Ikiza

The Ikiza (translated variously from Kirundi as the Catastrophe, Great Calamity, or Scourge) or the Ubwicanyi (Killings) was a genocide which occurred in 1972 in Burundi by the Tutsi-dominated army and government against Hutus in the country. Conservative estimates place the death toll of the genocide between 100,000 and 150,000 killed, while some go as high as 300,000.

Ikiza
LocationBurundi
Date1972
TargetHutus; particularly the educated and elite
Attack type
Genocide, mass murder
Deaths100,000–300,000
PerpetratorsTutsi-led dictatorship
MotiveAnti-Hutu racism
History of Burundi
Emblem of Burundi
Burundian Civil War

Background
Main article: History of Burundi

The demographics of Burundi through the 1960s and 1970s were roughly 86 percent Hutu, 13 percent Tutsi, and 1 percent Twa.[1] For most of this period, the Tutsi maintained a near monopoly on senior government and military positions. Burundi gained its independence from Belgium in 1962, and in May 1965 the first post-independence elections were held. The Hutu candidates scored a landslide victory, capturing 23 seats out of a total 33. But, instead of appointing a Hutu prime minister, the king Mwambutsa IV appointed a Tutsi prince, Léopold Biha, as Prime Minister. On October 18, 1965, Hutus, angry with the king's decision, attempted a coup. The king fled the country, but the coup ultimately failed.

Years later, the weeks approaching April 29 in 1972 were rustling with political interest from the events related to the return of the former king, Ntare V. From complex of elements agitated with Byzantine intrigues, Ntare went to Uganda first. Uganda’s president, Idi Amin, claimed he received a written guarantee from president Micombero that Ntare could return to Burundi and live there as a private citizen. Using the helicopter at his disposal from the Uganda chief of state, Ntare arrived where he and his ancestors had ruled as kings, in March 1972. Within a few hours he was put under house arrest in the former palace in Gitega. Soon after, an official radio broadcast proclaimed that Ntare was trying to instigate a mercenary invasion of Burundi to take back rule. Some ministers favored that he would be kept under restricted protection in Gitega, while others wanted him dead. The situation was unofficially resolved when Ntare was assassinated sometime between Saturday evening, April 29, and the following morning, under circumstances which are still unclear. Whether there was a conspiracy or his death was involved with a violent outbreak in Gitega has not been determined.[2]

The genocide

Responding to the violence president Michel Micombero (Tutsi) proclaimed martial law. His armed forces killed Hutus en masse.[3] A few hours before the outbreak of the revolt on April 29, President Micombero ordered the dissolution of his government and expanded his powers. On the eve of the outbreak of the revolt, on April 29, 1972, the fifth monarch of Burundi, Natara V, returned for the first time from the exile of six years in Europe because he thought that at that time he would be of use. That same night he was executed in his palace by order of the President. The next day, on April 30, a group of senior officers of Tutsi-Himba, who had been close to the president, began to plan the extermination of all the Hutu in Burundi. After the outbreak of the revolt, the President ordered the extension of the powers of Foreign Minister Artémon Simbananiye, and he was appointed Minister of the Interior. On May 12, Minister Simbananiye gave a "free hand" to the extremist youth movement of the Tutsi known as the Revolutionary Youth Brigades (JRR). All members of the Hutu youth movement were exterminated on the same day. The leaders of the youth movement were instructed to submit to the army lists of all Hutu students in schools and universities.[4]

The Hutu revolt was defeated within a few days in early May. Once the revolt was over, the organized extermination of Hutu citizens began in Burundi. First they ordered the army and police commanders to kill all their Hutu members, causing 750 soldiers and about 300 policemen to be killed. Next to be killed were teachers and students in high schools and vocational schools. Trucks and military vehicles arrived at schools and soldiers ordered Hutu students and teachers to board trucks, which led them to death pits, prisons, and military installations where they were executed. Members of the JRR also participated in executions and massacres and served as a qualitative force to identify the victims. Even elementary schools had soldiers targeting them; at first they gathered only the teachers but eventually even the students were killed. In June it was reported that no Hutu teachers remained. In secondary schools and elementary schools, only 45% remained. Thousands of students were kidnapped from high schools and universities and executed. In the city of Bujumbura alone, 4,000 students were loaded onto trucks and taken to death pits.[5] Thousands of civil servants and priests of Hutu were executed. On the state radio there was a veiled propaganda calling for the killing of Hutu, "to hunt the python in the grass." In many cases the soldiers arrived with lists of victims prepared in advance. Tutsi moderates were also murdered.[6] Approximately 75 percent of educated Burundian Hutus were killed.[7]

