On Saturday July 25, 1959, King Mutara III Rudahigwa drove himself to the Prince Regent Charles Hospital to get a vaccine against yellow fever and never came back. He died on the eve of his official visit to the United States (US), to meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower and to address the United Nations (UN).

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It is disturbing to hear some scholars writing that King Rudahigwa’s death remains controversial and describe it as mysterious. Let’s be courageous enough and avoid euphemism when referring to the death of Rudahigwa, after 66 years of his death. Our king was bumped off by the Belgian colonial regime.

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Bumped off is the best word to describe his death because it conveys the idea to kill intentionally and with premeditation. His death was not a mystery and circumstances surrounding it are known and point to a deliberate act of a clear case of homicide.

The plan to eliminate Rudahigwa was decided after his visit to the Brussels World’s Fair in 1958.

There, he sought in a clandestine operation, Germany support to help him get supply of weapons, to help him re-establishing a national defence to replace the imported soldiers from Congo Belge. A force he envisaged to establish after his return from the US visit.

Rudahigwa knew that after the deportation of his father, all the power was in the hands of Belgians. To safeguard the interests of Rwandans and be trusted by Belgians, he made some concessions to the Belgian administration, including converting to Catholicism and dedicating the country to Christ the King. These concessions were part of a broader strategy to maintain some degree of power and influence within the colonial system, and to find solutions to the intricacies of Belgian rule.

His father had refused to convert to Christianity, and the Rwandan Catholic Church eventually perceived him as anti-Christian and as an impediment to their civilising mission. By his conversion to Catholicism, which was a sacrilege to his father, and then, dedicating the entire Kingdom to Christ the King, Rudahigwa’s action was seen as a sure alignment with the colonial regime.

Although it was a calculated approach, it allowed him to get a degree of trust and influence from colonial authority, hence permitting him to have a say in his own Kingdom. He hoped that Germans, and the UN, and the US support would help him liberate his Kingdom from Belgian influence and negative policies.

It is with this in mind that on the Friday morning of July 24, 1959, he travelled from Nyanza to Bujumbura to get his visa and his vaccine to allow him to travel to the US.

The Belgians were aware of Rudahigwa's plan to travel to the US and had been actively working to prevent it due to concerns about the potential impact on their colonial rule in Rwanda. Rudahigwa's trip was perceived as a challenge to Belgian authority, as it could have allowed him to bypass colonial structures and potentially seek international support or recognition outside of Belgian influence. The Belgians, therefore, used their power to block it by organizing a well-planned assassination that they would say was a result of a stroke.

He had to get his visa from Jean Paul Harroy, the then Vice Governor of Congo Belge and the vaccine from a Belgian doctor, Julien Vyncke.

Harroy gave him an appointment for Friday, and Dr. Vyncke, for Saturday. That Friday, when he arrived in Bujumbura, he immediately went to meet Harroy but did not find him at his residence. Harroy, who surely knew that Rudahigwa would not be alive on Monday to get his visa, made sure to not be seen that Friday.

On the morning of Saturday July 25,1959, the king met Rwandan students before proceeding in the afternoon to meet Dr. Vyncke, who was the attending doctor at the hospital. When Rudahigwa arrived at Prince Regent Charles, Vyncke was waiting for him. Rudahigwa was alone, without an escort. Vyncke administered him a poisonous injection instead of a vaccine. Rudahigwa never woke up.

According to different testimonies, Harroy and Vyncke planned their heinous assassination on a weekend, when other staff members had left the hospital. They didn’t know that there was another nurse at the hospital, a Congolese called Bernard Mulamba, who was on a weekend shift. After the death of King Rudahigwa, Mulamba heard Vyncke calling Harroy and saying "mission accomplie”.

The same testimonies confirmed that Mulamba told some Rwandans in Ngagara, a Bujumbura suburb, after the assassination that "Mfalme wa Rwanda wanamuua,” - Kiswahili, meaning: ‘they have killed the king of Rwanda,’ - prompting the gathering of some Rwandans along Bujumbura roads, who threw stones at cars drove by whites.

While Belgian officials attributed Rudahigwa's death to a stroke, it is clear that his death was not a mysterious event. The circumstances surrounding his death point to a deliberate act of a clear case of homicide, organized by Belgian authorities, through Harroy and Dr. Vyncke.