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The Blood Cries Out
In one of Africas most densely populated countries, brothers
are killing brothers over the right to farm mere acres of
earth. Theres just not enough land to go around in Burundi
and it could push the country into civil ar.
B! " I##IA$ %&&$A$'()*T*+A()- B! ATI$A BA/I+A#0(*
When Pierre Gahungu thinks about the small farm in the
Burundian hills where he grew up and started a family, he remembers the
soilrich and red, perfect for growing beans, sweet potatoes, and bananas.
He used to bend over and scoop up a handful of the earth ust to savor its
moist feel. !o Gahungu, now in his "#s, the farm was everything$ his home,
his livelihood, and his hope. %fter he was gone, he had always believed, the
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/27/the-blood-cries-out-burundi-land-conflict/?utm_content=buffer899b8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=bufferhttps://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-1/p160x160/10931415_10155232408785347_7602838068656210429_n.png?oh=26dcb8d4573f2b4ee0001100f3057a9c&oe=55B63F67&__gda__=1433792434_7cdffe47e51615e93eb659fa9df20de7http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/27/the-blood-cries-out-burundi-land-conflict/?utm_content=buffer899b8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer7/21/2019 The Blood Cries Out
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land would sustain his eventual heirs.
But then, in an instant, his dreams were thrown into eopardy. &n a dusky
evening in '()*, Gahungu was walking home when he heard a noise behind
him. He turned and found himself face to face with %lphonse, the son of a
cousin. +or months, %lphonse had been begging Gahungu, whom he called
uncle,- for a portion of the farm. %lphonses polygamous father had many
sonsmore than /#, Gahungu sayswhich meant each one would get ust
a tiny plot of his land. 01n Burundi, generally only men may inherit property.2
%lphonse wanted more space, a rapidly shrinking commodity, on which to
build a house and a life. Gahungu had a much smaller familyultimately,
he and his wife would have three children, but only one boy, named 3ionel
so he had plenty of land to share, %lphonse reasoned. Why shouldnt he
get a piece of it4 Gahungu, however, had refused repeatedly. When he saw
%lphonse that night on the road, he assumed they were in for another round
of the same e5hausting refrain.
%lphonse, however, had not come to talk. Without saying a word, he raised
a machete and brought it down onto his uncles skull. Gahungu remembers
feeling a 6ash of pain and hearing a bone crunch before everything went
black.
1 was terri7ed,- Gahungu says through an interpreter. He woke up
wounded and later saw a doctor. He began recovering from his inury, but
he feared that his farm would never be safe in his hands. Gahungu decided
that if %lphonse couldnt kill him, the lands legal owner, his sons
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inheritance would be safe. 8o he left his family behind and moved alone to
the nearby city of 9uramvya, where he worked at a tailoring shop
downtown.
Before long, more problems arose, but not with %lphonse 0who, Gahungu
says, died in a car accident2. &ne of %lphonses brothers built two houses
on Gahungus land without his uncles permission. 1n '((', on the eve of a
brutal, '/:year civil war that pitted Burundis two main ethnic groups, Hutu
and !utsi, against one another, Gahungu took the man to a local court,
which ruled in the owners favor. But winning the legal battle did nothing to
change Gahungus situation$ !o this day, he says, %lphonses brother, the
brothers family, and the two houses illegally occupy his farm.
Gahungu has tried to go back to Burundis backlogged courts for help, buthe doesnt have the money to pay for a case. !ragedy, too, has continued
to follow him$ 3ionel died at ust '(. %s his own life draws toward aninevitable end, Gahungu lives alone in 9uramvya. He now fears he will die
before ever getting his beloved land back. 1t was the perfect farm becauseit was my farm,- Gahungu recalls. 1t was my whole life.-
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Pierre Gahungu was attacked by a relative for refusing to share a portion ofhis land.
Gahungus e5perience mirrors other stories familiar to Burundi for decades
stories that are multiplying and worsening as the country copes with a
veritable e5plosion of people. %t '#,"*; s
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of late /#'*. %nother ",### are e5pected to arrive this year.
