Cyprien Ntaryamira (6 March 1955 – 6 April 1994) was a Burundian politician who served as President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his assassination two months later in the context of the Burundian Civil War.
A Hutu born in Burundi, Ntaryamira studied there before fleeing to Rwanda to avoid ethnic violence and complete his education. Active in a Burundian student movement, he cofounded the socialist Burundi Workers' Party and earned an agricultural degree. In 1983, he returned to Burundi and worked agricultural jobs, though he was briefly detained as a political prisoner. In 1986 he cofounded the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), and in 1993 FRODEBU won Burundi's general elections. He subsequently became the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry on 10 July under the rule of Burundi's new FRODEBU president Melchior Ndadaye, but in October Tutsi soldiers killed Ndadaye and other top officials in an attempted coup, inciting the civil war.
Ntaryamira survived the putsch and in January 1994 the National Assembly elected him to succeed Ndadaye as the President of Burundi. After a prolonged constitutional dispute, he was inaugurated on 5 February, declaring that his top priorities would be restoring peace, promoting human rights, and resettling refugees. Throughout his tenure he unsuccessfully sought to mitigate ethnic conflict. He was killed on 6 April 1994 when the plane he was travelling in with Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali.
Early life
Cyprien Ntaryamira was born on 6 March 1955 in the Mageyo Zone's commune of Mubimbi, Bujumbura Rural Province, Ruanda-Urundi. Ethnically, he was Hutu and the sixth of eleven children in his family. He attended primary school in Rushubi before enrolling in the Collège du Saint-Ésprit in Bujumbura in 1968. Ntaryamira was elected to a seat in the National Assembly, representing the Bujumbura Rural constituency. On 10 July 1993, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, serving under Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi. Ndadaye and the other officials in the line of presidential succession—the President and Vice-President of the National Assembly—were ultimately killed, creating a power vacuum.
Ntaryamira was scheduled to be inaugurated on 22 January, but the parliamentary opposition, led by UPRONA, filed a suit with the Constitutional Court to block the installment. They argued that Article 182 of the constitution, which stipulated that the document could not be modified in times of national crisis, rendered the National Assembly's amending of Article 85 void. FRODEBU parliamentarians argued that the change was necessary to fill the vacancy, since holding a national election to replace the former president would have been impossible. The Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the opposition in a decision split along ethnic lines. The Hutu justices subsequently resigned and the government dismissed the Tutsi justices. This led to several days of violence in Bujumbura, but on 3 February the government and opposition parties reached an agreement to install Ntaryamira as president with an UPRONA prime minister, as well as reinstate the Constitutional Court. Ntaryamira was sworn in on 5 February. In his inaugural address, he declared that his top priorities would be to restore peace, promote human rights, and resettle thousands of Burundian refugees and internally displaced persons. His government consisted of a broad coalition including Hutu and Tutsi members from FRODEBU and UPRONA. Anatole Kanyenkiko, an UPRONA politician, was made prime minister. Kanyenkiko's selection did not satisfy many UPRONA leaders, and while Ntaryamira allowed several other top party figures into his government, he blocked the appointment of those whom he considered responsible for the violence in the capital.
During Ntaryamira's presidency, Burundi was troubled with severe ethnic violence and an economic crisis triggered by the conflict and low rainfall. He reorganised the National Intelligence Service—and the Migration services and attempted to reform municipal police.
In an attempt to demobilise civilian militias, his government dispatched delegations to meet with the groups, but these entreaties failed as the emissaries were fired upon. His government then attempted to use the army to stop the militias, but in late March the army became entangled in ethnic conflict in the capital and, acting autonomously from the government, exclusively targeted Hutu neighborhoods for disarmament. In a radio broadcast, Ntaryamira appealed to the army to withdraw to end the fighting. His support for national disarmament and for a European embargo on arms exports to Burundi brought him into disagreement with Kanyenkiko, who wanted a harsh crackdown on rebel groups and thought an embargo infringed on the country's sovereignty. Ultimately, his efforts to stem the ethnic violence were unsuccessful. He maintained close diplomatic ties with President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and President Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania. However, unlike in Rwanda, where the shootdown sparked a genocide, the situation in Burundi remained peaceful after word was received of its president's death. The Burundian government initially declared that the plane crash was caused by an accident Diplomats reported that most Burundians believed that the assassination was meant to target Habyarimana, not Ntaryamira.
Ntibantunganya attributed Ntaryamira's death to "the facts of circumstance" and believed that he was not targeted. The Kanyenkiko government officially resigned but stayed in office to manage daily affairs pending the confirmation of its replacement. As Ntibantunganya was only viewed as having assumed the presidency in an interim fashion, new power sharing discussions between FRODEBU and the opposition parties began while ethnic tensions remained high and violence spread throughout the country.
Historians Jean-Pierre Chrétien and Melchior Mukuri wrote of Ntaryamira's presidency, "It is difficult to draw up an assessment for a regime which only worked for two months and in an immediately very tense atmosphere." Ntaryamira's death is commemorated annually by the Burundian government on 6 April. On 6 April 2017, his widow wrote a letter to President Pierre Nkurunziza, asking that the Burundian government recognise Ntaryamira as a national hero and request that the United Nations launch an international investigation into the downing of his plane. In April 2021, a government spokesperson indicated that the government was considering its options for further exploring the details of the shootdown.
See also
- List of heads of state and government who died in aviation accidents and incidents
- List of heads of state and government who were assassinated or executed