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 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.

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.

[3] 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.

[2] In June, Micombero was named State Secretary for Defense (Minister of National Defence), making him head of the military at the age of 23.

[4] In October 1965, a group of ethnic Hutus, drawn largely from the National Gendarmerie, attempted to overthrow the Burundian monarchy.

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,[8] Micombero, now a colonel, led a military coup d'état that deposed the king.

[10] His ideology of "democratic centralism" brought all the country's institutions and media under the control of what was effectively a military dictatorship.

The response of the Micombero regime was to launch a campaign of genocidal violence against the Hutu in the region in which at least 100,000 people are thought to have been killed.

He also laid the foundation for the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries the same year, along with the governments of Rwanda and Zaire.