12 Facts About Ikiza

Ikiza, or the Ubwicanyi, was a series of mass killings—often characterised as a genocide—which were committed in Burundi in 1972 by the Tutsi-dominated army and government, primarily against educated and elite Hutus who lived in the country.

Ikiza's government accused several prominent Banyaruguru in July 1971 of plotting to restore Ntare to the throne.

Ikiza was immediately detained and kept under house arrest in his former palace in the city.

Ikiza loaned Micombero a few jets to conduct aerial reconnaissance.

Ikiza officially denied that the dissolution of his government was linked to the rebellion, saying the succession of events was a matter of "providence".

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Foreign accounts of the Ikiza generally expressed surprise at the apparent willingness of the victims to comply with the perpetrators' orders until their deaths.

Ikiza secured the domination of Burundian society by Tutsis, particularly the Hima.

Ikiza's regime remained hostile to the exiles, however; in 1975 the government killed a group of repatriated refugees in Nyanza Lac one year after their return.

The repressiveness of the Ikiza successfully dampened the prospects of anti-regime actions, and Burundi was unprecedently free of conflict until 1988.

Ikiza prompted a large, mostly-Hutu exodus from Burundi to neighboring countries.

The Ikiza triggered a new wave of thinking among the Hutu refugees, whereupon they came to believe that the Tutsis' ultimate goal was to kill enough Hutus to change the demography of Burundi so that both ethnic groups would be about equal in number, thus strengthening their political influence.

Burundian Hutus have retrospectively cited the existence of a "Simbananiye plan", a plot devised by the former foreign minister in 1967 before the Ikiza to eliminate the monarch and the Hutu elite, thus demonstrating the regime's alleged genocidal intent.