!he vast maority of Burundians rely on subsistence farming, but under the
weight of a booming population and in the long:standing absence of
coherent policies governing land ownership, many people barely have
enough earth to sustain themselves. 8teve 9c?onald, who has worked on a
reconciliation proect in Burundi with the Woodrow Wilson 1nternational
enter for 8cholars, estimates that in '("# the average farm was probably
between nine and '/ acres. !oday, that number has shrunk to ust over one
acre. !he conseations
estimates that roughly ); percent of disputes pending in Burundian courts
pertain to land. Between /#'A and /#'*, incidents of arson and attempted
murder related to land con6ict rose '( percent and A@ percent, respectively.
Ciolence sometimes occurs within families, but it also can play out between
ethnic groups$ 9ost returning refugees are Hutu, but the land they left
behind has often been purchased by !utsis. !he land issue comes into
politics when parties say, D1 promise to return to you what is rightfully
yours,- says !hierry =wamahoro, a Burundian political analyst based in the
Washington, ?.., area.
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%gainst this fragile backdrop, the 1nstitute for 8ecurity 8tudies, a 8outh
%frican:based think tank, has warned that attempts to politicise land
management E risks reigniting ethnic tensions- before national elections
scheduled for 9ay and Fune. 9any locals, however, fear that an even biggerdisaster is looming. !he ne5t civil war in Burundi will absolutely be over
land,- says a communications consultant in Buumbura, the capital, who
works for =.>. agencies and asked not to be named for security reasons. 1f
there is no new land policy, we wont last a decade.-
!here are no easy solutions to Burundis mounting land crisis, but stories
like Gahungus oer a glimpse of what might happen if this ticking time
bomb is not diused. 1n the past, this situation didnt e5ist,- Gahungu
says, standing outside the tailoring shop where he still works, cleaning and
ironing clothes. !here was land for all, but not anymore. 1 6ed because 1
feared that what happened to me before could happen again. 1t happens to
someone every day now.-
Before uropean coloniIers arrived in Burundi, farmers cultivated the
countrys arable hilltops, while less desirable, low:lying swamplands went
largely unclaimed. %n aristocratic class, known as the Ganwa, technically
owned the land, but farmers access was administered at the local level by
a network of land chiefs,- many of whom were Hutu. !he chiefs also
resolved land con6icts, according to !imothy 3ongman, director of Boston
=niversitys %frican 8tudies enter.
=nder Belgian rule, which lasted from '('@ to '(@/, this all began to
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change. !he king, the head of the Ganwa, kept control of the highlands.
0%ccording to scholar ?ominik Johlhagen, the king was seen as the lands
spiritual guardian.2 But the state assumed ownership of the lowlands and
began to encourage their cultivation. !he colonial government alsoconcentrated political power among the !utsi minority, which comprised
about '* percent of the population, giving the group a near monopoly on
Burundis government, military, and economy. %mong other actions, this
consolidation involved gradually stripping the Hutu land chiefs of their
authority. 9ore broadly, too, it sowed the seeds of dangerous ethnic
polariIation.
=nder colonialism, oKcial land deeds and titles were few and far between,
which meant that Burundians often could not prove that they owned
acreage. 1n the early '(@#s, as independence loomed, the government
began oering land registration to parties that re
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!he atholic hurch was among the institutions that bene7ted from the
colonial approach to land. 9issionaries, known as White +athers,- began
arriving in the late '(th century, and over several decades, the king gave
them large tracts of land, which they used to establish churches, schools,
hospitals, and farms. %fter colonialism ended, the self:suKciency that land
provided the church helped it retain in6uence, even as its relationship with
the newly independent government grew fraught. 9ost notably, Fean:
Baptiste BagaIa, a military leader who in the mid:'("#s seiIed Burundis
presidency in a bloodless coup, saw the church as an e5tension of colonialpower and a rival to his own, so he limited the hours in which congregations
could gather, shut down a atholic radio station, and used visa non:
renewals and e5pulsions to decrease the number of missionaries in the
country. >evertheless, the church retained millions of Burundian followers,
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along with plenty of land, though no one, it seems, knew e5actly how much.
