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Featured biography 1
Portal:Burundi/Featured biography/1
Pierre Nkurunziza (born 18 December 1963) is the President of Burundi and chairman of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD). The CNDD was an ethnic Hutu rebel group in Burundi, but transformed itself into a political party.
Nkurunziza was born in 1963 in Burundi's capital city of Bujumbura. He attended primary school in Ngozi province and secondary school in Kitega before graduating from the University of Burundi in 1990. At the university, he majored in education and sports.
His father, Eustache Ngabisha, was elected to the Parliament of Burundi in 1965 and later became governor of two provinces before being killed in 1972 during a period of ethnic violence that claimed the lives of over 100,000 Burundians.
Featured biography 2
Portal:Burundi/Featured biography/2 Cyprien Ntaryamira (6 March 1955 - 6 April 1994), was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994.
Ntaryamira was born in the Mageyo zone's commune of Mubimbi, Bujumbura Rural Province, in what was then the Belgian-dominated United Nations Trust Territory of Burundi. He entered school in Bujumbura, but after an abortive Hutu rebellion in 1972, he and thousands of other ethnic Hutus fled the country.
Ntaryamira eventually received a degree in agriculture from the National University of Rwanda in Butare in 1982. During this time, he became politically active in socialist movements. He returned to his native country in 1983 to work as an agricultural official. He was a political prisoner of the regime of Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza briefly in 1985.
Featured biography 3
Portal:Burundi/Featured biography/3 Sylvie Kinigi (born 1953) was Prime Minister of Burundi from 10 July 1993 to 7 February 1994, the first and to date only woman to hold the position.
Kinigi was born in 1953, and is a member of the Tutsi ethnic group. Her husband, with whom she had five children, was a member of the Hutu ethnic group. Kinigi graduated from Burundi University, having studied economic management, and worked in the Burundi civil service. She eventually became a senior advisor in the Prime Minister's office, focusing on economic policy.
When Melchior Ndadaye was elected President of Burundi in 1993, he appointed Kinigi as his Prime Minister. This was part of an effort to build unity between Burundi's two ethnic groups — Ndadaye was a Hutu, and wished to decrease Tutsi hostility to his administration by appointing a Tutsi as Prime Minister. Kinigi stated that reconciliation between the two ethnic groups would be her highest priority.