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)