Over a century ago, amid a bloody and protracted war between King Mwezi Gisabo of Burundi and the German occupying forces—a conflict that raged for nearly seven years—a man emerged who epitomised bravery. His name was Bihome. With the King besieged and escape looking unlikely, Bihome volunteered to don the royal robes, allowing Mwezi to slip away amidst the confusion of the battlefield. In doing so, Bihome paid the ultimate price and became a martyr—an embodiment of the dignity and resistance of the Barundi people.
The sheer length of the war, despite the Germans’ overwhelming technological edge, was a testament to the resolve of King Mwezi and his warriors, the Abadasigana. Sadly, the struggle was fatally undermined from within. A handful of Burundian princes and chiefs, rather than setting aside personal grudges to unite against a common enemy, threw in their lot with the colonisers to serve their own narrow interests. In stark contrast to Bihome’s selflessness, their betrayal offered a full measure of what treachery looks like—self-serving, shortsighted, and destructive.
Decades later, Prince Louis Rwagasore—Mwezi Gisabo’s great-grandson—emerged as the political heir to Bihome’s spirit. A visionary and agitator for independence, Rwagasore found himself, like his ancestor, standing against entrenched elites more interested in privilege than freedom.
Just as Bihome had been betrayed by collaborators, Rwagasore faced the princes and chiefs who, seduced by juicy positions in the colonial system, actively resisted independence. Rwagasore’s loyalty to the dream of a sovereign, dignified Burundi cost him his life. He was assassinated on 13 October 1961, months before independence was formally declared.
His death laid bare a painful truth: beyond personal sacrifice, what truly matters is how one conceives of their country, the interests one chooses to protect, and the alliances one forges. These are the truest measures of patriotism—a word we all too often cheapen through careless use.
The Prince’s concept of Burundi
To understand Prince Rwagasore’s relationship with the people he sought to mobilise, one might recall the words of Kwame Nkrumah: “Go to the people, live among them, learn from them, serve them, plan with them, start with what they know, and build on what they have.”
Rwagasore did precisely that. He founded two cooperatives—the CCB and the CCRU—aimed at empowering Burundian producers, traders, and consumers. These cooperatives became powerful tools for grassroots mobilisation, enabling citizens to boycott colonial goods and engage in civil disobedience. Like many of Africa’s nationalist icons, Rwagasore was not just a dreamer but a doer, earning transnational support from figures like Lumumba in Congo and Nyerere in Tanganyika.
His relationship with the people cemented his vision of a unified Burundi—one indivisible nation built by and for all Burundians, regardless of rank or social station, one around which all Burundians, from princes to the poor would build the foundation of a new liberated and inclusive society.
He outlined this idea in a letter to a Belgian colonial agent named Albert Maus. But Maus was no ordinary bureaucrat. A key architect of ethnic division, Maus had already helped engineer the collapse of Rwanda’s monarchy and promoted the virulent Hutu Power ideology through the party Aprosoma. It was this ideology that fuelled the first massacres of Tutsi in 1959.
Rwagasore worked tirelessly to prevent Maus from importing this destructive politics into Burundi. In his letter, the Prince dismantled the colonial ethnic narrative, asserting that Burundi’s core issue wasn’t Hutu versus Tutsi, but rather a matter of social justice—of addressing the real concerns of ordinary people, regardless of origin. He reminded Maus that it was colonial policy, over five decades, that had engineered inequality by favouring the so-called Tutsi elite. How, then, could the same system now exploit those divisions for its own gain?
Rwagasore, like his great-grandfather, was determined to see Burundi free. He gave his party members the name Abadasigana, echoing the resistance fighters of Mwezi Gisabo’s era. The name became both a symbol and a rallying cry for unity and resistance. But once again, just like the saboteurs had done to his grandfather by siding with Germany’s occupying forces, elites aligned themselves with the colonial power, sabotaging a movement that could have transformed the nation.
Saboteurs at work
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, “Judge me by the enemies I have made.” Equally revealing, however, are the friends we choose. They are essential indicators of the interests that we hold dear and measuring tools of the judgment that one should have of a person’s character. Prince Rwagasore was the hero of his people, the friend of great figures in the continent’s independence struggle like Nyerere and Lumumba and the enemy of the colonial administration. One could hardly doubt Rwagasore’s motives, his determination despite the threats hanging over his life, his sincerity and the merits of the cause he was defending.
Opposing him were two factions: one promoted an ethnic agenda over a national one; the other was made up of the descendants of dethroned royalty. Both were propped up by the colonial administration, and neither cared much for the plight of the ordinary citizen. Power, not principle, was their currency. With their help, the colonialists orchestrated Rwagasore’s assassination—a betrayal of historical proportions.
Though independence was achieved, the nation’s soul was wounded. The vision of a united Burundi died with the Prince. Just as Mwezi Gisabo had been forced into submission by betrayal, so too was Rwagasore’s ideal. And just as colonialism had succeeded then, neocolonialism took root in its wake. A divided Burundi became easy pickings for those keen to preserve imperial influence in Africa.
Since Rwagasore’s demise, nationalism has given way to ethnic wrangling, and the concept of a unified Barundi people has faded, leaving no one to speak for them as a whole.
Who will wake up Rwagasore’s vision
The tragedy across much of Africa is that those who claim to challenge this state of affairs often turn out to be pseudo-intellectuals—drawn not to the people, but to the very metropoles that once colonised them.
In today’s Burundi, politics remains trapped in a grim tug-of-war. On one side are demagogues peddling hate; on the other, opposition figures clinging to the idea of ethnic quotas, as laid out in the Arusha Accords. The former carry forward the legacy of colonialism that subscribes to divide and rule patterns of thought and practice. The latter seek to institute and freeze these subdivisions into rigid identities by giving the representatives of these artificial entities the prerogative to defend the interests of their respective “groups”. Few seem genuinely invested in the hopes and struggles of everyday citizens.
Caught between these forces, the people are left to spectate a tragic theatre, while their so-called leaders jostle for favour from old colonial capitals. In the contemporary crisis, to a government which has turned its back on its people and has isolated itself regionally, the only alternative is an opposition that speaks to Western capitals and is struggling to be heard in the region and at home.
In such a bleak landscape, the absence of Rwagasore’s vision is more palpable than ever. And so the questions loom large: What do we make of Nkrumah’s advice to ground our politics in the people? Who are our real allies? What kind of inclusive society are we striving for? And above all—whose interests are we truly serving?
The answers to these questions are not mere academic exercises. They are vital to our survival. Only through honest reflection can Burundians learn to distinguish sincere leadership from hollow replicas of the very saboteurs who once sold out their homeland. And maybe, just maybe, in doing so, we might awaken the spirit of the Prince who dared to dream of a united and dignified Burundi.
