The body of former Burundian President Pierre Buyoya was repatriated to Burundi on Tuesday, more than three years after being buried in Mali.
Buyoya, known for advancing democracy in Burundi but also accused of involvement in his successor’s assassination, passed away in Paris in December 2020 due to Covid-19. He was 71 years old at the time. Later that month, he was interred in Bamako, Mali, where he had been serving as the African Union’s special envoy to Mali and the Sahel for eight years.
A senior Burundian government official had previously mentioned that while Buyoya had the right to be buried in his home country, he would not receive the honors typically afforded to a former head of state due to his conviction.
The plane carrying his remains arrived in Burundi’s main city, Bujumbura, on Tuesday afternoon. The Buyoya family stated on Monday that they had received permission from Burundian authorities to repatriate and rebury his remains, in accordance with his last wishes. The reburial is set for Wednesday in a private ceremony at the family property in Rutovo.
Buyoya, an ethnic Tutsi army officer, initially seized power in a coup in 1987. He stepped down in 1993 following Burundi’s first democratic elections, which Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, won decisively. Buyoya returned to power in 1996 through another coup and later signed the Arusha Accords in 2000, aimed at ending the civil war. He stepped down in 2003 as per the agreement.
In October 2020, Buyoya was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, along with 18 others, for the assassination of Ndadaye by hardline Tutsi soldiers. The assassination triggered a decade-long conflict between Hutus and Tutsis, resulting in approximately 300,000 deaths.
Buyoya denounced the trial as a “sham” but resigned from his AU post to clear his name.
Since 2005, Burundi has been governed by the CNDD-FDD party, which originated from the main Hutu rebellion. In 2015, then-president Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term led to protests and a failed coup, causing at least 1,200 deaths and forcing 400,000 people to flee. Nkurunziza unexpectedly died in June 2020, shortly before handing over to Evariste Ndayishimiye, who had won the previous month’s elections and remains in power.
