The agricultural Hutu and pastoralist Tutsi have occupied the area for many centuries, with the Tutsi occupying the dominant social positions (although the original relationship was more symbiotic in nature). The society was never highly centralised and proved unable to withstand the advances of the Germans during the scramble for Africa in the 19th century. The country subsequently became part of German East Africa.

After 1919, Burundi and neighbouring Rwanda were administered by the Belgians. Both countries gained independence in 1962. Burundi’s chronic instability since then is a result of the bitter tribal rivalry between the Tutsi who (despite being only 15 per cent of the population) have traditionally dominated the army, the civil service and the higher reaches of the economy, and the majority Hutu, who have often suffered systematic discrimination under the Tutsi efforts to exclude them. The antagonism has occasionally flared up into mass violence and the massacre of tens of thousands, especially in 1972 and 1988 (although it has never reached the scale of neighbouring Rwanda, where the same ethnic split prevails). In 1966, the ruling King Mwami was deposed in the first of three military coups between then and 1987: at that point Pierre Buyoya – the dominant political figure of the last 15 years – took control for the first time.

After the introduction of a new constitution by Buyoya in 1992, multiparty elections for a National Assembly were held in June 1993. Against widespread expectation, the incumbent President Buyoya – representing the main Tutsi party (UPRONA) was peacefully displaced by Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu banker who headed the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU). In October 1993, another military coup was unsuccessful but claimed the life of President Ndadaye. In January 1994, another Hutu, Cyprien Ntaryamira, took over but had an equally short tenure; returning from an overseas trip with Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, he was killed in a plane crash (see Rwanda). This was the incident that set off the genocide in Rwanda. Burundi narrowly avoided the same fate, although tensions between Tutsi and Hutu sharply increased and the civil war that followed has claimed 300,000 lives – in Nelson Mandela’s words: ‘a slow-burning genocide.’

Two years later, in 1996, exasperated by the perceived inertia and incompetence of the civilian FRODEBU government, Buyoya took over once again in another coup. The guerrilla war between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated army intensified in the short term. However, mediation efforts by the Tanzanians and, crucially, Nelson Mandela, drew most of the parties into a draft accord in March 2000, with a final settlement in November 2001. The largest Hutu rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), signed the accord, although dissident FDD elements, along with the other main rebel group, the National Liberation Front (which has not signed) continued their guerrilla war against the government. Nonetheless, the accord has worked out reasonably well and been implemented on schedule. A transitional government jointly led by Buyoya and FRODEBU leader Domitien Ndayizeye, held power until April 2003, when Buyoya stood down and Ndayizeye became the country’s sole leader. A South African-led African Union peacekeeping force has been brought in to try and control the country – a formidable task by any standards.

Former rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza was elected as President in August 2005 in the final step of a deal to end 12 years of war between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi army. Although he was the only candidate, he is the first President chosen through democratic means since the start of the civil war in 1993. Under the new terms of the deal agreed between the government and Hutu rebels, democracy will be balanced with guarantees for the Tutsi minority.

Under the 1998 constitution, modified from the 1992 constitution, executive power rests with an elected president. Two vice-presidential posts, assigned to the two main ethnic groups, were also created. Legislative power is held by the National Transitional Assembly, comprising the 81 elected members of the former National Assembly elected under the old 1992 constitution, plus 40 additional members appointed from political parties and ‘civil society’.