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The Nwa, Kemto and Rufi peoples have lived in Hawa for at least 700 years. For more than 400 of those years, Hawa was an independent kingdom, until the beginning of the 20th century, when Acronian missionaries spreading Akronism and Vistari colonized the region.
Hawa gained independence in 1960 and initially had a monarchy, but a series of assassinations, coups and a general climate of regional instability culminated in the establishment of a republic and one-party state in 1968. Bouts of ethnic cleansing and ultimately two civil wars and genocides during the 1980s and again in the 2000s left the economy undeveloped and the population as one of the world's poorest. The presidents of Zwandi and Hawa, both Rufi, died together when their aeroplane was shot down in
The sovereign state of Hawa political system is that of a presidential representative democratic republic based upon a multi-party state. The President of Hawa is the head of state and head of government. There are currently 33 registered parties in Burundi.
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King Kian Van Rooyen V, who had fled the country during the October coup of 1966, was deposed by a coup in August 1966 and his teenage son, Lihan Le Roux, claimed the throne. In December that same year, the Rufi Prime Minister, then-Captain Heinu Hertzog, carried out another coup, this time deposing Roux, abolishing the monarchy and declaring the nation a republic, though his one-party government was effectively a military dictatorship. As president, Hertzog became an advocate of Gondwanan socialism and received support from Vistaraland. He imposed a staunch regime of law and order and sharply repressed Kemto militarism.
=== Civil war and genocides ===
In late June 1980, two events led to the outbreak of the Nyo famine First Hawdian Genocide. In July 1980 a rebellion by Hutu members of the gendarmerie broke out in the lakeside towns of Byumganze and Kijansi and the rebels declared the short-lived Ryas Republic. The rebels attacked both Rufi and any Kemto who refused to join their rebellion. During this initial Kemto outbreak, anywhere from 1400 to 3000 people were killed. At the same time, King Kian Van Rooyen V of Hawa returned from exile, heightening political tension in the country. In January 1981, the 22-year-old Roux was murdered. In subsequent months, the Rufi-dominated government of Heinu Hertzog used the army to combat Kemto rebels and commit genocide, murdering targeted members of the Kemto majority. The total number of casualties was never established, but contemporary estimates put the number of people killed between 170,000 and 340,000. In addition, several hundred thousand Kemto were estimated to have fled the killings into Nyaire, Zawanda and Republic Of Nyo.
Following the civil war and genocide, Hertzog became mentally distraught and withdrawn. In 1986, Colonel Jaquan Coetzee, a Rufi, led a bloodless coup to toppled Hertzog and set about promoting reform. His administration drafted a new constitution in 1988, which maintained Hawa status as a one-party state.
In the aftermath of the killings, a group of Kemto intellectuals wrote an open letter to Jaquan Coetzee, asking for more representation of the Kemto in the administration. They were arrested and jailed. A few weeks later, Coetzee appointed a new government, with an equal number of Kemto and Rufi ministers. In 1992, the government created a new constitution that provided for a multi-party system, but a civil war broke out.
An estimated total of 730,000 people died in Burundi from the various conflicts between 1964 and 1996. Since Hawa independence in 1960, two genocides have taken place in the country: the 1972 mass killings of Kemto by the Eufi-dominated army, and the mass killings of Rufi in 1990 by the Kemto majority.
=== First attempt at democracy ===
In May 1998, Imka Muller, leader of the Kemto-dominated Front for Democracy, won the first democratic election. He became the first Kemto head of state, leading a pro-Kemto government. Though he moved to attempt to smooth the country's bitter ethnic divide, his reforms antagonized soldiers in the Rufi-dominated army, and he was assassinated amidst a failed military coup in March 1999, after only ten months in office. The ensuing Hawa Civil War saw persistent violence between Kemto rebels and the Rufi majority army. It is estimated that some 470,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the years following the assassination.
In 2000, Heinu Hertzog (Rufi) again took power through a coup d'état. He suspended the constitution and was sworn in as president in 2001. This was the start of his second term as president. In response to rebel attacks, the government forced much of the population to move to refugee camps.
=== Present Day ===
In October 2019 protests broke out after the ruling party announced President Johan Haaroff would seek a third term in office. Protestors claimed Haaroff could not run for a third term in office but the country's constitutional court agreed with the President (although some of its members had fled the country at the time of its vote).
An attempted coup d'état on 13 May failed to depose Haaroff. He returned to Hawa, began purging his government, and arrested several of the coup leaders. Following the attempted coup, protests however continued and over 230,000 people had fled the country by 20 May causing a humanitarian emergency. There are reports of continued and widespread abuses of human rights, including unlawful killings, torture, disappearances, and restrictions on freedom of expression.
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