Furiiru people

The Furiiru people (also known as the Fulero, Fuliru, Kifulero, Kifuliiru, and Bafulero) are an African ethnic group, a sub-group of the Kivu.[1][2][3]

The Furiiru mainly inhabit the east-central highlands of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), in the South Kivu province south of Lake Kivu and north and northwest of Uvira, along the Ruzizi plain near the border with Rwanda and Burundi, where some Furiiru also live.[4][3][5] In 2009, their population estimate numbered over 250,000.[1] A 1999 estimate of Furiiru-language speakers placed the number at 300,000.[3] The Furiiru are connected to the Vira in a Furiiru-Vira culture cluster.[6] Both groups are interlacustrine, living between the African Great Lakes. The Banyamulenge live nearby.[7]

The Fuliiru speak the Fuliiru language, a Bantu language. They are predominantly farmers, although they also own and raise cattle for milk and meat.[4] Traditionally the Furiiru were the only highland Bantu-speaking people to be organized into a "single, relatively small state" which was highly centralized.[8][4]

In the second half of the 19th century or earlier, a large number of Tutsi Rwandans fled to eastern Congo to escape war and heavy taxation under King Rwabugiri (Kigeli IV), and the king of the Furiiri gave the Tutsi migrants grazing land in exchange of annual tribute.[2] During the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the Furiiru were overrun by refugees from the conflict.[4] In 1973, the Furiiru were described as patrilineal, with close connections to the Lega ethnic cluster.[6]

The U.S. Department of State's 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Congo reported that in October 2007, a mwame (local chief) and other Bafulero leaders, with the complicity of the FARDC (Congoese military) 12th Integrated Brigade, held 57 people in Luvungi, South Kiva on suspicion of witchcraft. The individuals were held under inhumane conditions for four days before being released after the United Nations Human Rights Office intervened. However, no action was taken against any of those involved in the incident.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b "Furiiru." Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East, Volume 1 (Jamie Stokes, editor) (2009). Infobase: p. 234.
  2. ^ a b Johan Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century (2002). Cambridge University Press: p. 16.
  3. ^ a b c "Furiiru." Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16th ed) (2009). M. Paul Lewis (editor), 2009. Dallas: SIL International.
  4. ^ a b c d James Stuart Olson, The Peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Greenwood: 1996, p. 183.
  5. ^ "Africa Report" (Vol. 10), African-American Institute, p. 9
  6. ^ a b Daniel P. Biebuyck, Lega Culture: Art, Initiation, and Moral Philosophy Among a Central African People. University of California Press: 1973, p. 20 and p. 183.
  7. ^ Thomas Turner, The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality (2007). Zed: p. 78.
  8. ^ Congo Democratic Republic Foreign Policy and Government Guide, Vol 1: Strategic Information and Developments (2007). Washington: International Business Publications: p. 99.
  9. ^ "Congo, Democratic Republic of the." 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (2008). Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, United States Department of State.