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Life After Violence: a People's Story of Burundi (African Arguments)

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Life After Violence: a People's Story of Burundi (African Arguments) About the author Peter Uvin is the Henry J. Leir Professor of Inter national Humanitarian Studies and Academic Dean at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, USA. In recent years, his research and practice have dealt with the intersection between development aid, human rights, and conflict, mostly in the African Great Lakes region. His previous books include Develop- ment and Human Rights and Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda, which received the African Studies Association’s Herskowits award for the most outstanding book on Africa in 1998. He spends a large amount of his time working for various agencies in the Great Lakes region. African Arguments African Arguments is a series of short books about Africa today. Aimed at the growing number of students and general readers who want to know more about the continent, these books highlight many of the longer-term strategic as well as immediate political issues confronting the African continent. They get to the heart of why Africa is the way it is and how it is changing. The books are scholarly but engaged, substantive as well as topical. Series editors alex de waal, Social Science Research Council richard dowden, Executive Director, Royal African Society Editorial board emmanuel akyeampong, Harvard University tim allen, London School of Economics and Political Science akwe amosu, Open Society Institute breyten breytenbach, Gorée Institute craig calhoun, Social Science Research Council peter da costa, journalist and development specialist william gumede, journalist and author alcinda honwana, Open University abdul mohammed, InterAfrica Group robert molteno, editor and publisher Titles already published Tim Allen, Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lord’s Resistance Army Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political Crisis – Yet Raymond W. Copson, The United States in Africa: Bush Policy and Beyond Chris Alden, China in Africa Tom Porteous, Britain in Africa Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War, revised and updated edition Jonathan Glennie, The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa Peter Uvin, Life after Violence: A People’s Story of Burundi Forthcoming William Gumede, The Democracy Gap: Africa’s Wasted Years Camilla Toulmin, Climate Change in Africa Published by Zed Books and the IAI with the support of the following organizations: InterAfrica Group The InterAfrica Group is the regional centre for dialogue on issues of development, democracy, conflict resolution and humanitarianism in the Horn of Africa. It was founded in 1988 and is based in Addis Ababa, with programmes supporting democracy in Ethiopia and partnership with the African Union and IGAD. <www.sas. upenn.edu/African_Studies/ Hornet/menu_Intr_Afr.html> International African Institute The International African Institute’s principal aim is to promote scholarly understanding of Africa, notably its changing societies, cultures and languages. Founded in 1926 and based in London, it supports a range of seminars and publications including the journal Africa. <www.internationalafricaninstitute.org> Justice Africa Justice Africa initiates and supports African civil society activities in support of peace, justice and demo cracy in Africa. Founded in 1999, it has a range of activities relating to peace in the Horn of Africa, HIV/AIDS and democracy, and the African Union. <www. justiceafrica.org> Royal African Society Now more than a hundred years old, the Royal African Society today is Britain’s leading organization pro moting Africa’s cause. Through its journal, African Affairs, and by organ izing meetings, discussions and other activities, the society strengthens links between Africa and Britain and encourages understanding of Africa and its relations with the rest of the world. <www.royalafricansociety.org> Social Science Research Council The Social Science Research Council brings much-needed expert knowledge to public issues. Founded in 1923 and based in New York, it brings together researchers, prac titioners and policymakers in every continent. <www.ssrc.org> peter uvin Life after violence A people’s story of Burundi Zed Books london | new york in association with International African Institute Royal African Society Social Science Research Council Life after violence: A people’s story of Burundi was first published in association with the International African Institute, the Royal African Society and the Social Science Research Council in 2009 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9jf, uk and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa www.zedbooks.co.uk www.internationalafricaninstitute.org www.royalafricansociety.org www.ssrc.org Copyright © Peter Uvin, 2009 The right of Peter Uvin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accord ance with the Copy right, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Cover designed by Rogue Four Design Set in OurType Arnhem and Futura Bold by Ewan Smith, London index: <[email protected]> Printed and bound in Malta by Gutenberg Press Ltd Distributed in the usa exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St Martin’s Press, llc, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data available isbn 978 1 84813 179 8 hb isbn 978 1 84813 180 4 pb isbn 978 1 84813 181 1 eb Contents List of tables | viii Foreword | ix Introduction . 1 ONE | Background 1 A brief political history of Burundi . 7 2 Methodology and location. 26 TWO | The view from below 3 Peace and war as read in Burundi . 43 4 ‘If I were in charge here’: Burundians on respect, corruption, and the state . 58 5 Hard work and prostitution: the capitalist ethos in crisis . 81 6 ‘I want to marry a dynamic girl’: changing gender expectations in Burundi (with Kim Howe) . .123 7 Justice, silence, and social capital (with Ann Nee) . .145 8 Conclusion . .171 Notes | 190 Bibliography | 195 Index | 205 Tables 1.1 Election results, 2005 | 21 2.1 Rural sample by category | 31 2.2 Urban sample by category | 32 2.3 Sample by age | 33 3.1 Definitions of peace | 45 4.1 Respect and the rule of law | 59 5.1 General trends | 83 5.2 Education per category, in years, by region | 87 5.3 Discussions, and explanations, of men’s marginal behavior | 101 5.4 Discussions, and explanations, of women’s marginal behavior | 101 5.5 Answers to the ‘who helps you’ question, by area | 110 6.1 Traditional expectations of young men and young women | 134 6.2 Expectations of young men and young women: frequency of responses based on 260 participants | 137 7.1 Attitudes toward entente | 163 viii Foreword Burundi was the first country in Africa I set foot in. I still recall my first impressions, in 1985 – the heat and the humidity; the serious- ness of the faces and the deep sense of humor of Burundians; the perfect combination of brochettes, fries, and Primus beer; my first taste of ndagala (small, salted fried fish) at the Cercle Nautique; the beauty of the men and women, and the ugly scars poverty in- flicted on them. Over the years, I went there tens of times, to work in development projects, to do research, to advise agencies, to evaluate projects. I saw friends’ children grow up, and heard about other friends who died, fled, married. The civil war intervened, and this poor country became poorer still, and sadder, and more afraid. The smiles disappeared, the scars were more common. At about the same time, I married, moved continents, and stopped working for the development business. The genocide in Rwanda happened, less than a year after the sad reversal of democracy in Burundi and the outbreak of civil war there, and I was sick of the inefficiency, the blindness, the self-centeredness of the development business of which I had been a junior member until then. I ended up writing a book, Aiding Violence, which was based on a detailed study of Rwanda but was equally inspired by my experi- ences in Burundi. This book came at a propitious time, when people everywhere were beginning to rethink their ‘normal profes- sionalism’ of development and humanitarianism. Many changes have occurred since: rights-based approaches, conflict-sensitive development, and so on. I became a player in these changes, consulting about them on the ground, first in Rwanda and then in Burundi, and writing about them in policy and scholarly docu- ments. These were heady times, with fascinating mandates, long discussions, and a feeling that we were building something new. ix My previous book, Human Rights and Development, explores some of this. In the meantime, I slowly and unexpectedly made a career in Foreword the academic world and became a professor. In 2006/07, I got a sabbatical, and decided it was time to go back to the source: the people of Burundi, where I had started. I wanted to know the ideas of the international development and peace-building community (of which I had been a more or less enthusiastic cog), the aims it seeks, the agendas it sets: do they make sense to regular people? Do Burundians talk about the same things as I do, even if they use different words? Or are people like me and my inter national col- leagues, and the ideas/ideologies we repres ent, basically living in a totally different world, unrelated to the real lives of the poor and the excluded in whose names we claim to speak? At that point in time, I was lucky enough to run into Maria Correia of the World Bank.
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