Suchergebnisse

International concern with the rights of man is not new. During the 1800s the movement to abolish slavery was an emanation of this concern. In the mid-1800s the International Committee of the Red Cross was founded in reaction to the lack of care for wounded soldiers on battlefield. Under its aegis there developed humanitarian law, both the Law of Geneva and the Law of The Hague.In the post World War I period, civil and political rights were given international protection in a series of "minorities treaties." In addition, economic and social rights received international recognition with the creation of the International Labor Organization (I.L.O.) in 1919. Refugees received assistance with the establishment of a High Commissioner for Refugees. It has, however, only been in the post World War II period that international human rights, and their protection, have received extensive recognition.

Burundi society has become polarized along ethnic lines. In 1972 a series of increasingly violent confrontations erupted into an ethnic civil war. The two ethnic coalitions which faced each other were the Tutsi and the Hutu. The Tutsi are the socio-politically dominant minority in control in Burundi.

The 10,739 square miles which make up Burundi constitute one of the smallest countries in Africa. Burundi's population of between 3.5 and 5 million experienced six governments during the three years between independence in 1962 and the eruption of major ethnic violence in 1965. In 1966 the army took power in a coup that proclaimed Burundi to be a presidential republic. The change was not sufficient to resolve ethnic tensions, however, and by 1969 these were further complicated by regional divisions. During that year ethnic violence erupted once again but received little notice in the foreign press. The violence has pitted factions of the Hutu majority against factions of the Tutsi minority. Burundi's pre-colonial social system (which was grounded in a traditional monarchy) and its particular colonial experience account for the fact that the Hutu have had very little power over the country's political and economic affairs.