African Peace Team Seeks to Resolve Longstanding Hatreds
      by Aloyse Ningbabria, Vice-chairman, Kibimba Peace Committee

Kibimba is a colline (small town) that is strategic geographically: it is the focal point for three provinces, and lies between Burundi’s two largest cities, Bujumbura and Gitega. Given its central location and rather developed community infrastructure, the colline became a meeting place for villagers from the surrounding communities. Until the uprising of 1993, it had a hospital (managed by the Evangelical Friends Church of Burundi), a primary and secondary school, and a church, all of which were ethnically mixed.

In August 1993, Kibimba became internationally renowned for a very tragic event. Seventy secondary school students were taken to a gas station and burned alive. Mirroring the larger politics of Burundi during this period, the ensuing retaliation and hostilities brought regular life at Kibimba to a halt and turned it into a battleground between the army and rebel groups. The community was divided into two parties, a camp for displaced people on one side of the hill, and the church, hospital and schools on the other.

In the beginning of 1994, the Kibimba hospital reopened with the support of a Mennonite Central Committee volunteer. It offered services to person of all ethnic groups, although due to the high level of existing suspicion and fear, tensions increased between the displaced camp and the hospital. Representatives of the hospital and the chief of the displaced camp, Matthias Ndimurwanko, organized a committee to address the conflict at Kibimba and explore how to rebuild trust and peaceful cohabitation. The organizing committee invited local administrators and leaders of nearby communities, the displaced camp, the hospital and the primary school to meetings to ask, How can we live together again in this communityof Kibimba?

Gradually a Peace Committee of 70 community leaders, including some women, grew from these meetings. Its vision broadened to include not only reconciliation but also security issues, and social and economic development projects.  The committee’s first project was to reopen the primary school on December 6, 1994, uniting children and teachers of all ethnic groups and bringing together parents around a common cause. Peace education was added to the curriculum.

In 1995, it was suggested that the hospital open a restaurant under the direction of a foreigner. The Peace Committee asked an MCC volunteer to be the manager. Once MCC agreed, the Peace Committee encouraged the local population to eat there.  (During this period, buying food was a problem as people feared being poisoned.) The presence of an expatriate fostered trust in the restaurant, a trust that was eventually transferred to the hospital. The restaurant became a place where community members met, lingered, and eventually spoke to one another.

In 1995, the Kibimba Peace Committee asked for and received formal training in peace education from the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in the form of a two-week workshop on conflict resolution.  Inspired by these workshops, the Peace Committee began a theater group that wrote, directed, and performed plays on forgiveness and reconciliation. Each play was followed by a three-day workshop for groups of mixed ethnic origin. These plays were well received, but this project has been disbanded because of a lack of transportation.

Unfortunately, in 1996, the eruption of violence in Burundi greatly affected the fragile peace being rebuilt in the Kibimba area. Two MCC workers had to leave the country. The Peace Committee slowly disintegrated until 1998, when Mi-Parec (Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation under the Cross) and Matthias collaborated to revive it.

Starting in this 1998 revival, women were given a more prominent place on the Peace Committee.  Three men on the ten-person organizing committee were replaced by women, and two women from every colline attended all meetings. Placing women in leadership roles led to new projects specifically targeted for women. For example, women of diverse backgrounds began to meet weekly to weave straw mats.

As friendships developed, the project evolved into an income-generating activity with a peace-building component. The mats were sold to Christian Aid for distribution to displaced camps, hospitals, and people whose homes had been pillaged. Strengthened in their sensitivity and commitment to one another, these women started a women’s literacy and peace education club. Because development projects have proven to be a tool for facilitating cooperation and creating shared interests, the Peace Committee would like to start more such projects.

In 1999, the Kibimba Peace Committee successfully pressured the church and the government to reopen its secondary school, which now has 200 students. The Mennonite Central Committee is working with the schoolteachers to train them in conflict resolution skills and to develop with them a curriculum adapted for Burundi. In addition to the primary and secondary school, the Peace Committee continues to oversee the women’s mat-making project and educational program; football practices, matches, and official competitions; and a livestock security and breeding project.

All along, the Peace Committee has aimed to improve the security of the population in the Kibimba region. It discourages support for rebel activities and encourages community collaboration. When communities hear rumors of rebel movement through the region, they warn others in the surrounding area to protect livestock in a central enclosed area, or to pack up and leave to find safety in neighboring communes. The population thus avoids getting caught in the cross fire between military and rebel groups, but this passive resistance at first made villagers targets for angry reprisals and even torture.

Peace Committee members became advocates for individuals unjustly imprisoned. The testimonies of people from another ethnic group had a significant impact during one trial, and several other individuals were liberated from prison.

Since the Peace Committee began these activities, there has been a marked improvement in regional security. In the past, rebel passage caused havoc, as the military would shoot indiscriminately and vengefully, not knowing the enemy from the innocent population. Now that the military are included in the Peace Committee, in the football matches and in other activities, they recognize community members, so there is less antagonism from both groups toward each other. Rebel activities have virtually ceased within the area the Peace Committee covers.

The Kibimba Peace Committee has also been instrumental in facilitating the return of the inhabitants of the displaced camp to their native villages.  Many still living in the displaced camp are widowed women and their children who lack resources to rebuild their homes. [ Editor’s note: This summer, a work camp sponsored by FPT’s African Great Lakes Initiative, will rebuild the houses of four widows and do peace education projects with local and international participants.]

Today the Kibimba Peace Committee has 75 representatives from all social, political, racial and gender groups. These come from eight collines within a 12-km radius. Each colline is represented by six persons from both ethnicities, at least two of whom are women. When commanders and sub-commanders of the military, church leaders, and administrative authorities are included, the committee has 250 members. Ten individuals still constitute the organizing committee. A report of each meeting is made publicly available in the participating collines. Thus, the committee’s work is carried out consciously and transparently without ethnic, religious, or gender discrimination.

The Peace Committee has three goals for the future. First, they would like to expand their activities geographically so that they may widen the region of nonsupport for rebel groups. To achieve this expansion, the Peace Committee hopes to decentralize and establish Peace Committees in the seven surrounding collines of Kibimba. The organizing committee would still meet regularly in Kibimba to plan and coordinate activities.

Second, the Peace Committee wants to continue peace education by holding a three-day conflict-resolution workshop that would 1) raise awareness of the destructive consequences of war; 2) show that ethnicity is largely a construction; 3) explain and discuss the roots of conflict; 4) end violence and 5) share information about the Arusha peace accords between the government and rebel groups.

Such a workshop would be necessary to bring about our third goal: the Peace Committee members hope to bring the military and rebels together for peace talks. Two rebel groups have not participated in the Arusha talks. The military has already asked for help negotiating with the rebels. The committee believes if such an initiative is to have a chance of success, each group will need separate peace training, and, indeed, the committee must receive more training themselves.

In conclusion, the Kibimba Peace Committee has demonstrated remarkable initiative, courage, and resourcefulness to start and continue peace and reconciliation work, at times in extremely dangerous and challenging circumstances.  The Committee has shown positive organizational development and represents today a firmly established and respected community structure with a vision for the future. While a lack of funding has limited the scope and impact of some of its activities, most initiatives and projects have been realized with no outside funding. The Peace Committee has received limited funding from the Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Aid. FPT’s African Great Lakes Initiative is developing a relationship with the Peace Committee, and hopes to participate in other joint peace team projects.■