On June 1st
1993, Melchior Ndadaye, a member
of Hutu ethnic was elected . Later on, October 21st was
savagely assassinated in a military coup, three months only, in the office . From then
onwards, political and socio-economic unrest causes a lot of suffering to
Burundians.
 |
| Melchior Ndadaye |
He was born in 1953, in Muramvya Province, center of Burundi, a region in social and
political conflict with the ruling south. He fled to Rwanda following the 1972
mass killings of hutu.
The 1972 selective killings shape ndadaye’s vision on national policies.
Léonce Ngendakumana, president of Front of democracy in Burundi (Frodebu), urges national and international forces to double efforts in ending Ndadaye assassination trial, 20 years after his assassination.
To him all judged people were small solders and he is convinced they were not the real perpetrators.
The official truth on Ndadaye's murder still not yet known,
but a UN investigation into it, the result of which was released in 1996,
accused the army command of being responsible for the assassination and of
being complicit in the resulting massacres by Tutsi troops. Pierre Buyoya,
Ndadaye's predecessor as president, has long been suspected of having some role
in the assassination.
Ndadaye‘s
Political vision
Ndadaye had become involved in politics while in
neighboring Rwanda, serving as the inaugural president respectively of Bampere,
(in French: Mouvement des Étudiants Progressistes Burundi), and UBU in French acronyms(
partie des travailleurs du Burundi) a movement of exiled Burundians in Rwanda,
according to former president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya.
In 1990, many African nations, as well as in Burundi,
initiated multiparty democracies, Ndadaye’s party Frodebu registered as a legal
political party in 1992, after six years of clandestine political struggle.
The vision of Ndadaye is summarized as follow “ An implementation of a specific proactive policies leading to a
specific programs aimed at integrating and promoting minority group: ethnic
minorities, religious minorities, foreigner minorities, cultural minorities
etc. Each people must enjoy and have a place under one's own national sky”.
An ordeal
and assassination of Ndadaye by Tutsi army
Laurence Ndadaye, first lady, told us that while her husband was back from an
extraordinary minister’s council on 20th, October 1993, Bishop
Alfred Ndoricimpa, in visit in Belgium called from Bruxelles asking about a rumored
coup against the power going out in
Europe about the possible coup in Burundi.
However, this was not new to presidential couple as since
June 1993 rumor of a possible coup was heard.
Following a warning call from Jean Bikomagu, the army
commander in chief to the Republic president, the later try to get out from the
palace, unfortunately it was very late.
“We were already encircled by mutineers soldiers who
were so many that it was impossible to find any breach through which the
president can ran away. We even try in vain, to dress up the president a
military outfit like those of the men of his guard, but in vain, “witnesses Ndadaye’s
wife
In the morning Mrs Ndadaye and her husband who spent
all the night under palace bombing were freed from the palace and conducted in
Muha Camp aboard an armored vehicle, and he died there.
Mrs.Ndadaye, her children and his holds house that
were with Ndadayes were taken to France embassy in Bujumbura.
“Since,I had no more information about my husband. I
only knew his death from Bishop Bernard Bududira two days later on Saturday”
said Laurence Ndadaye.
President Ndadaye Melchior, according to Leonce Ngendakumana,
has been killed strangled with a rope by two solders, following three hours of
torture.
Ndadaye died together with his closes colleagues.
Those are, president of National Assembly and his vice president, Home Affairs
Ministers, Intelligence Chief and president Ntibantunganya’ s wife.
