Bayoneted to death, the murder of the first elected and Hutu President, H.E Melchior Ndadaye: The Underlying Cause of Burundi’s ethnic and Political Conflict.

By Stany Nzobonimpa, blogger and Peace activist

June, 1993 came as a promising month in many hearts of Burundi’s children. It was during that very month that the first democratic elections in our history were to be held. That June came as in horizon, full of hope for a new Burundi, for a transformed and equal society, for a community of shared opportunities, in a word, for a new history. That June came like, oh, the time has come for the people of the country, for brothers and sisters to be equal and access altogether the promises of democracy, a month to say goodbye to selfish dictators and leaders without vision.

However, that was a dream, one of those dreams that literally will never come to pass. It was a dream going on in more than 65% of the voters’ heads. It was a dream in many expecting friends of Burundi, it was a dream, a dream which until the date I am typing this text, is still a dream… (in my own words). It was just a dream because just a few months later i.e. October 21, 1993, the man behind the kind words of democracy, the man they trusted and endorsed to represent the people was bayoneted to death. That man was H.E. Melchior Ndadaye, but that man was also Pontien Karibwami, Jules Bimazubute and other people’s representatives.

Selfish ambitions of people pretending to protect ‘minority’s’ interests (that was just a saying) killed the man Burundi believed in; for no reason. That was one of the roots of a conflict to last for more than a decade and effects forever. I don’t have the courage to go deeper and bring statistics on table, whoever wants to prove it has got to ask experts; just an indicator of hunger or unemployment in today’s Burundi will confirm the bitter truth I am telling you in this article. My point is not to blame (I am only a peace student) but to remind the reader that the time is now to act for a new Burundi; the time is now to go beyond the created ethnic conflicts and address the true issues. I am an advocator of justice and that must be done but today (October 21), we are just commemorating the death of our hero; that is why, may be, I have forgotten to mention the famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission…

I was about to finish typing on the National Hero when a friend of me told me about a shameless article published by selfish and war oriented authors (referred to as Sans Echec) on an unknown site www. bujumbura.be picturing the death of H.E Ndadaye as a suicide; then I decide to remind my reader about the democratic reforms achieved by that leader within his months on power. Ndadaye took a moderate and cautious approach. He knew very well his surroundings and their evil plans. His first attempt was to resolve the deep ethnic conflict created by a group of Tutsi with the aim of remaining on power forever. He named a female Tutsi, Sylvie Kinigi as the Prime Minister and gave 1/3 of the cabinet posts and two regional governorships to Buyoya’s UPRONA, a then 100% Tutsi formation. He freed political prisoners, granted freedom of the press, granted amnesty to exiled former dictator Jean Baptiste Bagaza. He did not take the advantage of power to against the minority Tutsi who had been ruling and oppressing the Hutus for many years. He wanted an army out of political interest and tried to address the regionalism and hatred created by selfishness of the Tutsi on power. As an intellectual (Ndadaye was a banker, he completed his second degree in Banking at the National Academy of Arts and Trades in France after his first degree in Education at the National University of Rwanda), his foregoing plan was an economically developed Burundi…That is the man whose unpunished murder is referred to by an wandering and crazy author on Bujumbura.be as a suicide!!