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Burundi: Former Ambassador Krueger Publishes a Book on the Assassination of Ndadaye and the Putsch of 1993
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Burundi Réalités (Bujumbura)
17 September 2007
Posted to the web 17 September 2007
Bujumbura
It was long known that the former US Ambassador to Burundi Robert Krueger was writing a book on Burundi.
More precisely, on the 1993 coup d'etat which resulted in the assassination of the democratically elected president Melchior Ndadaye. This book, From Bloodshed to Hope in Burundi â-š has just come out. Burundians will undoubtedly read it with the hope of finding evidence implicating the country's leaders at that time, particularly the executive of Uprona, high ranking military officers and president Buyoya Pierre, in the brutal murder of president Ndadaye, who had beaten Buyoya in the 1993 presidential elections. Ambassador Krueger states that Kamana, who was the brains behind the assassination of Ndadaye and has often been accused of being responsible for the president's death, was only a secondary character in the putsch that triggered a civil war causing thousands of deaths. In the following extract from the first chapter, the role of colonel Bikomagu is also clearly articulated.
As she was being driven away, she looked back and saw Col. Bikomagu speaking to the troops. In words remarkably reminiscent of Pontius Pilate's, he told them as he pointed to Ndadaye, "He is the one you were looking for. Here he is. Do whatever you want with him." And with that, Bikomagu, the deputy minister of defense, and Nibizi, the officer directly responsible for presidential security, turned and walked away.
Ndadaye was then put in a jeep and driven to the nearby camp of the 1st Parachute Battalion. Bikomagu, Nibizi, and Gakoryo followed in a Land Rover, hungry jackals nearing a kill. At the parachutists' camp, the troops were spread out, some sitting, others lying lazily on the grass around the parade grounds and basketball court. Inside the battalion commandant's office sat François Ngeze, wearing a grey jogging suit and "looking like a fat worm," according to one observer. He was waiting for his moment of triumph, when he could be presented to the troops as their new president.
Meanwhile, in another office inside, ten lower-ranking officers were given the task of killing the president. According to the coroner's report, Ndadaye was held with a cord around his neck while being pierced by bayonets, seven of the fourteen stabbings penetrating the thorax, thereby causing his lungs to fill with blood.
The president's body was left lying in the office where he had collapsed, for troops to witness and to mock. The assassins had so little respect for their president, world opinion, or common decency - and so little understanding of what it meant to depose a head of state and slaughter the principal leaders of a freely elected government - that they dug a mass grave right in the military camp. Into it they tossed the bodies of Melchior Ndadaye, president of the republic; Pontien Karibwami, vice president and speaker of the National Assembly; Gilles Bimazubute, deputy speaker of the National Assembly; Juvénal Ndayikeza, minister of lands and communal development; and Richard Ndikumwami, director of intelligence.
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Some hours later, upon realizing the world's outrage at the assassinations, army leaders ordered the bodies exhumed so that they might be collected by their families. The soldiers took the bodies, some bayoneted, some shot, all battered and filthy, and dropped each one into a simple wooden coffin. The followers and families were then allowed to fetch the coffins, take them to the morgue, and prepare for a state funeral.
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| Copyright © 2007 Burundi Réalités. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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