The Burundian government promised to guarantee the safety of the approximately 150 Americans present in the country at the time.[8]

Reactions and foreign humanitarian aid

Burundi was declared to be a disaster area on May 1. After using $25,000 from the aid contingency fund of the World Disaster Relief Account, Burundi asked the United States for another $75,000, which was immediately granted. Most of the money was used to purchase goods locally or from nearby countries; items included blankets, two ambulances, food, clothes and transportation.[9]

The United States government responded to the genocide by encouraging the Organisation of African Unity to discuss the matter and urging the United Nations to send humanitarian aid to Burundi. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger wrote a memo on the genocide to President Richard Nixon, arguing that since the United States had few strategic interests in the country that it should limit its involvement in the affair. Nixon reacted angrily to cautious advice of the document, writing in its margins that "This is one of the most cynical, callous reactions of a great government to a terrible human tragedy I have ever seen."[8] He added, "Tell the weak sister[s] in the African Bureau of State to give a recommendation as to how we can at least show moral outrage. And let’s begin by calling back our Ambassador immediately for consultation. Under no circumstances will I appoint a new Ambassador to present credentials to these butchers."[8]

Analyses

Death toll

Conservative estimates place the death toll of the genocide between 100,000 and 150,000 killed,[10] while some place it as high as 300,000, roughly coming out to include 10–15 percent of Burundi's male Hutu population.[7] Since the genocide targeted educated Hutus and most educated persons in Burundi were male, more males than females died in the event.[11] Several hundred thousand Hutu are estimated to have fled the genocide into Zaire, Rwanda, and Tanzania.[12][13]

Assessment of the violence as a genocide

If only because of its "selective" character – the elimination of an ethnically defined elite group – the case of Burundi does not fit into the Holocaust (or the Rwanda) paradigm. It cannot be described as a total genocide, and for that reason, some may quibble about the appropriateness of the genocide label. Jacques Sémelin’s definition – "that particular process of civilian destruction that is directed at the total eradication of a group, the criteria by which it is defined as being determined by the perpetrator" (Sémelin 2007, 340) – might conceivably offer conceptual ammunition to those who would challenge the view that anything like a genocide has been committed against Tutsi or Hutu. By the same token, as defined by the perpetrator as the group to be eradicated, there can be little doubt that the extermination of the Hutu elites stands as a tragic illustration of the genocidal urge to "purify and destroy"(Ibid.) Once all is said and done, no amount of retrospective ratiocination about the applicability of the genocide label can ever erase from their collective memories the agonies suffered by Hutu and Tutsi in the time of ikiza.

— René Lemarchand (2008)[14]

Aftermath

Counterattacks by the Hutus

During 29–30 April, Burundi (Hutu) armed rebels allied with Zairian (Zaire) exiles (mulelists) and attacked southern Burundi, Gitega, and Bujumbura. They were trying to make a Hutu-dominated republic and get rid of the Tutsis. The Hutu government states there were about 50,000 deaths, the majority being Tutsis. However, most observers of the event believe that the figure of 50,000 is greatly exaggerated. Observers also concluded evidence that there was an attempt of Hutu elements to overthrow the government of Micombero. There was around 4-5 thousand Hutus involved in this attack. They did not have a count, but estimated 3,000 Tutsis killed within the first week. There is no evidence that Mulelists were involved with the violence but Mulelists signs, garb, and chants were used. This was part of a historical pattern of majority group resenting domination by a minority.[15]

Legacy

The genocide is remembered in Burundi as the "Ikiza", translated variously as the "Catastrophe", "Great Calamity", or "Scourge".[16] It is also called the "Ubwicanyi", which translates from Kirundi as "Killings" or "Massacres". Ubwicanyi was commonly used to describe the event during and after the 1970s. The term "genocide" was not frequently used as a label until the 1990s, with local discourse being influenced by the Rwandan genocide and broad international human rights discussions. Genocide is still commonly used as a descriptor only in French discussions of the event and rarely mentioned in Kirundi-told narratives.[17]

