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Quaker
Peacemaking in a War Zone by David Zarembka
Delegation to the African Great Lakes Region, January 1999. 1st row: Carl Stauffer, Jill Sternbery. 2nd row: David Zarembka, Bill MecMechen, Ute Caspors, Derrick Kayongo. Photo: David Zarembka. What are the possibilities for peacemaking in a country torn by civil war?�A civil war has raged in Burundi since 1993, killing over 200,000 people (or�3% of the population of 6,000,000)�presently�the fourteen sides of this conflict are attempting to negotiate a resolution�in Arusha, Tanzania. Amidst this conflict are approximately 10,000 adult Quakers in Burundi Yearly�Meeting, headed by David Niyonzima. Kibimba Mission, founded in central Burundi in 1934 by the first American missionaries from Friends Evangelical�Alliance, became a thriving community on the top of a hill with a spectacular�view. This included a large church, an 800-student secondary school, a primary�school, a dispensary, and many homes for the staff of these institutions. In�1985, however, the Burundi government refused to renew the work permits of the�American missionaries, who subsequently moved to Rwanda, where they now live. The government took over the schools. In 1994, a violent mob massacred about 125 people, including some students�from Kibimba Secondary School, at the gasoline station on the road below the�school and mission. The schools and dispensary closed and soon the buildings�of the secondary school and Quaker church filled with up to 3,000 people�displaced by fighting. When I visited the site, as part of the Friends Peace�Team Project�s delegation to the African Great Lakes region, on January 11,�1999, the displaced people were gone, leaving the church and school blackened�with smoke from fires and in a state of great disrepair. Soldiers stationed�on the hill are still patrolling the area, as is occurring throughout Burundi.�The dispensary is refurbished and operating (although they have no doctor�and would like one for a three-month or longer tour). What are these Friends�doing about the devastation in the area and to try to ensure that it will�not happen again? Each Saturday the Quakers organize a soccer game between the soldiers�and the villagers. The Quakers started a Peace Committee consisting of all three groups�Tutsi,�Twa, and Hutu�which meets whenever there are any conflicts and disagreements�that threaten the peace. The Peace Committee meets in the Amahoro Restaurant�amahoro�means peace in Kirundi�established as a neutral�place where everyone, including the soldiers, can come for a soda or a bite�to eat. Samson Gahungu, the former Clerk of Burundi Yearly Meeting, who was�accused (as a scapegoat) of instigating the massacre in 1994 and who spent�twenty and a half months in jail before being declared innocent, is now stationed�in Kibimba as the Director of the Public Relations Committee of Burundi Yearly�Meeting. He told us that the jail term gave him a lot of time to think�and he is now distributing throughout Burundi a pamphlet he authored entitled�Should We Have Reconciliation or Revenge? We happened upon a literacy class of twenty-two women and three teachers,�from young to quite old. The teacher told us that the students�Tutsi,�Hutu, and Twa�were initially suspicious of each other, but since�their work includes reconciliation, the women are learning to trust each other.�They also sing songs, pray, and discuss women�s issues. The integration�of the peacemaking message with the literacy work (a common approach in the�peace work we saw in Burundi) is an indication of the maturity of the peace�work in the midst of war. We found a group of about ten Quaker women weeding the grass in the courtyard�of the damaged Kibimba Secondary School. The government gave permission to reopen�the school as a Quaker institution less than a month before,�on December 18, 1998. This is the first small step in rehabilitating the�secondary school for its hoped-for opening in September. This is only a sample of peace work from one Quaker location in the Great�Lakes Region of Africa. Although but a small body in the total Burundi population,�the Burundi Quakers are leaders and teachers of reconciliation, peacemaking,�and trauma healing. Is this surprising?
Quaker women weeding at Kibimba School. Photo: David Zarembka. David Zarembka is clerk of Seneca Valley Preparatory Meeting. He worked in Tanzania and Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960's and organized and led the AGLI delegation there in January, 1999. He is a Baltimore Yearly Meeting representative to the FPTP Coordinating Committee and its Treasurer. Copies of the �January�1999 African Great Lakes Initiative Donor Report� and the complete �Delegation�Report� are available from African Great Lakes Initiative, FPTP, c/o David Zarembka, 17734 Larchmont Terrace, Gaithersburg, MD 20877. For related
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