Rebecca Feeley is a research consultant based in Goma, DR Congo. She has lived in the Great Lakes region for nearly four years, previously working for African Rights, the Clinton Foundation, Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research International, and the Enough Project.

This post is the third in a series about Burundi.  Visit us again in the coming weeks for more posts from Rebecca’s trip.

“Madame, they are very dangerous. They can be extremely violent, especially if they don’t like what you say,” warned Romain Ndagabwa without looking up from the papers swallowing his desk.  Ndagabwa, director of the demobilization center in Burundi’s second largest city, Gitega, was referring to the former combatants of the National Liberation Forces, or FNL, which were cycling through the center as part of the process of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, or DDR.  Ndagabwa wanted to participate in my discussions with the combatants, but was too busy. I had a feeling he was trying to scare me away from doing so altogether. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I’ve interviewed former combatants before. Plus, I won’t be talking that much. Hopefully they’ll do all of that.” Mr. Ndagabwa didn’t press further. He shook my hand and agreed to gather a few of the ex-combatants for me to interview. Then he looked at his watch and ran out the door.

The pro-Hutu FNL was the last rebel group operating in Burundi until, in April of this year, the government of Burundi agreed to recognize the FNL as a legitimate political party. The FNL, in turn, agreed to integrate some combatants into the security services and demobilize others.  For those being demobilized, the center in Gitega was the last stop before being released back into their communities. I was at the center to talk to the former rebels about their pasts and was also curious about their expectations for re-integration into civilian life.

That day the center housed roughly 700 ex-combatants who would stay there only a week.  It seemed nothing more than a holding pen where most just wandered aimlessly or floated between the administrative block and the sleeping quarters. A few stepped outside the compound to buy lollipops or cigarettes. Many of them were eager to talk to me when I sat down with a group of 40 or so combatants.

Explaining the purpose of my research to them and my interest in repatriation had a rough start. Most of them wondered why I was there if I wasn’t going to donate money, while others hinted at fears of being exploited without compensation. Once one combatant mentioned his need for more funds, about 20 others raised their hands to explain how they, too, didn’t have any money to survive after they left the demobilization center.  “We hear about the World Bank and the UN and all the millions they receive, but we see none of it.” “That’s not totally true, is it? Don’t you get multiple installments of money after you leave here?” I asked. “Yes, but it’s not enough,” they said in unison.

I shared my thoughts about how I believed re-integration to be the most neglected component of the process. “We westerners tend to get very excited when we hear about peace accords and armed groups agreeing to DDR, but the first two D’s tend to capture our attention and efforts more than re-integration.” I got a few smiles. I went on to explain that without strong re-integration efforts that include access to education and job skills training, former combatants can be tempted to rejoin armed groups on the promise of surviving by any means necessary. I was preaching to the choir. “We don’t want to go back and fight again, but we’ll do so if we have no other option, no other way to survive,” said one combatant as many nodded.  A few offered that they wanted to go back to school, while others wanted to start a small business or just cultivate land.

In a post-conflict environment, if peace has any hope of surviving, the employment or active engagement of ex-combatants in the civilian community must yield greater returns than an armed group.  It is not easy to advocate for the needs of ex-combatants in Burundi and elsewhere when there are hundreds of millions of innocent civilians who have been affected by armed conflict and who continue to suffer as well. The civilians are, rightfully, the priority of international assistance and aid. However, if our aim is to prevent the re-escalation of conflict, we must also try to ensure that those who once carried arms can become productive members of society.

As I was leaving the center, one of them grabbed the notebook from my hand. Then he held out his palm waiting for my pen. I gave it to him, curious to see what he would do. “I’m going to give you my name and my email address, so you can write me and tell me when there will be more money for us.” I told him I didn’t think I could tell him about the money. “Ok then, just write me and tell me when your post is up. So we know when more people know about us.” I smiled and said yes.  This, at least, was a promise I could keep.

Posted By: Michael Graham | October 02, 2009 | Comments (0)

Candice Knezevic, the RAISE Hope for Congo campaign manager, recently traveled through eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On our first day in Goma, we met with Justine Masika Bihamba, who founded Synergie de Femmes pour les Victimes de Violences Sexuelles. Synergie advocates for women’s rights and an end to impunity, works to sensitize armed groups and local populations about the consequences of sexual violence, and coordinates a network of women’s activists throughout North Kivu who act as a first line of defense for women in rural villages who have been raped.

I first met Justine over a year ago on my first visit to Goma. When I see Justine, she tells me things have only gotten worse since I was last here. She says that in the towns of Masisi and Rutshuru, the CNDP, a Rwanda-supported rebel group formerly led by Laurent Nkunda that has recently been integrated into the Congolese army, are more in control than ever before.  They are specifically targeting Synergie’s activists with violence, rape and even death, and as a consequence, many have had to flee.

Click here to read the rest of the post on the Enough Said blog.

Posted By: Michael Graham | September 16, 2009 | Comments (0)

Rebecca Feeley is a research consultant based in Goma, DR Congo. She has lived in the Great Lakes region for nearly four years, previously working for African Rights, the Clinton Foundation, Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research International, and the Enough Project.

