Early life, 1940–1962 Micombero was born in
Rutovu,
Bururi Province in
Belgian-ruled
Ruanda-Urundi on 26 August 1940. His parents were peasants of Hima ethnicity, part of the wider
Tutsi ethnic group. Micombero studied at
Catholic mission schools in
Burundi and, in 1960, joined the military which was being formed ahead of Burundi's planned independence in 1962. As part of his training, he was sent to study at the
Royal Military Academy in
Brussels, Belgium in April 1960 to train as an officer. In March 1962 he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. At the time of the independence of the
Kingdom of Burundi in July 1962, he held the rank of
captain. In November he was made assistant commander-in-chief of the
Burundian National Army (
Armée Nationale Burundaise).
Independence and seizure of power, 1962–1966 in
Central Africa. By 1966, it was bordered to the north by
Rwanda and to the east and west by
Tanzania and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo respectively. In early post-independence Burundi, the Tutsi-dominated monarchy of
Mwambutsa IV attempted to balance the interests of Tutsi with those of the Hutu majority. In 1963, Micombero joined the ruling
Union for National Progress (, UPRONA) party which, though dominated by Tutsi, also tried to attract Hutu members. In June, Micombero was named State Secretary for Defense (
Minister of National Defence), making him head of the military at the age of 23. In September he appealed to the
National Assembly to merge the civilian National Gendarmerie (
Gendarmerie nationale) into the army to head off "antagonistic" tendencies between the two forces, but this was never carried out. In October 1965, a group of ethnic Hutus, drawn largely from the National Gendarmerie,
attempted to overthrow the Burundian monarchy. Their attempt was unsuccessful but Mwambutsa IV fled into exile. Micombero led the repression against the coup's perpetrators. On 9 November 1965 he married Adèle Nzeyimana, a
Ganwa daughter of a subchief. In July 1966, a
second coup d'état brought the king's son,
Ntare V, to power. On 8 July Ntare declared the dismissal of Prime Minister
Léopold Biha and the suspension of the constitution. The following day he asked Micombero to form a government. On 12 July Micombero presented his government to Ntare with himself as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. Tensions between the soldiers in the government and the monarchy emerged in August and led to a reshuffling of the cabinet in September. On 7 November Ntare attempted to broadcast a decree dismissing Micombero's government, but was turned away from the radio station by soldiers. Three weeks later, on 28 November, while Ntare was in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo on a
state visit, Micombero, now a
colonel, led a
military coup d'état that deposed the king. He then abolished the monarchy and proclaimed Burundi a
republic with himself as its first
President.
Dictatorship, 1966–1976 in
East Germany. Micombero managed to navigate between
communist and
capitalist powers during the
Cold War. As president, Micombero declared Burundi a
one-party state with UPRONA as the only legal party. He abolished the
parliament and instead set up a "National Revolutionary Council". His ideology of "
democratic centralism" brought all the country's institutions and media under the control of what was effectively a military dictatorship. His regime combined ideas from
the socialist ideology of
Tanzania with other doctrines from
Joseph-Désiré Mobutu's regime in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (known as
Zaire from 1971 to 1997). Micombero's regime systematically marginalized Hutus; for instance, he excluded Hutus from the national military by introducing new height and girth standards that were usually only fulfilled by Tutsi recruits. Micombero became increasingly paranoid after suffering an injury in a road accident in 1967. He was widely believed to be an
alcoholic, and often seen in a "drunken stupor". Various plots against the regime were discovered and unrest remained; notable attempts at deposing him were prevented in 1969 and 1971. His base of support became increasingly restricted to Tutsi in the northern and central regions of Burundi. For instance, Tutsis from
Muramvya led the 1971 plot against his rule. As a
Cold War leader, he was able to play off both Communist and Western powers against one another. In 1969, he accused Belgium of having supported a minor Hutu revolt, causing the latter to withdraw military aid. The Belgians were quickly replaced by the French. In April 1972, a rebellion broke out among the Hutu at
Rumonge in the south at the encouragement of the Tanzanian regime and spread rapidly. In subsequent ethnic violence, as many as 1,000 Tutsi were killed. The response of the Micombero regime was to launch
a campaign of genocidal violence against the Hutu in the region in which at least 100,000 people are thought to have been killed. The deposed king Ntare, said to have led the rebellion, was himself murdered. The massacres particularly targeted educated Hutus. A number of
Banyaruguru Tutsis were also murdered. Realizing that the violence was out of control, Micombero eventually ordered the massacres to cease. In 1973, after further violence, Mobutu was forced to intervene to prevent a Tanzanian invasion. Following the end of the crisis, Micombero introduced a new
constitution allowing him to run for a further seven-year term. He also laid the foundation for the
Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries the same year, along with the governments of
Rwanda and Zaire. In November 1976 opponents, led by Colonel
Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, led a
successful coup d'état against Micombero's regime. Micombero himself was arrested and a second republic was declared under the dictatorship of Bagaza. Although a Tutsi and a participant in the killings of 1972, Bagaza made concessions to the Hutu majority and made some progress towards modernising the Burundian state until he too was deposed in 1987.
Exile and death, 1977–1983 Micombero was exiled from Burundi in 1977. He took up residence in
Somalia, then ruled by dictator
Siad Barre who was a close friend. He gained a degree in economics from the
Somali National University in 1982. He died of a heart attack at
Madina Hospital in
Mogadishu in 1983. Researcher Nigel Watt assessed Micombero as the "first, and worst, of the three Tutsi military presidents" of Burundi, as, by unleashing the 1972 violence, he caused lasting hatred and violence that plagued Burundi for decades. == References ==