!he atholic hurch was also complicit in nurturing Burundis ethnic
divisionsL atholic schools, for instance, were largely reserved for elite-
children, meaning !utsis. 1ntensifying schisms led to various outbreaks of
ethnic violence, and in '("/, the !utsi:dominated military launched a series
of pogroms targeting Hutus. 9ore than A##,### Hutus 6ed the country in
under a year, leaving behind their land. Buumbura took advantage of some
of this newly vacated property and e5tended agricultural schemes called
paysannats 0derived from the +rench word for peasantry-2$ !he state
leased the land to farmers, who would grow cotton, tobacco, and coee and
then sell these crops back to the government, the only legal buyer. &Kcials
in Buumbura hoped to boost Burundis weak economy by reselling the
crops on the international market.
But the paysannat system failed miserably due to corruption, ineKcient
government bureaucracy, and variations in global commodity prices.
8eeking bigger pro7ts than they were able to get in Burundi, farmers began
to smuggle their harvests over the countrys borders, and state:run
agricultural buying programs 6oundered in the mid:'()#s. Paysannats also
ignored and often destroyed the physical markers that had de7ned
traditional land boundaries. %long with the pervasive lack of legal
documents showing land ownership, this made it impossible for most
returning refugees to reclaim their lost acreage. 0!oday, the Hutus who left
in '("/, some of whom have never come home or are only ust doing so,
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are called old:caseload- refugees.2
!he government set up two commissions, in '("" and '((', to resolve land
disputes, but they proved largely ineective. thnic tensions continued to
mount, coming to a head in '((A. !hat &ctober, !utsi e5tremists
assassinated Burundis 7rst democratically elected Hutu president, 9elchior
>dadaye, and civil war erupted as Hutu peasants responded by murdering
!utsis. 1n ust the 7rst year of con6ict, tens of thousands of people were
killedL by the time the war ended more than a decade later, some A##,###
Burundians, most of them civilians, had died. !he war also produced a new
wave of roughly @)",### refugees.
When the dust settled, the eects of mass death and displacement were
e5acerbated by widespread poverty, food insecurity, and a host of other
post:con6ict challenges, all of which persist today. 1n /#'*, the World Bank
estimated Burundis G?P growth rate at *.# percent, below the average of
*.; percent for countries in sub:8aharan %frica. !he bank forecasts that this
gap will only widen in /#';, with Burundis rate declining to A." percent and
the regions climbing slightly. !he issue of land, meanwhile, has become a
casualty in its own right, thrown into greater 6u5 than ever before.
!oday, there are doIens of scenarios under which people claim land, and
the same plot, no matter how tiny, is often the subect of competing claims.
8ome families still say they own acreage because of paysannat leasesL
seeking to make a pro7t, tenants have even sold their land over the years,
despite the fact that it is technically state:owned. %ccording to the
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1nternational risis Group, some (; percent of Burundian land still falls
under customary law$ % family says it purchased its farm from neighbors
before the war, but holds no formal deed, while another claims village
elders approved the purchase of a few acres after the war, and so on. %centraliIed registration system does e5ist, and according to the countrys
land code 0which was revised in /#'' for the 7rst time since '()@2, any
person who owns property must hold a land certi7cate. !he bureaucratic
system, however, is complicated, and the government has done little in
terms of enforcement. %ccording to Johlhagen, oKces that issue
certi7cates e5ist in only three cities, and as of /##), only about ' percent of
the countrys surface area was registered.
omplicating matters further is the continuous 6ow of refugees who return
home to 7nd their land occupied by new owners. 1n some cases, a Hutu
farmer who 6ed the '("/ pogroms may come back to 7nd two other people
claiming his property$ whoever lived on it up until '((A, and whoever
claimed it after the civil war. !he last resident may have purchased the land
legally, even from the government itself, and may have been paying o
mortgages for decades. !he
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con6ict:prevention >G& that works in Burundi. very case is decided on its
own merits.-
!he Burundian courts and bashingantahe, or traditional panels comprising
senior men in villages, are empowered to settle land disputes. But while
courts issue legally binding rulings, cases are time:consuming and often
prohibitively e5pensive. !he bashingantahe, meanwhile, are free, yet
operate according to customary law. % third body would seem to oer a
more promising option$ !he >ational ommission for 3and and Property,
known by its +rench acronym, >!B, was established in /##@ to resolve
arguments over who owns land vacated by refugees. 1ts ;# members are
re
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the >!B has processed nearly *#,### cases.
