Burundi: German colonialism (1890 - 1916)

Updated April 2005

In the partition of Africa at the Berlin Conference (1884-1885), the European powers allocated the territories of modern Rwanda and Burundi to Germany.

In 1890 the kingdom (called Urundi) and the neighbouring kingdom of Ruanda (Rwanda) were formally incorporated into German East Africa. In 1896 the first military presence was established in the area, but only in 1899 was Urundi-Ruanda constituted as a military-administrative district (Institute for Security Studies 2005).

The process was facilitated by inter-dynastic power struggles within the royal family which the Germans exploited to gain recognition of their claims and to project their military power in the region.

Due to a lack of manpower and resources the Germans retained all existing social and political structures and rule was exercised through the Monarchy and its existing state formations. The Germans attempted to bolster this system of indirect rule by modernising and centralising the existing state (Mthembu-Salter 2002).

They further attempted to solidify their control by ossifying the fluid class and caste structures discussed above into a system of ethnic identity and ethnic domination-subordination held together by ethnic control of wealth, privilege and power.

This transformation of permeable caste identities into mutually exclusive ethnic identities, and their coupling with differentiated access to control of resources and opportunity, put into motion the forces of social conflict that would tear the Burundian polity apart (Oketch & Polzer 1992, 92, Global Internally Displaced Person Project 2005).

The introduction of a money-based economy had an unforeseen disintegrative effect on traditional social structures, since wealth accumulation and social status no longer depended primarily on the ownership and distribution of cattle. In cash economy participation the distinctions between Tutsi and Hutu that the Germans had sought to develop and enforce were not merely irrelevant, they were emphatically negated (Institute for Security Studies 2005, Bayefsky.com 1992, 92-93).

Twenty years of German rule were brought to an end with the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent Belgian occupation of Burundi in 1916.

References

BAYEFSKY.COM 1992 "Core reports: Burundi", [www] http://www.bayefsky.com/core/hri_core_1_add_16_1992.php [opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).

GLOBAL INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSON PROJECT 2005 "Ethnic background and pre-colonial times" IN Burundi, [www] http://www.db.idpproject.org/Sites/IdpProjectDb/ idpSurvey.nsf/wViewCountries/E2C06B557E7DD5A7C12567DA002B9852 (page off-line Oct 2007).

INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY STUDIES 2005 "Burundi: Political System and history", [www] http://www.iss.co.za/AF/profiles/Burundi/Politics.html [opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).

MTHEMBU-SALTER, G 2002 "Self-Determination Regional Conflict Profile: Burundi" IN Self determination in focus, Foreign Policy In Focus, [www] http://www.selfdetermine.org/conflicts/burundi_body.html [opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).

OKETCH, JS & POLZER, T 1992 "Conflict and Coffee in Burundi" IN Lind, J & Sturman, K (eds) Scarcity and Surfeit: The ecology of Africa's conflicts, Institute for Security Studies, [www] http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/Books/ScarcitySurfeit/Chapter3.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).