Jean-Baptiste Bagaza (29 August 19464 May 2016) was a Burundian army officer and politician who ruled Burundi as president and de facto military dictator from November 1976 to September 1987. Born into the Tutsi ethnic group in 1946, Bagaza served in the Burundian military and rose through the ranks under the rule of Michel Micombero after his rise to power in 1966. Bagaza deposed Micombero in a bloodless coup d'état in 1976 and took power himself as head of the ruling Union for National Progress (Union pour le Progrès national, UPRONA). Despite having participated in the genocidal killings of 1972, he introduced various reforms which modernised the state and made concessions to the country's ethnic Hutu majority. His regime became increasingly repressive after it became consolidated in 1984, especially targeting the powerful Catholic Church. His rule lasted until 1987 when his regime was overthrown in a further coup d'état and he was forced into exile. He returned to Burundi in 1994 and became involved in national politics as the leader of the Party for National Recovery (Parti pour le Redressement National, PARENA). He died in 2016. Biography Early life and military career Bagaza was born in Rutovu, Bururi Province in Belgian-ruled Ruanda-Urundi on 29 August 1946. His family were ethnic Hima, part of the wider Tutsi ethnic group. After studying in Catholic schools in Bujumbura, he enlisted in the army of the newly independent Kingdom of Burundi. He was sent to Belgium in 1966 where he studied at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels until 1971. He earned a sociology degree. He returned to Burundi in 1972. Bagaza was involved in President Michel Micombero's genocidal killings of ethnic Hutu in 1972, though the "extent or nature of his involvement" remain unclear. In May he was, at the rank of captain, appointed adjunct chief of staff of the Burundian military in charge of logistics—largely because of his family's connections to the Micombero, replacing purged Hutu officer Martin Ndayahoze. In November he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and made chief of the general staff. In May 1975 he was appointed to the Chamber of Accounts under the Supreme Court. Dictatorship Bagaza overthrew Micombero in a military coup on 1 November 1976. The constitution was temporarily suspended by a military junta, the 30-member Supreme Revolutionary Council, which declared Bagaza president on 10 November 1976. He was thirty at the time.