But the >!B has struggled to adopt a consistent approach to its
udgments. %t 7rst, its preference was to divide land between valid
claimants, both past and current owners. 8ince /#'', however, it has begun
returning land to its original owners, usually Hutu refugees displaced in
'("/. 1n some cases, it has even revised decisions on previously closed
disputes. !his has led to angry claims that the government of President
Pierre >kurunIiIa, a Hutu, is trying to curry support from Burundis
predominantly Hutu electorate.
!he government did nothing to
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director for central %frica, the state seems to have completely ignored-
this detail. 8ome government detractors say this is a deliberate, ethnically
driven decision by >kurunIiIas administration, because many people
eligible for compensation would be !utsi.
9urky, controversial land policies have at times led to interethnic violence.
1n /#'A, riots broke out in Buumbura when the police tried to evict a !utsi
family from the house it had owned for *# years in order to give the house
back to its previous Hutu residents. We are here to oppose inustice, to
oppose the >!B, which is undermining reconciliation in Burundi society,- a
protester was
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inheritance for her son.
Ciolence over land is roiling a country that already clings to an uneasy
peace. >kurunIiIas government has been accused of ordering convictions,
murders, and disappearances of political adversaries, among other abuses.
1n Fanuary, the state claimed to have killed nearly '## rebels who had
crossed the border between Burundi and the ?emocratic Mepublic of the
ongo with the intention of destabiliIing the country and the upcoming
national elections, in which >kurunIiIa is e5pected to seek a third term
despite a constitutional limit of two. Cital >shimirimana of the +orum for the
8trengthening of ivil 8ociety in Burundi told Coice of %merica that oKcials
had suggested the countrys political opposition supported the rebels$ !his
is what leads us to think that it might be a fake e5planation to actually take
advantage of the same to arrest opposition leaders or some civil society
NmembersO,- he said. % few days later, youth leader Patrick >kurunIiIa 0no
relation to the president2 was arrested for his alleged connections to the
rebelsL at the same time, the government sentenced opposition leader and
former Cice President +rdric Bamvuginyumvira to 7ve years in prison for
bribery.
9any Burundians fear that land could be the detail that pushes swelling
political tension into something far worse. 3and is the blood and the 6esh
of any human being,- says Placide HakiIimana, a udge in 9uramvya, who
notes that )# percent of the cases he adudicates pertain to property
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disputes. Without land, we are condemned to death. >o one will accept
that. N+amiliesO will 7ght. We prefer to die rather than live without land.-
Policy reform may be a dead end or, at least, one that is too rife with
corruption and partisan battles to ever solve the land crisis. !his thinking is
driving some people to focus on restricting population growth. +amily
planning is the only e5it point to the land problem,- says >orbert
>dihokubwayo, a member of Burundis parliament and president of a
legislative commission on social and health issues. >o other solution is
possible.-
1n /#'', the government approved a national development strategy called
Cision Burundi /#/;- with ambitious demographic goals$ to reduce
national growth from its current rate, which would cause the population to
double every /) years, to / percent over the ne5t decade, and to slash the
birthrate in half. !o hit these numbers, the government said it would partner
with civil society to stress E information and education on family planning
and reproductive health.- >dihokubwayo says the government is also
absolutely- considering a law that would limit the number of children each
family can have.
9any international donors are helping to e5pand access to family:planning
services. !he >etherlands chose Burundi in /#'' as one of '; partner
countries- in which to emphasiIe programs that promote peace and
stability, and according to Folke &ppewal, the ?utch ambassador to Burundi,
his country now donates ) million euros annually to programs promoting
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se5ual and reproductive health, among other human rights. 1n a /##;:/#'A
contract, the German government:owned development bank JfW dedicated
more than '.* million euros to strengthening and reorganiIing NBurundisO
reproductive health and family planning services.
