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Cyprien Ntaryamira




Cyprien Ntaryamira ( March 6 , 1955 - April 6 , 1994 ), was President of Burundi from February 5 , 1994 until he died in a plane crash April 6 , 1994 .

Ntaryamira was born in the Mageyo zone's Commune of Mubimbi, Bujumbura Rural Province , in what was then the Belgian -dominated United Nations Trust Territory of Burundi. He entered school in Bujumbura but after an abortive Hutu rebellion in 1972 , he and thousands of other ethnic Hutus fled the country.

Ntaryamira eventually receive a degree in Agriculture from the National University of Rwanda in Kigali in 1982 . During this time, he became politically active in Socialist movements. He returned to his native country in 1983 to work as an agricultural official. He was a Political Prisoner of the regime of Col. Jean-Baptiste Bagaza briefly in 1985 .

In August 1986 he became a founding member and economic policy director of the Hutu-dominated Front For Democracy In Burundi party (FRODEBU). FRODEBU gained power after Burundi's first democratic elections in 1993 , ending a long history of rule by the Tutsi minority and the Union For National Progress (UPRONA). New president Melchior Ndadaye appointed Ntaryamira Minister of Agriculture.

In October 1993 , however, Ndadaye and his two top officials were assassinated, sparking parliamentary deadlock and Civil War . Nteryamira was selected president on February 5 , 1994 as a compromise; he was Hutu but considered a moderate in Ndadaye's tradition, while Anatole Kanyenkiko, a UPRONA figure, was made prime minister.

The respite would be brief, as the airplane carrying Ntaryamira and Rwanda n president Juvénal Habyarimana , a fellow Hutu, crashed under suspicious circumstances while landing at the Rwandan Capital of Kigali , killing both. The deaths touched off the Rwandan Genocide .

On April 8 power was passed to Ntaryamira's longtime associate Sylvestre Ntiybantunganya , president of the national assembly.


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