Burundi is a landlocked country in the African Great Lakes region, bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, with much of the southwestern border adjacent to Lake Tanganyika. One of the smaller African countries, its capital is Bujumbura. Prior to gaining its independence in 1962, it was a colony first of Germany and then of Belgium. Ethnic conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi people, dating back to the 1960s, persisted through the 1990s. Peace talks, mediated first by Julius Nyerere and then by Nelson Mandela, culminated in a peace treaty, with a new government installed in 2001 and power-sharing agreements reached in 2003. Although the conflict had devastating effects on the economy ...