Mutara III of Rwanda

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mutara III (also known as Rudahigwa; 1912? – July 25, 1959) was the Mwami, or monarch of Rwanda between 1931 and 1959. As a member of the Tutsi people in Rwanda, stereotyped as tall, he stood a symbolic 6'8" tall. His Christian name was Charles, and he is sometimes referred to as Charles Rudahigwa Mutara III.

Mutara was known for being the first Mwami to convert to Catholicism, spearheading a wave of baptisms in the protectorate, and for his ostentatious efforts to supplicate the Belgian rulers, at one point thanking "Christ-the-King to have given Rwanda the divine light of Belgian colonial administration along with its science of good government."^[1]

Mutara died under mysterious circumstances on July 25th, 1959, after a routine vaccination treatment administered by a Flemish doctor in Bujumbura, on the way back form a consultation with Belgian officials, in what many Rwandas consider to have been an assassination. Mutara was succeeded by his younger brother Jean-Baptiste Ndahindurwa as Kigeri V. After Mutara's death, his wife, Queen Mother Rosalie Gicanda, remained in Rwanda. She was murdered on April 22, 1994 during the Rwandan Genocide, under the orders of Capt. Idelphonse Nizeyimana via Lt. Pierre Bizimana.