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Agnes and Adrian Won’t Leave Home
Adrian Sindayigaya is a Hutu. Agnes Nindorera is Tutsi. Both are journalists in Burundi, Central Africa, where fear of becoming ‘another Rwanda’ pervades every aspect of life. Agnes and Adrian do assignments together, interviewing people from both ethnic groups to produce objective radio programmes for broadcast by Studio Ijambo.
Objectivity is risky in Burundi. Before 1994, the country’s ethnic history had been bloodier than Rwanda’s. Hard-liners from both sides influence the targeting of moderates.
‘After a broadcast,’ says Agnes, ‘I often get a lot of reactions. People threaten me to my face or through the telephone.’
In 1993, 50,000 deaths resulted from conflict between Tutsis and Hutus; hundreds of thousands of lives were lost in the decades before. Many thousands fled their homes, seeking refuge in neighbouring lands. Rebels claiming to fight in the name of the majority Hutus are still at war with the Tutsi-led army and government. Each time there’s a clash, tension rises. Fear is pervasive.
Adrian Sindayigaya and Agnes Nindorera are among the 30 multi-ethnic staff who work for Studio Ijambo. Ijambo means ‘wise words’ in the local Kirundi language. The outfit attempts to be a counterpoint to the use of the media of hate to forment ethnic violence. Eight paired Hutu-Tutsi reporting teams fan out across the country, gathering material for three weekly news programmes broadcast in French and Kirundi.
‘The purpose of Radio Ijambo,’ says Adrian, ‘is to try to be as objective as possible - to find out the good things taking place in the country, talk about them, and let people know about them. To get politicians to talk about problems inside the studio.’
An estimated 85 percent of people in the area have access to radio broadcasts. Extremists have used this medium to foment conflicts between Hutus and Tutsis. Famously, Radio Mille Collines served this purpose in Rwanda. Anti-Tutsi passions have been stirred by a pirate radio station run by Hutus from within the Congo.
‘Here in Burundi,’ says Agnes, ‘telling lies has become widespread. That is part of the reason for the current crisis. That is why people no longer trust one another. I think that by informing people and by telling the truth, we are helping Burundi find a path towards peace - a peace in which people are led by the facts, and not by the lies of the politicians.’
| October 21, 1993....
The first elected President of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated in a coup attempt by the Tutsi-dominated military, triggering ethnic violence and military reprisals. He had been elected in June of that year. Ndadaye’s successor, Cyprien Ntaryamira, died in April 1994, in the same plane crash as the president of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana. Both leaders had been returning from a regional summit called to explore solutions to end violence in Rwanda and Burundi. In 1996, retired Tutsi military officer Pierre Buyoya seized the presidency in a bloodless coup. |
This is difficult when the journalists are themselves victims of the conflict. During the 1993 carnage, for instance, Hutu rebels killed 60 members of Nindorera’s extended family. She faced a dilemma. Professional considerations or personal concerns? When she chose journalistic objectivity, she recalls, ‘my brothers did not understand; my neighbours did not understand. They thought I had to stand for members of my family and be against the Hutus.’
Every day, now, she has to subjugate her personal feelings as she takes up her microphone and goes out on assignment for Studio Ijambo.
‘I saw so many friends dying because of this crazy violence,’ says her partner, Sindayigaya. ‘I had many friends who died without any reason. You leave someone alive, strong, and then two months later they tell you he’s been shot dead or he’s been beheaded...’
Studio Ijambo was launched at a time when the Rwanda genocide led to fears about Burundi. Extensive consultations, involving NGOs and government counterparts, were followed by the opening of a Common Ground field office in Bujumbura. A radio production studio was one of several mechanisms to foster ethnic reconciliation. A scheme to involve women in the promotion of peace was also set up, along with an initiative to stimulate political dialogue.
Studio Ijambo’s reputation was established with its first broadcasts in March 1995. Listeners liked the unbiased presentations; hard-liners were either sceptical or suspicious. Two biweekly cultural and social affairs magazines -Amasaganzira and Radio Express- were broadcast in Kirundi and French respectively, balanced by a popular soap opera, ‘Our Neighbours, Ourselves’. Launched in July 1997, in Kirundi, the soap focuses on neighbouring Hutu and Tutsi families in a rural district. The dramatisation of their lives is used to explore the complex relationship between the two ethnic groups. Themes of tolerance and reconciliation find echoes in the dialogue.
In September 1998, Studio Ijambo expanded its repertoire. Two new Kirundi language programmes -Sangwe and The Past and the Way Forward- were slotted in. On Sangwe, young people from different communities are encouraged to share ideas and express appreciation for music with an expert, who comments on the history of the particular genre chosen that week and sets the discussion within an analytical framework. The Past and the Way Forward, a weekly 10-minute programme, addresses human rights, peace and tolerance.
