Better late than never, here are a couple of videos that I shot at the disarmament ceremony I visited - you can read my description of the ceremony here.

This one shows the scene just before the ceremony started - you can see the townspeople there in Sunday Best, the women’s dance group and traditional musicians waiting to perform, the drummers performing, and a group of former combatants waiting for the ceremony - as well as the weapons ready to be handed in:

And, because I haven’t found anything like this before, here is a clip of the Burundian women’s dance, performed by one of the best groups in the country. The musicians are in pink shirts on the right of the screen, although the women are (slightly incongruously) blowing the whistles.

UPDATE: You can now see two videos of the ceremony here.

Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a disarmament ceremony in Muramvya Commune, Rutegama Province, in the middle of the country. Getting there was pretty stressful – found out I needed to be at the Gare du Nord while still in bed and about half an hour before I had to be there, so got a taxi there, and found Amable, CEDAC’s youth coordinator, waiting for me. We got a share-taxi up to Muramvya, where we arrived half an hour before the ceremony was due to start, and an hour before it actually started; Burundian time. Amable was very apologetic but I didn’t mind at all – it gave me time to take pictures of the weapons being handed in, watch the performance of traditional dancers (as well as the ubiquitous drumming group, they also had a women’s dance group, who were very good, even if the dance did involve a slightly-incongruous blowing of whistles).

Dance Group

Women's Dance Group

Drumming Celebrations

I was impressed by the number of people at the ceremony – the whole town had turned out, dressed in Sunday best and patiently waiting for the ceremony to begin. When it finally began, we had speeches from Amable, a local dignatory, and a man from the Disarmament Commission. All the speeches talked of peace – I could pick out the word amahoro – and were greeted with cheers and dancing by the drummers at dramatic moments in the speeches. The speech by the representative of the Disarmament Commission went on for some time – he name-checked the President a few times and, although the crowd started enthusiastic (the CNDD-FDD are strong in this area), they were waning a bit by the end. But on the whole it was an occasion filled with celebration and hope.

Attendees

The weapons being handed in

After the ceremony, I had the opportunity to talk to the representative from the Disarmament Commission. Speaking in excellent English, he told me that they had up to 4 of these ceremonies a week, but that they are concentrated at the end of the month, so that there are 6 or 7 a month. He also told me that this will be one of the last ceremonies, as at the end of next month a new law will come into force making possession of a firearm illegal, meaning that the country will effectively move to a system of forcible disarmament.

This is something that in many ways makes sense – there has been a transition period, and it seems like a good idea to minimise the number and legitimacy of weapons before the election – but I also have serious misgivings. If people are holding on to their guns, they often do so for a reason; this is particularly the case in Burundi, where the army has often been a participant in intercommunal violence and, despite the peace agreement and integration of the army, many people still feel that they’d be wise to be cautious. Even more worryingly, there are risks of selective disarmament; the government can only check up on areas that politically oppose them, thus giving their supporters a monopoly of violence by the election. Finally, and less concretely, I have a knee-jerk reaction against anything that seems authoritarian; what I like about this country is precisely that it has not gone down the authoritarian route in the way that some of its neighbours have, and it would worry me if this changed. I have yet to discuss this with any Burundians (I know that Adrien and Claver are reading, so I’d be interested to know what you think!) but hope to do so later in the week, and will update with any insights they are able to give me.

This weekend Eric had a visitor from a partner organisation in Zimbabwe, who he was taking around some of CEDAC’s microprojects in the North of the country, and he asked me to come along to take pictures and write about it. We started out back at the youth centre in Kinaba, where we were able to watch a traditional drumming group practicing; this is one of the activities that CEDAC organises to bring together young people from all sides of Burundi’s divide. You can see in the clip that all the people involved are teenagers or younger; the two very young boys were children born in the bush. The performance was excellent, with even the little ones participating, and it highlighted the way in which Burundians are trying to emphasise their shared language and shared traditions in order to rise above the ethnic divide – an advantage they have over other ethnically divided countries, where the ethnicities are usually divided in both these respects, making it harder to assert a shared history.

CEDAC drummers group

CEDAC drummers group

From Kinaba, we carried on into the interior. On the way, Eric points out some hills, telling me that during the war he fought in this area. It is the first time he has talked to me about the war. But our first stop is to visit one of CEDAC’s groups which received funding from the NGO PRASAB to buy two cows, which have now increased to three with a fourth on the way. I speak to Fides Nibaruta, a teacher and former combatant, who tells me that the group consists of twenty former combatants, so they hope to gradually increase their herd until they each have a cow, and possibly also buy some goats. She also introduces me to some of the other members, including Delphine Sindimwo who, I am told, was a renowned fighter with the FDD-CNDD. She tells me that the project has been helpful in combating poverty in the area, as well as promoting reconciliation as it has forced all sides to work together. Depressingly, although I, and Eric, have made clear that I am not a donor, all this is interspersed with requests for more cows.

Fides Nibaruta

Delphine Sindimwo

From there, we continue to a small town in Kiganda where a group of former combatants and women associate with rebel forces have joined together in a mutual aid society under the auspices of CEDAC. Here I am not able to talk to an individual, but talking through Eric, the members tell me there are fifty people in the group, and that they began by helping each other in times of difficulty and sickness, but that they were then able to save small sums each month, and, using local banking systems, build up enough savings to rent a building and buy stock, intending to run a small shop. It is clear that there is widespread poverty in the town, and indeed among the group members, and I am impressed at the initiative they have taken – and cannot help contrasting it with the previous project’s constant requests to be given more cows. They also tell me that each member of the group has voluntarily disarmed, and that they are working to promote disarmament in the community.