This post is the second in a series about Burundi.  Visit us again in the coming weeks for more posts from Rebecca’s trip.

I was standing next to my Burundian friend Parfait looking down at old flowers and messages left in memoriam. We were at Kibimba Memorial site, roughly an hour and a half east of Bujumbura. In Kibimba, on October 21, 1993, over a hundred Tutsi students and teachers were rounded up and taken to a gas station where they were burned alive by Hutu civilians, angered over the assassination of president Melchior Ndadaye—a Hutu—by members of the Tutsi-dominated army just hours earlier.  Next to the gas station, a memorial had been erected with the words “Plus Jamais Ca” or “Never Again.” Behind it was a spectacular view of Burundi’s countryside. It was a beautiful place for contemplation and reflection.

Surprisingly, despite Burundi’s long history of civil war and conflict, only two memorials commemorate past suffering and loss, and only one—Kibimba—commemorates the loss of Burundian citizens.  The other memorial in Gatumba, near the Congolese-Burundian border, honors the 166 Congolese refugees (mainly Tutsi) who were massacred on August 13, 2004, by the National Liberation Forces (FNL) and a mixture of other regional pro-Hutu rebel groups.

Parfait was reading messages at the memorial site, when I saw a cross placed among the flowers that said “Child Victims of Genocide, October 21, 1993.” I was surprised to find the word “genocide” used to describe what happened in Kibimba. Most experts would agree that an isolated, reactionary event like Kibimba would have difficulty qualifying as genocide under international law. I nudged Parfait and asked him what he thought, if he agreed that it was genocide. He turned to look at me, tilting his head. “It was genocide,” he responded. “It was targeted towards a specific ethnic group and it was planned.”

Most academics and regional analysts would agree that genocide did indeed take place in Burundi, but in 1972. After a local Hutu-led insurgency killed several hundred Tutsis in late April 1972, the Tutsi-led government responded to the threat by killing an estimated 200,000-300,000 Hutus from May to September.  Yet it is the massacre at Kibimba and other events in 1993 that appear to be in the collective consciousness of Burundians, not the 1972 genocide. Why is this? Is it simply a matter of time, a case of the most recent civil conflict eclipsing the former?  Does collective memory only have room to record one tragic history?

Often after conflicts governments promote peace over justice as a passive way of moving on. Furthermore, if the government was involved in violations against their own citizens, peace can translate into a policy of silence.  This is what happened after 1972 in Burundi. The Tutsi government erased all references to their sanctioned massacres of Hutus.  The official silence is only challenged by a weak patchwork of stories and information from missionaries and those Hutus who were able to flee. I asked several Burundians about 1972. Was there ever any talk of it? The general response was a shrugging of shoulders, a shaking of heads.  One 30 year old man told me that “probably only people that were directly affected by the genocide remember it or want to talk about it.” It is a genocide left up to individual records. 

There is no national memorial, no day or week of remembering, and there is no international tribunal to bring the perpetrators to justice. But should there be?  As Burundi currently attempts to move on and heal from the civil war that began in 1993, should it go back even further and attempt to remember and honor those who lost their lives in 1972?  If remembering is the first step in helping to prevent such atrocities from happening again, then I say yes.

Posted By: Michael Graham | August 28, 2009 | Comments (0)

Rebecca Feeley is a research consultant based in Goma, DR Congo. She has lived in the Great Lakes region for nearly four years, previously working for African Rights, the Clinton Foundation, Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research International, and the Enough Project.

This post is the first in a series about the current situation in Burundi.  Visit us again in the coming weeks for more posts from Rebecca’s trip.

***

As we were dodging potholes my taxi driver, Roger, was shaking his head.  “Is this your first time in Bujumbura?” he asked me.  I nodded.  “I wish you could have seen this city before the war.  It was beautiful,” he sighed. 

I looked out the window.  It was 2006 and the post-war transitional period had officially ended a year earlier with the election of Pierre Nkurunziza as President.  Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, did indeed bear the marks of a difficult and war-torn past but we were driving along Lake Tanganika and able to see the striking mountainous terrain that frames the city. “Still looks beautiful to me,” I remarked. Roger shook his head again. “No no, you don’t get it.  I mean no potholes, nice buildings, infrastructure….things used to work. We’ll see now if Nkurunziza can make it all work again.”

Three years later it appears that Nkurunziza has started to make Burundi work again, or is at least giving it a major facelift.  While traffic remains bad in Bujumbura, it is most often due to the major road repairs that have been taking place throughout Burundi.  Many older buildings have been rehabilitated and more health care centers and hospitals have opened in recent years. But perhaps the most significant recent development is the agreement reached in April of this year between the armed opposition group, the Forces Nationales de Libération or FNL, and the Burundian government. The government finally agreed to the registration of the FNL as a political party. The FNL—the last of 19 armed groups that once operated in Burundi-- agreed to disarm and demobilize their combatants. Burundi appears to be on the track towards peace after years of negotiations and multiple agreements.