Studio Ijambo journalists operate in a country run through a tenuous power-sharing arrangement, where violence persists despite efforts at reconciliation. In November 1998, an Amnesty International report described the refugee crisis in Burundi as becoming more acute. Decades of violence and gross human rights abuses had caused massive population displacement, said the London-based rights group.
‘In addition to the approximately 600,000 people who are now reported to be internally displaced, there are now 300,000 Burundian refugees in neighbouring countries in the Great Lakes region,’ Amnesty International says.
Studio Ijambo’s workers report on the refugees. Adrian Sindayigaya and Agnes Nindorera go to Kamenge to interview some who are returning home for the first time since the 1993 massacres.
Agnes is about to talk to a woman, when a tall, slim man suddenly appears and gently asks what she’s doing. Dressed in civilian clothes, his sheepish expression is no mask for the authority he wields. He asks the journalists for identification; she, in turn, asks for his soldier’s ID. Pulling a booklet from his breast pocket, he explains that he had approached her because she was acting suspiciously.
‘Do you find all journalists suspicious?’ she asks, smiling.
He eventually allows her to continue. By then, however, the woman she was preparing to interview has vanished, frightened off by the soldier - a reminder of what led to the original exodus, and the uncertainty of the returnees.
Close by, Adrian, her Hutu counterpart, has found his interview subject at the side of a road. Behind him, shells of abandoned homes set against green hills - a now-typical Burundi landscape. Adrian pushes the microphone close to the mouth of his subject.
‘What ought peace to look like in Kamenge?’ he asks.
‘The most important thing is that the shooting should stop,’ the man says promptly, arguing that ethnic difference is not the true cause of the violence. ‘Hutus and Tutsis have lived together for a long time.’ he says. ‘If one became sick, we all helped one another. We shared everything.’
A group of teenagers look on, stabbing their toes into the ground, hands folded or held akimbo, listening. Adrian takes his microphone over to one of the boys. The boy looks away.
‘We’re a little shy,’ he says.
He finally opens up a bit, to complain about not being able to go to school any more. He’s 17. His friend expresses the hope that Hutus and Tutsis can live together. Then its the turn of Marguerite, 15, the only girl in the group.
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| Studio Ijambo Photo Search for Common Ground |
Back at Studio Ijambo’s state-of-the-art facilities in Bujumbura, the programme is edited. It will be offered to Radio Burundi, which is government owned, or to overseas outlets - BBC, Voice of America, French radio. Occasionally, a programme is rejected by Radio Burundi because the management fears passions may be aroused by something that is said.
Nonetheless, Adrian injects a few polemics at the end of his report on Kamenge, asking whether the people of the suburb can really have any faith in the future if Burundian politicians ‘won’t sit around the same table and put an end to this civil war’.
Objectivity is not easy, he admits, but the determination to find a balance is strong.
‘Sometimes I, myself, felt like surrendering,’ he says. But I was in a dilemma. What if everybody wanted to leave the country? To whom should we leave it? It’s my country, it’s my home. Burundi is not hell. I was born in it; I have relatives here. I have to contribute to the building of the country.’
Agnes adds: ‘I’m often depressed after going on an assignment. It can be so depressing. People threaten to kill me. But running away is the same as giving up.’
People are Calling for Peace
Quotes from ‘A Paz E Que O Poco Chama’ (‘People Are Calling For Peace’)
‘There are people without homes
Children abandoned on the streets
Peace cannot be delayed
Enough of this fierce war’
We Are The World. The South African Peace Song. These are titles of familiar songs of hope and unity. Based on their model, the Centre for Common Ground in Angola (CCG), the Luanda-based office of Search For Common Ground, brought together Angolan musicians from both sides of the conflict to create an Angolan peace song. In April 1997, 11 days after the formation of the Government of National Unity and Reconciliation in Angola, 35 of the most popular MPLA and UNITA musicians gathered in Lisbon to record A Paz E Que O Poco Chama, or The People Are Calling For Peace.
‘Our people are running away in vain
And suffering more and more
For all the years fly by
Life is too short’
For three decades, Angola has been torn apart by conflict. First, the country struggled through a war of independence from Portugal. Immediately after gaining that independence, a civil war broke out between rival factions of the independence movement. After 30 years of warfare, violence has become an ingrained response to conflict. Despite hope that the Lusaka Protocol, the peace agreement signed in 1994 by representatives of the Angolan government and UNITA opposition rebels, would usher in a period of sustained peace and reconciliation, the atmosphere of war and violence persists.
