The text accompagning Jürg Schneider's book "La présence du passé. Une histoire de la photographie au Burundi, 1959-2005" in the exhibtion is a extract of the the Belgian writer and sociologist Ludo de Witte's article “The assassination of the Burundian Prime Minister Louis Rwagasore. Shocking archive documents on the involvement of Belgium” (La Revue Toudi, July 16, 2013) in which he described the 50th anniversary of independence in Burundi on July 1, 2012.

“The Belgian ambassador organized a grand reception at the Hotel Tanganika (...). For the Burundians the sense of unease, though unexpressed, was palpable: the reception was held at the very place where, on October 13, 1961, the first Prime Minister of Burundi, the charismatic Prince Louis Rwagasore, was assassinated. And yet many Burundians were convinced that high-level Belgian officials were behind the assassination. An investigation using the archives from the period established this irrefutably. Burundians and certain Greeks were responsible for the death of Rwagasore, but behind the scenes the Belgian administration played a major role. (…) The vacuum created by the disappearance of Rwagasore, a nationalist leader who served to unite the Tutsi and Hutu in Burundi, unleashed tensions between the two groups that later escalated into massacres and ethnic cleansing.”

The photograph presented in historian and photography specialist Jürg Schneider’s book, taken by Pamphile Kasuku, was taken right after Rwagasore’s assassination in the Hotel Tanganika.