Michel Micombero (26 August 194016 July 1983) was a Burundian politician and army officer who ruled the country as de facto military dictator for the decade between 1966 and 1976. He was the last Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Burundi from July to November 1966, and the first President of the Republic from November 1966 until his overthrow in 1976.
Micombero was an ethnic Tutsi who began his career as an officer in the Burundian military at the time of Burundi's independence in 1962. He studied abroad and was given a ministerial portfolio on his return. He rose to prominence for his role in helping to crush an attempted coup d'état in October 1965 by ethnic Hutu soldiers against the Tutsi-dominated monarchy. In its aftermath, in 1966, Micombero himself instigated two further coups against the monarchy which he perceived as too moderate. The first coup in July installed a new king on the throne, propelling Micombero to the role of prime minister. The second coup in November abolished the monarchy itself, bringing Micombero to power as the first president of the new Republic of Burundi.
Micombero led a one-party state which centralised the country's institutions and adopted a neutral stance in the Cold War. Dissent was repressed and, in 1972, an attempt to challenge Micombero's power led to genocidal violence against the Hutu population in which around 100,000 people, mainly Hutus, were killed. His regime finally collapsed in 1976 when he was ousted in a coup d'état by another army officer, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, who installed himself as president. Micombero went into exile in Somalia, where he died in 1983.
Biography
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 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 (Union pour le Progrès national, 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.