Brigadier General Joseph Rugigana, who as a young officer in the Burundian army was in charge of protecting President Melchior Ndadaye, has recently published his version of events on the night of the coup d’état of 20 October 1993. The book, “Ma vérité sur l’assassinat de Ndadaye“, has reignited a recurring debate about one of the country’s darkest moments. And while there is something remarkable and quite endearing about the determination of the people of Burundi, especially the youth, to know what happened on that fateful night, one thing is often overlooked in the current and past debates: the motives and objectives of the masterminds of the assassination. If we are to prevent such tragedies from recurring, we need to reflect on why, from the masterminds’ perspective, Ndadaye had to die. In other words, the successful coup d’état, not the assassination, should be our main focus.
Debates about Ndadaye’s assassination tend to focus on “who” (killed him) rather than “why” he was killed. It could be argued that identifying the killers would help in understanding their motives and objectives. However, I believe that these can be inferred from the events surrounding the crime, witness testimonies and the UN report on the assassination of the President and the subsequent acts of genocide against the Tutsi. Leaving aside the regional and international involvement in the coup, some conclusions can be drawn from all these three, if we limit ourselves to the motives of the army leadership.
First, there was a strong consensus within the army leadership that Ndadaye should be killed. That doesn’t mean there was no opposition. But whatever opposition there was, it was very weak. It did not cause a split in the army. No soldiers were killed in the brief exchange of fire around the presidential palace during the coup. No serious measures were taken to prevent the coup, despite the fact that news of an impending coup was known many hours before it took place. With a few exceptions such as Rugigana, many of those who supposedly opposed the assassination and were present at the scene chose to not speak out. And even now, Rugigana’s version of what happened is highly contested. As a result, Burundians still do not know for sure who exactly was responsible for the coup.
The esprit de corps within the army, and the consensus about Ndadaye’s fate, was so strong that even today many retired officers defend the official version of the coup, even though it lacks credibility in the eyes of members of the general public. It claimed that a small group of low-ranking soldiers mutinied, threatened their superiors and went on a rampage, killing the president and all the officials in the constitutional line of presidential succession. Somehow these low-ranking soldiers had pulled off the perfect coup by a) creating a constitutional vacuum that once again made the army, de facto, the most powerful institution in the country, and b) providing the perfect cover for their commanders who could not be held accountable. Having done all this, they returned to their barracks and placed themselves once again under the command of the officers they had allegedly threatened. Although it made little sense, this version of events held, as the Burundian army regained what it had lost with the advent of multipartyism: political power.
Second, Ndadaye and the elected officials in the constitutional line of succession had to die because they had the popular legitimacy conferred by the elections. Simply removing elected officials from office wouldn’t have been enough. The international community and the region would have insisted on the restoration of the constitutional order, sanctions would have been imposed, and, certainly, internal opposition to the coup would have received all the support it needed. Killing them ensured a permanent constitutional void. Whatever government emerged from the ensuing political crisis would lack popular legitimacy. And the resistance would have lost the most important part of its leadership. All this suggests that the masterminds were educated and politically astute individuals with a good understanding of world politics, not emotionally charged low-ranking soldiers who had lost their minds, as the army leadership suggested. The murders were well planned. The mutiny narrative simply provided cover for the masterminds.
Similarly, the subsequent genocidal killings against the Tutsi were not, as some have suggested, a spontaneous act of popular anger. The UN report on this shows a pattern in many parts of the country, with officials of the then ruling FRODEBU party, which had won the 1993 elections with Ndadaye as its candidate, organising meetings to discuss the situation even while the fate of the president was still unclear. Following these meetings, led by FRODEBU officials, mobs began cutting down trees and blocking roads to ensure that the army could not intervene. In some parts of the country, the killers took men and boys hostage and killed them only when it was clear that Ndadaye had died. The genocidal killings quickly extended to anyone identified as Tutsi. There was therefore nothing spontaneous about these killings. It was a planned, well-calculated response to the assassination of President Ndadaye, led by high- and low-ranking officials of the then ruling party.
The ethnic dimension of these events is therefore not lost on anyone. The Tutsi-led army refused to hand over power to civilians, let alone a Hutu-dominated administration. It sought and succeeded in regaining power through a decapitation strike that created a constitutional vacuum, which in turn led to an unelected government of national unity. In 1996, the leader of this government and FRODEBU member, President Ntibantuganya, having realised that he will never be able to control the army, sought foreign military intervention. He knew full well that only Tanzania, which supported the CNDD-FDD (an armed rebellion formed after the 1993 coup by FRODEBU members who refused to join the government of national unity) was willing and ready to send troops. But the army, which saw the president’s call for foreign intervention as an attempt to end its control over the country, swiftly deposed him. This effectively ended any pretence that Burundi was run by civilians.
As a party, FRODEBU’s strategy for regaining power in 1993 was to plan, organise and direct genocidal killings with the aim of wiping out the Tutsi or killing enough of them to bring the army to its knees. The CNDD-FDD rebels applied this same modus operandi during their 10-year insurgency.
In neither case have the decision-makers been held to account. Worse still, there is no sign that our leaders, or most Burundians involved in the heated debate over Ndadaye’s assassination, have learned anything from these tragedies. As long as the people of Burundi continue to see themselves as two nations instead of one, these tragedies are bound to recur.
