Colonial Rule
Even after this the foreign presence was minimal and the kings continued to rule much as before. The Europeans did, however, bring devastating diseases affecting both people and animals. Affecting the entire region, Burundi was especially hard hit. A great famine hit in 1905, with others striking the entire Great Lakes region in 1914, 1923 and 1944. Between 1905 and 1914 half the population of the western plains region died.
In 1916 Belgian troops conquered the area during the First World War. In 1923, the League of Nations mandated to Belgium the territory of Ruanda-Urundi, encompassing modern-day Rwanda and Burundi, but stripping the western kingdoms and giving them to British administered Tanganyika. The Belgians administered the territory through indirect rule, building on the Tutsi-dominated aristocratic hierarchy.
Following World War II, Ruanda-Urundi became a United Nations Trust Territory under Belgian administrative authority. After 1948, Belgium permitted the emergence of competing political parties. Two political parties emerged: the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), a multi-ethnic party led by Tutsi Prince Louis Rwagasore and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) supported by Belgium. In 1961, Prince Rwagasore was assassinated following an UPRONA victory in legislative elections.
Ethnic group | 1929 | 1933 | 1937 | 1945 | 1967 | 1987 | 1993 | 1997 | 2000a | 2000b | End-2001 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tutsi | 22 | 15 | 18 | 28 | 71 | 72% | 32% | 38% | 89% | 100% | 47% |
Hutu | 20 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 18 | 28% | 68% | 62% | 11% | 0% | 53% |
Read more about this topic: History Of Burundi
Famous quotes containing the words colonial and/or rule:
“The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. Theres very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man whos had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (18941961)
“The world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, which never gives, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of any project,Will it bake bread?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)