Cyprien Ntaryamira

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Cyprien Ntaryamira (born March 6, 1955 in Mageyo , † April 6, 1994 in Kigali , Rwanda ) was the President of Burundi from February 5, 1994 until his assassination .

Ntaryamira started school in Bujumbura , but fled the country along with thousands of other Hutu after a failed Hutu rebellion in 1972.

In 1982 he received a degree in agriculture from the National University of Rwanda in Kigali. During this time he was politically involved in socialist movements. In 1983 he returned to his home country and worked as a civil servant in agriculture. In 1985 he was a brief political prisoner of the regime of Jean-Baptiste Bagaza .

In August 1986 he became a founding member and director for economic policy of the Hutu-dominated Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi / Party for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU). After the first democratic elections in Burundi in 1993, FRODEBU came to power, ending a long regime of the Tutsi minority and the Unité pour le Progrès national / Association for National Progress (UPRONA). The new President Melchior Ndadaye appointed Ntaryamira as Minister of Agriculture.

However, in October 1993, Ndadaye and two of his top officials were murdered, resulting in a deadlock in parliament and a civil war . As a compromise, Nteryamira was selected as president on February 5, 1994 - although he was a Hutu but considered moderate - while Anatole Kanyenkiko , a UPRONA member, was appointed prime minister.

assassination

→ Main article : The presidential plane was shot down in Rwanda on April 6, 1994

The break was only brief: A plane with Ntaryamira and his friend, President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana, as well as a large part of the Rwandan army command on board, was shot down when it was about to land in the Rwandan capital Kigali. The murders are believed to have triggered the genocide in Rwanda .

On April 8, power was transferred to Ntaryamira's close associate, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya , President of the National Assembly.