‘If we are to reveal ideas
Which express our joy
We must discuss with respect
What we are thinking’
The Centre for Common Ground in Angola is trying to change the ingrained response to conflict in Angola - to promote cooperation, joint problem solving, dialogue and other constructive, non-violent methods of dealing with conflict. Toward that end, CCG utilizes the media as a multiplier for its messages of reconciliation, peace and non-violent approaches to conflict. Its initiatives have included co-producing, with Ubuntu Productions, television and radio programmes about reconciliation. The Centre’s latest media initiative is a twelve-part documentary series entitled Luzes Na Sombra (Lights in Shade) which focuses on individuals who have decided to make a difference in their community.
‘Angola is women and flowers
It is the Mother the people love
End this suffering
People are calling for peace’
The centrepiece of CCG’s media campaign, however, is the Angolan Peace Song. Music provides a way for CCG to approach Angolans where other, more orthodox methodologies have failed. Angolans have a deep affinity for music; it reaches beyond dialogue, beyond words, to their hearts and souls. Highly honoured in Angolan culture, musicians and their songs are effective tools for cutting through communication barriers. When a musician speaks out on an issue, Angolans listen. Musicians are therefore effective tools for peace.
‘Old illnesses are returning
There are no more medicines
Wounds that no longer mend
The healing of peace is missing’
The Angolan Peace Song became an exercise in reconciliation and consensus building in itself. It took CCG a year of negotiations and mediated discussions to overcome the divisions between the musicians, and it took a leap of faith on the part of the musicians themselves to overcome their misgivings and make a joint stand for reconciliation. Famous Angolan musicians, Feilipe Zau, Bonga and Filipe Mukenga penned the song. Despite the differences, both stylistic and pedagogic, between the musicians, these three became the driving force behind its creation. As Filipe Zau stated, ‘We can overtake ideological differences and musical antagonism, which exist but do not overtake this project.’ In Lisbon, where 35 musicians, different in ideology and style, met to record A Paz E Que O Poco Chama, the music bridged the gap, and for three days they worked together to create a united call for peace in Angola. For Angolans, to witness musicians setting aside their differences and in one voice plea for peace proved that reconciliation was possible on all levels.
‘Who does not want a different life
Whoever just wants to think about war
Does not want the well-being of the people
And has no love for his land’
CCG officially launched the Peace Song with a peace concert in Luanda on August 30, 1997. That evening, 1,600 people crowded into the Karl Marx stadium in Luanda and for four hours, they clapped, danced and sang for peace. Many of the musicians who helped record the song performed on stage. The concert was electrifying. To see MPLA and UNITA supporters, standing side by side, on stage and in the audience, it seemed that the Angolan conflict wasn’t so intractable after all. Calls for hope and peace were shouted and sung with one voice.
‘There is a hope in the air
That is the strength of us all
There is a song awakening
That hails from the time of our grandparents’
The Peace Song continues to do its work in Angolan society at all levels. CCG organized a second peace concert in May 1998 and a third will take place in Luanda, at the end of March 1999. With UNESCO funding, CCG distributed 10,000 cassettes of the song through schools, churches and community centers. Both the audio and visual forms of the song are aired on state-run television, as fillers during broadcasts of the National Assembly. In February of last year, a female parliamentarian ended her speech on the floor of the assembly with the closing words of the song, ‘People are calling for peace.’ Articles chronicling the development of the song and concert have appeared in the Journal de Angola.
‘When the people are calling for peace
Give the peace the people want
Move your body, move your body
Dance very well this way’
As the latest series of hostilities threatens
the search for a permanent peace in Angola, the Centre for Common
Ground continues to use music as an outlet for
the people’s frustration, to offer hope and to demonstrate the possibility
of the reconciliation to come. Music can be a form of protest, an expression
of hope for those who no longer feel they can give voice to such emotions.
As Paulo Flores, one of the participating musicians in the Angolan Peace
Song said, ‘...music can signify more for peace than for war...when I compose
I think of giving a voice to those who don’t have [one]...’ CCG continues
to use the Angolan Peace Song as an anchor for our music and peace activities.
Whether it is a large concert in Cabinda, or a small informal gathering
under a tree, the Angolan Peace Song continues to wend its way through
the nation, into people’s minds and into their hearts.
‘People are calling for peace.’
Most information as well as quotes in this article were taken from Dangerous Silence: Studio Ijambo Broadcasting Peace in Burundi, a video-documentary directed by Dutch film maker Rob Hof. The Box on the Angolan Peace Song has been written by Heather P. Kulp of the Angola Project of Search for Common Ground, USA.
Feedback please to
j.verhoeven@euconflict.org