BUILDING VIABLE COMMUNITY PEACE ALLIANCES FOR LAND RESTITUTION IN BURUNDI Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public Administration – Peace Studies Theodore Mbazumutima Professor Geoff Harris BComm DipEd MEc PhD Supervisor ............................................ Date.............................. Dr. Sylvia Kaye BS MS PhD Co-supervisor ...................................... Date............................. May 2018 i DECLARATION I Theodore Mbazumutima declare that a. The research reported in this thesis is my original research. b. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. c. All data, pictures, graphs or other information sourced from other sources have been acknowledged accordingly – both in-text and in the References sections. d. In the cases where other written sources have been quoted, then: 1. The quoted words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced: 2. Where their exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside quotation marks and duly referenced. ……………………………. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is absolutely not possible to name each and every person who inspired and helped me to carry out this research. However, I would like to single out some of them. I sincerely thank Professor Geoff Harris for supervising me and tirelessly providing comments and guidelines throughout the last three years or so. I also want to thank the DUT University for giving me a place and a generous scholarship to enable me to study with them. All the staff at the university and especially the librarian made me feel valued and at home. I would like to register my sincere gratitude towards Rema Ministries (now Rema Burundi) administration and staff for giving me time off and supporting me to achieve my dream. I cannot thank enough Sharing Life Trust and especially Steve and Diane Eyre for their support and friendship towards my family. May they find, in this work, an encouragement for their kindness. I thank Rema UK and their chairperson Sally Botteley for all their kindness and support to Rema Burundi and myself which contributed towards this achievement. I Thank Katja, Tobia and their two sons for believing in me and enabling me to visit my family in Burundi. I will always value the work done by my action team, support group and all those who actively participated in this research. I wish to thank the Ministry of Home affairs in Burundi that gave me the permission to carry this research and Nyanza-lac commune that supported the whole research process. To the Burundian community in Durban, you made me feel at home and speeded up the integration process. Thank you Eleazar Bandryambona for spearheading this process of integration. Last, though by no means least, my wife Christine Ndayihimbaze who, despite her own work, amazingly remained a wonderful wife and mum to our four kids. She deserves abundant thanks and she remains the person behind the success of this work. 3 Dedication I dedicate this work to my dearest wife Christine Ndayihimbaze. You have been to me a source of encouragement and I find a great pleasure having you as my wife. Imana iguhezagire 4 ABSTRACT Following the determination to consolidate peace and deal with the legacies of civil war in Burundi, it was proposed by the Arusha Peace Accord that there was need to instigate a process of transitional justice. In part, this was recognition of the need for mechanisms that could grapple with the challenges around land and other property restitution. However, political elites hijacked the land restitution process such that localised land conflicts at the grassroots have coloured national political conflicts. In particular, there has been strong evidence of violent alliances between the opposition and second occupants of the land on one hand, and the ruling party and returnees on the other. This thesis is based on qualitative research, using action research as its key strategy. Research was carried out in Nyanza-lac Commune, Makamba Province in southern Burundi, between May and December 2017. The aim was to understand the nature of alliances within the land conflicts and determine the extent to which violence is used as a means of coercing and mobilizing followers in line with these alliances; to explore the possibility and/or training needs for potential mobilisation to establish community peace alliances capable of addressing land conflicts; to help establish these mechanisms; and then to evaluate their impact. The study found that the second occupants, often with direct or indirect support from the opposition, use direct or indirect violence against the returnees in order to keep the land which originally belonged to these returnees. They also use direct or indirect violence against (The CNTB) National Land Commission officials during their routine activities of restituting land to the returnees. At the same time, opposition politicians use indirect violence to sustain an alliance between themselves and second occupants of the land in order to get political support from them and oppose land restitution which could have direct consequences for these politicians. At the same time, the CNTB has an alliance with the returnees, and the Commission uses direct or indirect violence against second occupants to compel them to abide by the CNTB’s decisions. In this strategic alliance, returnees expect to get land and continue to support the government, while CNTB officials, by executing the government-given mandate, keep their jobs. The research showed the positive role which dialogue can play in helping affected ordinary people to resolve and transform complex conflicts with incompatible interpretations in a context where the law has failed to address them. Involving the action team and the ordinary people in property restitution built their self-esteem and capacity to contribute to the understanding of their problems and to plan and implement suitable solutions as well as to constructively reflect on their intervention. Thus, they adopted dialogue as a valuable and effective means of addressing the land restitution conflicts and this dialogue led to the finding of a common understanding between the conflicting parties. Furthermore, this allowed for the peaceful resolution of land conflict and the building of broken relationships. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ................................................................................................................................................ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................................................. xi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................................... xii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................................ xiii APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................... xiv PART I .......................................................................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW OF THE THESIS ................................................................... 15 1.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 15 1.2 Context of the research .................................................................................................................... 17 1.3 Research problem ............................................................................................................................. 20 1.4 Research aim and objectives ............................................................................................................ 21 1.5 Peace theories .................................................................................................................................. 21 1.5.1 Transitional justice theories and practice in peace-building ..................................................... 21 1.5.2 Conflict Transformation ............................................................................................................. 23 1.6 Research methodology ..................................................................................................................... 24 1.7 Delimitations .................................................................................................................................... 24 1.8 Thesis overview ................................................................................................................................ 24 PART II: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.......................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 2: TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE THEORIES AND PRACTICE IN PEACE-BUILDING ................................ 26 2.1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................................