urundi has found itself in a humanitarian catastrophe impossible to imagine if you had not lived through it; if you had not had to crouch, numbed with fear, in a precarious hiding place; if you had not walked hundred of miles on foot amidst destitute crowds; if you had not had to replay day after day the memory of the loss of parents, of brothers, of sisters, of friends, of colleagues, of 300,000 dead in 10 years of civil war.
Later, the exiled, 2 millions of them, were forced by the hundreds of thousands, to return to their country. And little by little a new society is being born, with burgeoning of towns (where anonymity is greater), orphanages and widows ‘settlements’… and the overcrowded prisons with a population of nearly 120,000 inmates.
The new leaders are slowly imposing calm. Why, you may ask, the heaping of so much misery?
Historically, the ethnic tension between the majority Hutus (85%) and minority Tutsis (14%) has deep centuries-old roots, but their separateness was accentuated during the Belgian colonial days, when people had to carry identity cards that classified them according to ethnicity. The Belgians, favoring the Tutsis, allotted positions of power to them, and thus stirring up resentment among the Hutus. Today’s violence, then, is residue of ethnic causes, colonial regimes, and political upheavals.
The group in power has always favored its own in all sectors of public life, even in the sector of religion. It has always had an army of its own, made up of members of the same ethnic group, a despotic power this which has many a time made the denunciation of injustice and the Church’s Gospel witness and missionary work rather difficult.
Some 18 Xaverian Missionaries are active in Burundi, marking their Gospel presence there, crying out the word of justice and of love to a conscience soaked in hatred, vengeance and injustices; the word of hope in the mist of great poverty, both material and spiritual. Each of them has endured experiences of violence. Each of them has had to mourn members of their Christian communities and friends. Each of them bears an interior fragility. Not one can say “I wasn’t there,” much less “It didn’t affect me.”
Two fellow Xaverians and a lay volunteer were assassinated in the tranquil village of Buyengero. On the evening of September 30m, 1995, three soldiers invaded the Mission house, and after ordering them to their knees, shot dead Father Aldo Marchiol and Father Ottorino Maule, and Catina Gubert. They now rest together under the same soil that received their blood as witnesses to the Gospel truth that the last word does not belong to hatred, and that only peace and reconciliation will build a new Burundi, and a world reborn.
In this, the 3rd poorest country in the world, the Christian faith counts with 62% Roman Catholics and 5% Protestants in a population of 6.1 million people. In a climate of slavery, people need an ideal: the ideal of recognizing in themselves the dignity of children of God. And there lies the challenge for all Christians: how to be witnesses of Jesus Christ in the midst of violence and of its monstrous consequences?
While we, Xaverian Missionaries and our Christian communities, engage in the work of discernment, we believe that we must become “artisans of reconciliation,” not so much by talking about it as by doing the work of reconciliation.
Our task begins in community: to be witnesses of communion; to know how to draw from the fountain of the sacrament of reconciliation; to bear each other’s hardships in deed, daily; to pray for inner healing in words, judgments and relationships. This witnessing may not be shown by great deeds nor by measurable in sociological terms. We “will” it into existence and we will continue to “walk” on this road day by day. Little ways count and matter.
We Xaverians run the Kamenge Youth Center. This Center was born ‘to get the young people, boys and girls, of the northern quarters of the city of Bujumbura to live together in mutual respect.’ These young people belong to different ethnic groups, come from various regions of the country, some even from surrounding countries. Each one comes rich with his/her own religion, social situation and political creed. The Center is a place of meeting where they come to do something together, to learn something, to play sports and do other group activities together, above all to meet, know each other, appreciate one another, to sing and dance together, and become friends. Thousands of young people here are inventing a different life.
In 1993, when the Center started, the young people frequenting the center were 2,500. Today, they are more than 20,000. In 1993 some 100-150 of them came to the Center every day. Today they are about 1,500 divided into different groups. Many hold in their memory and heart the death of a parent, the circumstances, the person responsible. How not remember? How not to be afraid? Not to make distinctions? Not to take sides? How to prayer? To do good works? To love?
What's
the "alternative Nobel Peace Prize?"
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details at
www.rightlivelihood.se
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info about the Kamenge Youth Center, at:
www.cejeka.com
To grow in humanity, to deepen a sense of community, to build a reconciled community day after day, this is our task. To speak of the Kamenge Youth Center means to speak of a dream of peace, dialog and fraternity. Our mission is to proclaim the Gospel in the mist of so many upheavals and endless woes. Perhaps, God has a design which goes beyond Burundi’s borders.
This place is making a mark. In 2002, the Swedish government has given the “alternative Nobel Peace Prize” to the Kamenge Youth Center “because, notwithstanding nine years of wary, young Hutus and Tutsis live together there.” It is beautiful that, on the international level, recognition has come to the work and the efforts of the young people here, of all the men and women of good will engaged in this initiative. We are all happy about it!
Yes, life is still dangerous, but very beautiful. Threats still surround us, but many do support and encourage us: the Center is giving life to peace at all levels. Le me tell you, the Center is making a difference. So many little things we were able to put together have changed hearts. Slowly “the will to live again “ is growing in this land which, as all say, is truly an earthly paradise. People are returning to our surroundings, young people long disappeared are coming back and tell us of the joy of their return. It’s really beautiful to live together, to hope together. Many are our friends, though enemies are not lacking, neither are the threats… Most times it takes all you’ve got!
Does God intend these small “lights” which He has so recently kindled in Burundi to shine into the distance, onto our brothers and sisters in Colombia and Haiti, in Israel and Palestine, in Iraq?… We simply do what needs to be done quietly, humbly and gently, without making a big deal of it. The kingdom of God is full of ordinary people doing little, quiet and wonderfully God-filled things. I know that God is at work here.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)