While most know about the genocide in Rwanda that took place during the spring of 1994, Burundi’s struggle during that period is less well known .  For years, the Burundian government, and more importantly the army, was dominated by the Tutsi minority.  In the summer of 1993 Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was democratically elected as President. The army, however, still dominated by Tutsis, feared losing their control within the state and, in an act of overthrowing the Hutu government, assassinated Ndadaye, the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly on October 21, 1993. Anti-Tutsi violence by Hutus ensued just hours after Ndadaye’s death, which then triggered anti-Hutu violence by the army.  Ethnic extremism snowballed and armed groups proliferated, enabling conflict in Burundi to continue for over a decade, killing an estimated 200,000 people.

Most Burundians would agree that ethnic relations have improved in their country and that it would be difficult for ethnic violence to occur again in Burundi. Augustin, a young Burundian who works at a youth center in Bujumbura, recently told me “We realized after years of war that the politicians had manipulated ethnicity for their own political gains. We didn’t really care much about ethnicity before the war, and we don’t really care about it now. We are tired of war and just want peace.”

But don’t check Burundi off the list of post-conflict countries to watch just yet.  Human rights groups and regional analysts have been seeing a steady increase in politically-motivated violence in the past year as Burundi approaches its 2010 presidential and parliamentary elections.  In Burundi—not unlike other countries in the region—to capture state power is to capture the money, and thus the political party in control will do just about anything to stay there.  The ruling party—Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie-Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie, or CNDD-FDD, has been accused of killings, beatings and arrests in an attempt to intimidate and weaken their opposition, which is mainly the FNL.

President Nkurunziza had long refused to recognize the non-military wing of the FNL as a political party because of fears that such a party could split the Hutu vote—a vote his CNDD-FDD party heavily relies upon. Thus, the majority of reported politically-motivated violence in recent months has been between the CNDD-FDD and the FNL.  The CNDD-FDD has targeted FNL supporters and combatants and the FNL has responded in-kind and have been accused of burning down several CNDD-FDD meeting places. Many fear that the violence will only increase as elections near.

I asked Christophe, a young Burundian working for an NGO in Bujumbura who he thought would win the elections next year.  “The CNDD-FDD for sure,” he replied.  I nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure….but you never know. This country is still learning how to ride a bicycle.  You get on and you fall off a lot in the beginning.  But eventually, if you are determined, you can learn to ride smoothly.” “So you think Burundi is determined?” I asked.  He shrugged, looking away. “Yeah, I think so. I hope so.”

Posted By: Michael Graham | August 04, 2009 | Comments (0)

This photoessay is the result of collaboration with a colleague in Chechnya, who could not be named for fear of threats or violence. We sent him a camera and asked him to take photos of what Grozny looks like today and to explain to us how these photos reflect a society changed by conflict.

In 1944, Josef Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Chechen population to Central Asia.  As many as three out of every ten Chechens died, and those who survived were not allowed to return home until 1957.  Targeting not only a people, but also their memory, Soviet authorities demolished mosques and cemeteries.  Gravestones were used in the construction of roads, livestock sheds, and foundations.  Recovered in part, these gravestones now lie in a memorial dedicated to the victims of the 1944 deportation.  Our colleague told us that this memorial “is the main connection between the past and future.  The gravestones of fathers and mothers who were at one time deported into faraway lands were returned to their own roots and their land.”

It was not the last time Chechens would face destruction and violence. In 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin militarily crushed Chechnya’s move to post-Soviet independence.  And then in September 1999, a massive Russian military force again entered Chechnya, all but destroying the Chechen capital of Grozny and initiating a policy of targeting Chechen civilians.

In the years since, Chechens have struggled to remember the past as they recover from its trauma.  It has not been easy.

Over the winter months in 2008, our colleague captured images of daily life in Grozny.  His work reveals a city immersed in contradictions: sparkling new buildings tower over squares of rubble; women sift through the ruins of once thriving marketplaces; and new monuments guarded by well-armed militiamen celebrate former President Akhmad Kadyrov and his son, pro-Russian Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, whose personal paramilitary guard is well known for its ruthlessness.  Mandatory displays of presidential posters populate every state, educational, and cultural institution.  Our colleague writes, “They are at every entrance to every village and town, at intersections, at markers for administrative borders.  Everywhere that it is possible and even where it is not.” Even evidence of the city’s post-war calm – a photo of a man fishing by the river – reminds the photographer of the corpses that once floated by in water that could still be contaminated today. 

A few of the photos portray the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque. Construction of the mosque began in 1997, in between the wars when the Chechen government was de facto independent. Situated on the location of some of the most brutal fighting of the first Russian-Chechen war, the mosque was intended to be a memorial to scores of volunteers who died defending Grozny. However, the project was not completed until 2008, under the pro-Moscow Kadyrov administration on what is now named Kadyrov Square, which sits on Kadyrov Avenue, opposite a monument to Kadyrov.

These photos illustrate a nation in the midst of rebuilding. Grozny, a city reduced to rubble, is slowly returning to life.  Beneath the surface, however, questions remain: Will stability hold? At what price?  What will the legacy of violence mean for future generations?  Will human rights be protected and group identities preserved? In the answers to these and many other questions lies the future of the Russian republic.

Posted By: Michael Graham | July 27, 2009 | Comments (0)