The genocide of 1972 left a permanent mark in the collective memory of the Hutu population, both in Burundi and in neighbouring countries. Tens of thousands of Hutu civilians fled the country during the violence into their northern neighbor: Rwanda. The increased tensions in Burundi and Rwanda sparked episodes of civil and cross-border violence in Burundi. These precipitated large-scale killings by both sides of the conflict. These episodes further radicalized elements of the Hutu population in Rwanda, who also faced pressure from a militant Tutsi opposition, Rwandan Patriotic Front. In 1994, the Hutus led a genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Thousands of Tutsi refugees sought safety in Burundi.

In the press there was a report on May 1973, that young militant Hutu student leaders in Rwanda, Tanzania and Zaire had inspired and coordinated a three-pronged attack on Burundi.[18]

Notes
  1. Mann, M. (2005). The Dark Side of Democracy. p. 431.
  2. Melady, Thomas (1974). Burundi: The Tragic years. New York: Orbis Books. pp. 5–6. ISBN 0-88344-045-8.
  3. Lemarchand (1996, p. 97
  4. Rene Lamershend, The Killings in Burundi in 1972, 2008
  5. Lemarchand, René (2009). The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4120-4
  6. Totten, Samuel; Parsons, William S. Charny Israel W. (2004) Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts Routledge, ISBN 0-415-94430-9, ISBN 978-0-415-94430-4
  7. Krueger & Krueger 2007, p. 29.
  8. Lynch, Colum (31 May 2019). "Document of the Week: Nixon's Little-Known Crusade Against Genocide in Burundi". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
  9. Melady, Thomas (1974). Burundi: The Tragic Years. New York: Orbis Books. p. 13. ISBN 0-88344-045-8.
  10. Charny 2000, p. 510.
  11. Krueger & Krueger 2007, p. 28.
  12. International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi (2002). Paragraph 85. "The Micombero regime responded with genocidal repression that is estimated to have caused over a hundred thousand victims and forced several hundred thousand Hutus into exile"
  13. Longman, p. 12
  14. Lemarchand (2008) cites: Sémelin, Jacques, 2007, Purify and Destroy : The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide, London: Hurst and Company.
  15. Melady, Thomas (1974). Burundi: The tragic years. New York: Orbis Books. pp. 11–12. ISBN 0-88344-045-8.
  16. Chrétien & Dupaquier 2007, p. 9.
  17. Nimuraba & Irvin-Erickson 2019, p. 190.
  18. Melady, thomas (1974). Burundi: The Tragic Years. New York: Orbis Books. pp. 80–81. ISBN 0-88344-045-8.

References
  • Charny, Israel W., ed. (2000). Encyclopedia of Genocide. 1–2. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780874369281.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Chrétien, Jean-Pierre; Dupaquier, Jean-François (2007). Burundi 1972, au bord des génocides (in French). Paris: Karthala Editions. ISBN 9782845868724.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi: Final Report by the United States Institute of Peace, United Nations S/1996/682; received from Ambassador Thomas Ndikumana, Burundi Ambassador to the United States, 7 June 2002
  • Krueger, Robert; Krueger, Kathleen Tobin (2007). From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi : Our Embassy Years During Genocide (PDF). University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292714861.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Lemarchand, René (1996). Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-56623-1
  • Lemarchand, René (27 June 2008). Case Study: The Burundi Killings of 1972, Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence supported by Sciences Po. CERI/CNRS
  • Longman Timothy Paul (1998), Human Rights Watch (Organization), Proxy Targets: Civilians in the War in Burundi, Human Rights Watch, ISBN 1-56432-179-7
  • Nimuraba, Sixte Vigny; Irvin-Erickson, Douglas (2019). "Chapter 9 : Narratives Of Ethnic And Political Conflict In Burundian Sites Of Persuasion". Museums and Sites of Persuasion Politics, Memory and Human Rights. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781138567825-10.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Totten, Samuel; Parsons, William S. Charny Israel W. (2004) Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts Routledge, ISBN 0-415-94430-9, ISBN 978-0-415-94430-4

Further reading
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