News Flashes

 "It is easy to light a fire and difficult to extinguish it" - Burundi proverb 

One of the pleasures of life that I have rediscovered while in Burundi has been reading books. As a young person I was always a bit of a "book-worm" but somehow television took over and time spent absorbed in a good book disappeared. 

I have just finished reading Gilbert Tuhabonye's autobiography "The Running Man" and it will remain among the memorable books I have read recently. 

One of the places I have visited on my travels in Burundi is the memorial at Kibimba. It is the place where, on 21st October, 1993, fuelled by hatred following the assassination of the democratically-elected Hutu President Ndadaye, Hutus forced more than a hundred Tutsi pupils and teachers from the local school into a building of a nearby petrol station where they were either slashed to death with machetes or burned alive as flaming branches were pushed through the windows and holes in the roof. 

The same people who had once cheered Gilbert on in a running race or greeted him in the classroom, or smiled at him in Church poured gasoline on him and his classmates and set fire to them. Gilbert then aged nineteen miraculously survived by hiding under the bodies of his dead classmates until he was able to make his escape, terribly burned, through a window. 

The building where Gilbert hid                                   Kibimba memorial reads "Never again"

Gilbert tells of his road to recovery and eventual forgiveness. He gives a glimpse of the lasting scars when he writes that the ability to forgive came slowly but he would never be able to trust people as he had before. Even though his scars have faded they bear silent witness to what happened. He saw Burundi in a different light - "not a paradise and not a hell, simply a land made imperfect by the people who inhabited it." 

Today he lives in the USA. He is a world-class athlete and hoping to qualify for the Olympic Games 2008. 

His story made me realise that I have little understanding of the pain, anguish, fear, suspicion, and despair that has been part of people's lives for so long here in Burundi, and still is because these things do not just vanish when cease-fires and peace agreements are signed. 

Conflicts are rarely one-sided. Hutus, Tutsis, and Twa who had once known how to live together peacefully found themselves caught up in cycles of violence, one group perpetrating atrocities against another. "The Running Man" is one man's story but there are thousands of others that could be told by Hutus, Tutsis, and Twa alike. 

We live in a society that does all it can to make pain and suffering go away. We turn away from the horrors that are a reality for many in the world. If we don't like the images we see on television news we turn them off. In Burundi they are not images on a television screen they are images on the faces of people you see in the street and meet in the shops and shake hands with at Church. 

Sometimes, in spite of the atrocities perpetrated against them, God lights a fire in people's hearts that drives them to achieve great things. Gilbert concludes his story - "Though some would rather have seen me destroyed by flames, no one can extinguish the fire inside of me. The light God placed there still burns brightly. Each day I try to honour this great gift of life with some sense of gratitude." 

"The Running Man" is a remarkable story of faith in God and survival. I recommend it for an insight into Burundi's pain but also into the richness of the country's life and culture, its beauty and potential. 

"The Running Man" Gilbert Tuhabonye Published by John Blake Publishing Ltd