who killed Ndadaye Melchior : A long road behind and a long road ahead

 

 On June 1^st 1993, Melchior Ndadaye, a  member of  Hutu ethnic  was elected .  Later on, October 21^st 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 20^th, 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.