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Reclaiming Everyday Peace in the Micro-Spaces in Burundi

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Abstract

This study uses the bottom-up peacebuilding approach and the notion of everyday peace to assess the impact of peacebuilding interventions in Burundi, which the Conseil Inter-Confessionnel du Burundi (CICB) implemented from October 2018 to December 2019. Specifically, the chapter explores two themes as indicators of everyday peace: the transformation of group relations and conflict resolution in micro-spaces in four provinces. After analysing empirical data from the field, the study finds that CICB utilised a pathway for change that empowered lower-level religious leaders as agents of everyday peace. The organisation then deployed them to improve relations between ethnic, political, and religious communities through changing individual perceptions and group attitudes towards the ‘other’ and resolving conflicts in micro-spaces. Further, the study finds that CICB combined technical aspects of peacebuilding, including dialogue forums, local peace committees, and citizen-to-citizen engagements, with religious values, symbols, and language to promote everyday peace. The chapter concludes that CICB’s strategy has universal utility because its logic of micro-solidarities possesses the potential to transform conflict narratives, end the cycles of violence, build peace from the bottom, and be the building blocks of peace formation at the national level. As such, the logic is consistent with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, which calls for the reduction of all forms of violence at all levels of society.

The Communities Richer in Diversity (CRID) consortium published a simplified general readers’ version of this study using parts of the evidence cited in this chapter as Case Study Series No. 4 in April 2022, which is available here: https://www.faithtoactionetwork.org

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A group of religious leaders, comprising Catholics, Methodists, Anglicans, the Evangelical Church of Burundi, Muslims, and Lutherans, founded CICB in June 2008 as an inter-religious organisation to implement peacebuilding programmes because the country had just emerged from a protracted 12-year civil war. With financial support from international funders, CICB has over the years implemented a wide range of peacebuilding interventions and programmes.

  2. 2.

    The way notions of ethnic, cultural, and ‘tribal’ identities are understood in Burundi and Rwanda is very different from the way they are understood in the other Eastern and Central African countries such as Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, and Ethiopia. In Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, the concepts ‘tribal’ identity and ethnic identity are synonymous and are widely understood to mean language-based cultural identity. Burundi and Rwanda are different. In the sense of anthropological language-based cultural identity, Burundi has only one ethnic group, Barundi, which has the same culture and the same language, Kirundi. However, colonial and post-colonial political and administrative practices divided the Barundi ethnic group into four ‘tribal’ identities: Baganwa, Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa. Scholarly studies show that the military regimes of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s forcefully assimilated Baganwa, the former ruling group from the pre-colonial Kingdom up to 1966, into the Tutsi category. Similarly, Rwanda has only one anthropological ethnic group, Banyarwanda, that has the same culture and the same language, Kinyarwanda, but political and administrative practices of the last 100 years divided the same ethnic group into three ‘tribes’: Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa.

  3. 3.

    The Arusha peace process was based on four points of agreement.

    1. 1.

      A power-sharing formula, based on an agreed formula of ethnic quotas in politics.

    2. 2.

      Representation of all parties in the state bureaucracy

    3. 3.

      Constitutional restrictions to prevent any single party from becoming excessively powerful.

    4. 4.

      Pathways to integrate former rebels and minority groups in the Burundian armed forces.

    The 2005 indirect presidential elections occurred on 19 August 2005, when Members of the National Assembly and Senate chose the new President of the Republic for a five-year term. The sole candidate, Pierre Nkurunziza of the Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie – Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie (CNDD–FDD), attained 151 yes votes. While nine voted against him, one vote was invalid. He was sworn in on 26 August 2005. The election was held using multiple round systems. To win in the first round of voting, Nkurunziza was required to receive at least two-thirds of the vote (108 votes).

  4. 4.

    A report by the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, which the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed in September 2016, lists the armed groups as follows. Forces Nationales pour la Libération (FNL), which is a splinter group from the original PALIPEHUTU-FNL and is led by General Aloys Nzabampema; Forces Républicaines du Burundi (FOREBU), which emerged in 2015 and is led by General Godefroid Niyombare and other soldiers who led the May 2015 coup attempt; and Résistance pour un Etat de Droit (RED-Tabara) that emerged in January 2016. Other armed groups that emerged in December 2015, but there was no sufficient information about them during the field research, are Mouvement de la Résistance Populaire (MRP); Union des Patriotes pour la Révolution (UPR); Force de Libération de la Démocratie au Burundi (FLDB); Mouvement Patriote Chrétien (MPC); and MALIBU-Front Patriotique du Salut (MALIBU-FPS).

  5. 5.

    Parts of this evidence and others cited in this chapter were in the CRID general readers’ version produced as Case Study Series No. 4 in April 2022, which is available here: https://www.faithtoactionetwork.org/interfaith-peacebuilding-from-below-in-burundi-building-everyday-peace-in-the-lower-stratacrid-case-study-series-4/case-study-series-no-4/.Â

  6. 6.

    Parts of this evidence and others cited in this chapter were in the CRID general readers’ version produced as Case Study Series No. 4 in April 2022, which is available here: https://www.faithtoactionetwork.org/interfaith-peacebuilding-from-below-in-burundi-building-everyday-peace-in-the-lower-stratacrid-case-study-series-4/case-study-series-no-4/.Â

  7. 7.

    Parts of this evidence and others cited in this chapter were in the CRID’s general readers’ version produced as Case Study Series No. 4 in April 2022, which is available here: https://www.faithtoactionetwork.org/interfaith-peacebuilding-from-below-in-burundi-building-everyday-peace-in-the-lower-stratacrid-case-study-series-4/case-study-series-no-4/.Â

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Peace & Conflict Studies Academic and Consultant, Peacebuilding, Conflict Transformation, and Preventive Diplomacy, Nairobi, Kenya

    Patrick Karanja Mbugua

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  1. Patrick Karanja Mbugua
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Maseno University, Maseno, Kenya

    Susan M. Kilonzo

  2. University of Zimbabwe, Mount Pleasant, Zimbabwe

    Ezra Chitando

  3. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Joram Tarusarira

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Mbugua, P.K. (2023). Reclaiming Everyday Peace in the Micro-Spaces in Burundi. In: Kilonzo, S.M., Chitando, E., Tarusarira, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Religion, Peacebuilding, and Development in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36829-5_13

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