National Forces of Liberation

The National Forces of Liberation (French: Forces nationales de libération, or FNL) is a political party and former rebel group in Burundi. An ethnic Hutu group, the party was previously known as the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People (Parti pour la libération du peuple Hutu, or PALIPEHUTU) and adhered to a radical Hutu Power ideology, but since the mid- to late-2000s has moderated its stance and cooperated with the Tutsi-supported Union for National Progress party in opposition to the rule of Pierre Nkurunziza and the CNDD–FDD.

PALIPEHUTU was a participant in the Burundian Civil War. Its armed wing was the National Forces of Liberation (Forces nationales de libération, or FNL). It was led by Agathon Rwasa and was estimated to have around 3,000 combatants.

A dissident wing is led by Jean Bosco Sindayigaya.

Formation

PALIPEHUTU was one of two movements that emerged from the MEPROBA (Mouvement des étudiants progressistes barundi), a leftist student organization created in exile in Belgium at the beginning of the 1970s following the ethno-political massacres of 1965 and 1969. In the aftermath of the1972 Ikiza, MEPROBA was divided over the iddue of whether to focus more on ethnic conflict or maintain a traditional Marxist analysis, and split into the TABARA (‘Come to my Rescue’) and UBU (Umugambwe wa’Bakozi Uburundi). TABARA was founded in Rwanda in 1979 and while still drawing from a Marxist framework, but increasingly emphasized Tutsi ethnic domination and was open to the possibility of armed struggle, unlike UBU. Despite its leftist slogans, TABARA received political support from the anti-communist Rwandan government, as seen by President Micombero's early departure from the 1979 France-Afrique summit in Kigali, after Rwandan President Habyarimana refused to crack down on TABARA, although later pressure saw many TABARA members seeking refuge in Tanzania.

PALIPEHUTU was founded in 1980 in Hutu refugee camps in Tanzania by former Burundian soldier Rémy Gahutu who was dissatisfied with the intellectuals of TABARA. PALIPEHUTU advocated armed struggle as the primary means of acchieving its goals and established its armed wing, the FNL, in 1983 with Ikiza survivor Donatien Misigaro as its first commander. Initial difficulties in beginning military operations led to the National Liberation Front (FROLINA) splitting from PALIPEHUTU in 1990.