The next project we visit have planted Cedar seedlings and sweet potatoes. Interestingly, there is a government rally in town that day, and a man working on the patch asks me not to take photographs – Eric says that this has something to do with the rally, although I am not able to work out the connection. I also speak to Saruatar Ntegeye, who tells me that as well as the agricultural project, they have opened a small shop and bought a bicycle to help transport goods. Again, this was achieved through a mutual aid society, with no outside help except the organisational help provided by CEDAC. The group also works on disarmament; Eric takes us to see the local police chief, and asks if we can see the weapons that have been handed in; he brings us a box of grenades, cartridges and ‘chargeurs’ (no idea what the English for this is, but it means the cases full of rounds that you plug in to a Kalashnikov). I get another glimpse into Eric’s past when he picks up one of the ‘chargeurs’, examines it, and says that it has been buried, pointing out soil, bits of rust, and where it is bent at one of the edges. ‘You could use it, but it hasn’t been very well looked after’, he says, with a shake of his head, as he replaces it.

Finally, we head to Eric’s home colline, in Kiganda. Along the way, he points out houses that were destroyed in the war, some belonging to Tutsis and some Hutus; he tells us that the former residents now live in Bujumbura, but I suspect that many of them were killed. When we arrive, he introduces me to Ezechiel Bancirimisi, the founding secretary general of CEDAC, who tells me about a tile making project in the area. The group has 30 members, and they have several workshops and several kilns, with each kiln able to fire 3,000 tiles at once – enough for an average-sized house. The cost of each tile is 65 Francs, and they usually make enough tiles for six houses a year, giving the group an annual income of 1.17 million Francs (about $950); their work is limited as people do not build in the rainy season. The project is, however, not without problems; they need large amounts of wood for the kiln, and are struggling to secure supplies. I ask if they have considered planting trees for the future; he says that they are trying but it is difficult, as Burundi is heavily populated and the land is crowded. Looking at the hillside across the valley it is clear where the group has cut the trees, and equally clear that unless they can solve this problem the project will be doomed – and the cost may be deforestation and soil erosion. But Ezechiel is smart and dynamic, and I can’t not believe that he’ll find a solution.

As we head home, we are stopped by another communal CEDAC leader, who gives Eric a list of weapons handed in in the last two months; two guns, more than a hundred grenades, and hundreds of bullets. So far it looks like people are handing in bullets and grenades, but may be hanging on to the guns. But Eric is delighted; this is only the beginning. Then home – and out to the opening of Havana Club, Bujumbura’s premier nightclub, which just happens to be managed by Brian, who I live with. An interesting day out, and the opening was a great success, but an exhausting day!

There is very little about Bujumbura that looks like a country emerging from a civil war. The buildings are shiny and new, the main roads smooth, it has a snazzy new airport terminal, new buildings are going up everywhere, and the people are no different from those in any other small African city. This is fitting; Burundi has made enormous strides in the last few years, successfully integrating some rebels into the army and demobilising the rest, holding successful multiparty elections, and expanding free primary education nationwide for the first time.

Looking deeper, the impact of the war is clear. There are the physical hints; like in Northern Uganda, every other car bears the logo of an NGO or international organisation, and Burundians seem to use the word ‘Peace’ in signs for everything from supermarkets to Forex bureaus. It is also clear in the lack of development in the city; compared to other regional capitals, such as Kampala or Kigali, Bujumbura is tiny, and underdeveloped. While driving home we see people washing in the drainage ditches in the middle of the road; a sure sign of poverty. But more importantly, when people talk, they refer back to the war. Pierre Claver, the country director of Survivor Corps, who I will be working with this summer, tells me that all of his siblings abandoned the Catholic Church for Protestantism, ‘because of the war’. I share a Primus (or seven) with my hosts, Nana and Bryan, and some of their friends, and the conversation turns to the war – talk of bullets overhead, bombs landing, and arrests for breaking curfew. In the afternoon we meet General Joseph, a former rebel now working for the government on the DDR programme. I am expecting someone middle aged or older, but to my surprise he is no older than his mid-thirties; war makes young leaders. He is, however, fascinating to talk to; he tells us that they are currently working with between 33,000 and 35,000 former combatants of all ethnicities, ages and genders.

We also met Eric, director of CEDAC, an umbrella organisation for former combatants, a massively motivated man who is working for free alongside his studies, committed to promoting reconciliation between former combatants of different sides, and their victims. He talks about the need to get the two sides talking, to provide economic alternatives to violence, and about the Peaceful Elections campaign, where former combatants are trained to promote the importance of democracy and peaceful elections.

Both of these early meetings have left me profoundly optimistic about Burundi’s future, But perhaps the most hopeful sign came in the conversation with my hosts, when Bryan’s brother, who lives in Canada and who hasn’t returned to Burundi in the last ten years, told me that he has been back twice in the last two years, and is thinking of returning to Burundi with his family. Although I am aware that the situation will appear differently in rural areas, I am very much look forward to meeting some of the survivors who work with Survivor Corps and CEDAC, and helping tell some of their stories about the work they are doing to promote peace in the country.