first democratic elections, Burundians chose their first Hutu head of state and a parliament dominated by the Hutu Front for Democracy in Burundi (Frodebu) party. But within months the president had been assassinated, setting the scene for years of Hutu-Tutsi violence in which an estimated 300,000 people, most of them civilians, were killed.
Burundi is now beginning to reap the dividends of a peace process, but it faces the formidable tasks of reviving a shattered economy and of forging national unity. Landlocked and with sparse resources, half the population of 8.5 million lives below the poverty line. Indeed Burundi has the lowest GDP per capita in the world, arguably making it the poorest country on the planet. One scientific study of 178 nations rated Burundi’s population as having the lowest satisfaction with life of all.