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African War and African Peace
War - and working for peace - in Burundi
Ikaweba Bunting is a member of the team from the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation that is working to bring peace in Burundi. He remembers a time when he worked with Burundian refugees,
and he talks about the peace process on which he is currently working.
REFUGEES
1993: Tanzania, near the border with Burundi
The refugees had fled across the border to Tanzania when President Ndadaye was assassinated by the military a few days earlier. Bunting's job was to interview the refugees, as the first step in providing emergency help.
250 people were crowded together in rough shelters made from grass, small branches and a few plastic sheets. The people were refugees from Burundi. For many of these people, it was not the first time they had fled for their lives from the violence in Burundi.
The small piece of land where they camped was the property of a Tanzanian peasant called Deo. Deo had planned to grow food on that land, so that he could feed his family. I asked Deo why he allowed the refugees to stay on his land when this meant that he could not grow food for his family.
"What could I do? They were in trouble, and they were in need ... They are human beings, what else could I do? Besides, my wife's mother is from the same area."
The best and the worst of the human race
When I turned around and looked across the hills to Burundi, I could see smoke coming from several places in the distance. When I interviewed more refugees, they told me about the smoke that I could see. It came from burning houses and schools. Children had run into the schools, hoping they could hide there safely. But the soldiers set fire to the schools. When the children ran out of the burning buildings, the soldiers shot and killed them.
So, by looking in one direction and then the other, I could see what is best and what is worst in the human race. I could see Deo and I could see the soldiers, not many kilometres apart.
In one direction,, the Tanzanian peasants were sharing what little they had with the refugees, seeing them as fellow Africans, and fellow human beings. In the other direction, the military were killing and burning children.
PEACE PROCESS: a way of bring peace toREFUGEES are people who have been forced to leave their homes in war
SHELTER: somewhere that gives protection from the weather and so on
FLEE [FLED, FLED]: to leave somewhere quickly to escape danger
THE HUMAN RACE: all of humanity
SHARE: give a part of what one has to someone else
MILITARY: soldiers
Background to the conflict in Burundi
There has been political and ethnic violence in Burundi for many years. Traditionally, the violence has been between the Hutu majority, and the Tutsi minority. The Tutsi minority had been given more influence by the Germans and then the Belgians when Burundi was a colony. (Belgium gained Burundi after Germany was defeated in World War One.)
Burundi became independent from Belgium in 1962. However, in Burundi, like other countries in Africa, the problems created by colonial rule did not go away when the colonists went home. Ethnic origins have continued to play a major part in the political, military and economic divisions in Burundi, although the situation is very complicated.
BACKGROUND: information that explains what is happening
ETHNIC: relating to different races and groups of people
ETHNIC VIOLENCE: violence that is motivated by racial and group conflict
MAJORITY: the larger number, the group with the larger number of people
MINORITY: the smaller number, a group with a smaller number of people
An AFRICAN PEACE PROCESS:
The Regional Burundi Peace initiativeA unique peace process is slowly and carefully taking place, to try to bring an end to the conflict in Burundi and avoid the kind of appalling genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994. The peace negotiations are being conducted by a non-governmental organization, the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation.
Most of the people on the negotiating team are private citizens from different countries in Africa, and from Canada and Europe. It is the first time that an African civil organization has attempted to mediate in a civil war.
The negotiating team has always had a Pan-African outlook, and it mixes modern diplomacy with traditional African ways of solving conflict. Its aim has been to slowly and surely identify the root causes of the conflict (social, economic and cultural) and to find ways overcome these problems.
The first leader of the team was Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania. He was followed by Nelson Mandela. The two men worked together for a time, and Mandela took over when Nyerere was dying.
INITIATIVE: a new approach
GENOCIDE: the killing of an entire group of people
MEDIATE: to work between groups to try to get agreement
Nyerere
Nyerere was known as Mwalimu, which means "teacher". His style was to be very patient; to listen to all sides, to let everyone express their hostility and their anger, and then slowly to bring them closer to agreement. After each negotiating session, Nyerere would tell Mandela what happened and hear his ideas too.
By the time of Nyerere's death in 1999, it was time to move forward from discussion, and to take more active steps towards peace.
Mandela
Mandela is a good man to try to achieve this: his life has been a fight against injustice and he spent 27 years as a political prisoner. Mandela is a man who does not compromise with what he believes to be morally right, even if it is not very diplomatic.
One time, when President Buyoya invited Mandela to go to Burundi, Mandela replied that it would be difficult for him to go to Burundi, where President Buyoya put people in prison just because they disagreed with him. When Mandela finally went to Burundi, he visited the prisons and said that political prisoners had to be released. He also warned the army that they would have to leave politics.
PATIENT: having the ability to wait calmly and accept delays
HOSTILITY: strong unfriendly feelings
NEGOTIATE: to talk about differences to reach agreement
COMPROMISE: to give up some demands
DIPLOMATIC: acting carefully so as not to upset anyone
Peace has not been achieved yet, but if this peace process can succeed, it will be of great importance not only for Burundi, but for all of Africa. The task is an extremely difficult one, after years of violence and suffering - to change the way people think and feel so that Africans can live together in spite of their differences, and work to build a united Africa.
Adapted from the article Mwalimu, Mandela and the long road to peace, by Ikaweba Bunting, in the August 2000 issue of the New Internationalist
© 2000: the New Internationalist
NI Global Issues for Learners of English > Issues > Africa > African War & African Peace
Last Modified: 3rd January 2001