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Burundi
Prince Louis Rwagasore's UPRONA swept the UN-supervised election of September 1961 and he was assassinated within a month; the kingdom became independent under Mwambutsa IV when the trusteeship ended on 1 July 1962.
- Independence
- July 1, 1962
- Before
- Urundi (Ruanda-Urundi, Belgian-administered UN Trust Territory)
- Metropole
- Belgium
- Leader
- Mwami Mwambutsa IV
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Union pour le Progrès National (UPRONA), founded by Prince Louis Rwagasore
A Kingdom Inside a Trust Territory
Belgium took Urundi from Germany in 1916 and governed it with Ruanda under a League of Nations mandate of 20 July 1922, later a United Nations trusteeship. Unlike Rwanda, power in Burundi was not a simple Tutsi monopoly: the royal clan of princes, the Baganwa, stood apart from both Hutu and Tutsi, and the mwami Mwambutsa IV had reigned since 1915. Belgian indirect rule built on this aristocratic hierarchy, but the Burundian court kept more room for manoeuvre than its Rwandan counterpart, which helped the monarchy survive the transition to independence.
Rwagasore and the Election of 1961
Louis Rwagasore, Mwambutsa's eldest son, founded traders' cooperatives in 1957 and then turned UPRONA into a multi-ethnic nationalist party demanding independence under a constitutional monarchy. Belgium favoured the rival Parti Démocrate Chrétien. In the UN-supervised legislative election of 18 September 1961 UPRONA won 58 of 64 seats with about 81 percent of the vote, and Rwagasore became prime minister on 28 September. On 13 October 1961 he was shot dead at a Usumbura hotel by a Greek gunman, Ioannis Kageorgis, acting for PDC leaders; historians have found complicity within the Belgian residency.
Independence as a Monarchy
The United Nations dropped plans to keep Ruanda-Urundi together. General Assembly Resolution 1746 (XVI) of 27 June 1962 ended the trusteeship on 1 July 1962, when the Kingdom of Burundi became independent under Mwambutsa IV, with André Muhirwa as prime minister. Burundi joined the UN on 18 September 1962. The killing of Rwagasore removed the one leader able to bridge the country's divisions, and within four years the monarchy he had wanted to preserve was gone.
Chronology
- 1916 — Belgian forces occupy Urundi
- 20 July 1922 — League of Nations mandate over Ruanda-Urundi awarded to Belgium
- 18 September 1961 — UPRONA wins 58 of 64 seats in the UN-supervised election
- 13 October 1961 — Prime Minister Louis Rwagasore assassinated
- 27 June 1962 — UN General Assembly Resolution 1746 (XVI) ends the trusteeship
- 1 July 1962 — Independence as the Kingdom of Burundi
- January 1965 — Prime Minister Pierre Ngendandumwe assassinated
- 28 November 1966 — Michel Micombero abolishes the monarchy
Aftermath
The Hutu prime minister Pierre Ngendandumwe was assassinated in January 1965, and after a failed Hutu officers' coup in October 1965 Mwambutsa left for exile. His son Ntare V deposed him in July 1966 and was himself overthrown on 28 November 1966 by Captain Michel Micombero, who declared a republic. In 1972 the Tutsi-dominated army and ruling-party youth killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Hutu, the first of several mass killings that defined Burundi's post-independence history.
Legacy
Burundi left the trusteeship as a constitutional monarchy under a multi-ethnic party, yet the assassination of Rwagasore and the collapse of the monarchy in 1966 opened four decades of military rule and communal killing that mirrored and fed Rwanda's tragedy.