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% woman and her sick child sit at a hospital in Jirundo provinceL 1n JayanIaprovince, some families share even the smallest dwellings, splitting theirhomes down the middleL Burundians gather for the =.>.s Human Mights
?ay in >goIi province in /##).
8ome medical professionals are keenly aware of the role they are meant to
play in keeping population growth in check. hristine >imbona is a nurse at
a secondary health clinic in JayanIa province, which, with nearly ',;##
inhabitants per simbona works nursed babiesL doIens of children played nearby. >imbona
says that of the roughly A# patients she sees each week, almost all- cite
fears about land resources and potential inheritance con6icts as their
reasons for seeking family planning. 1 know that by what 1 am doing, 1 am
7ghting the escalation of violence in my country,- >imbona says.
1ts an uphill battle, littered with enormous, deep:seated obstacles.
%ccording to the =nited >ations, modern contraceptive use among females
between the ages of '; and *( was ust ').( percent in /#'#. 1n Burundis
male:dominated society, women are often powerless to convince their
husbands to use birth control. !hen there is the atholic hurch$ 1n addition
to claiming an estimated @# percent of Burundians as followers, the church
has aKliations with roughly A# percent of national health clinics, which are
forbidden from distributing or discussing condoms, the pill, and other
medical contraceptives. atholic teachings against birth control are very
resonant with Burundian culture, which says that children are wealth,-
e5plains 3ongman, of Boston =niversity. Because the atholic hurch is so
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powerful and controls so much of the health sector, it creates a huge
stumbling block for family:planning practice.-
Buumbura insists that the atholic hurch is a collaborative partner on
land issues. !he president even appointed a atholic bishop, 8rapion
Bambonanire, as head of the >!B in /#''. But cracks do e5ist between
church and state. 1n /#'/, the 9inistry of Public Health launched a series of
secondary health posts,- which oer medical contraceptivesL sometimes
these clinics, including >imbonas, are built right ne5t door to e5isting
atholic ones.
!here is also tension over a variable with unknown dimensions$ how much
of the land the atholic hurch held onto after colonialism it still owns
today. !he atholic hurch cant keep owning all the land while hristians
are starving,- says a regional government employee in JayanIa, who spoke
on condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety. %ccording to him, in
/#'A the government ational politics
dont allow us to focus on the atholic hurch,- he says, referring to the
fact that the churchs followers are also voters. 8o the government thinks
this indirect method is best.-
>dihokubwayo says a land:mapping program does e5ist, but wont con7rm
or deny whether it was created speci7cally to 7nd out how much property
the atholic hurch possesses. !his is a very delicate issue,- he e5plains.
1m not sure whether well ever 7nd out how much land the church owns,
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but well keep trying.- 0ara Fones, an assistant professor at 9ary Baldwin
ollege who studies Burundi, pointed out that the program would also give
President >kurunIiIas ruling party information about how much land its
political opponents own.2
8ome religious leaders are on board with the push for family planning.
Pastor %ndr +lorian, a priest in Burundis %nglican hurch, which has an
estimated (##,### followers, says he used to be part of the problem. +rom
the pulpit of his small stone church in JayanIa, he once railed against the
evils of contraception. +amily planning, he told his congregation, was best
left to God. Qet +lorian watched with grave concern as members of his 6ock
struggled to feed their babies. &ne day, he looked at a child with dull
orange hair, a clear sign of advanced malnutrition, and asked himself$ Was
this really Gods plan4 8haken, +lorian isolated himself for three months,
studying scripture and praying. When 1 returned from my research, 1
realiIed that 1 had done wrong,- +lorian says. 1f nothing happens, if we ust
keep doing what were doing, tomorrow is not certain. We will see families
killing each other. We will see chaos in the country. !he day after tomorrow
will disappear.-
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&ther Burundians, however, fear that support for family planning is too little
too late. FoagoIi province, says he
7rst learned about vasectomies on a radio program. 0ighty percent of
Burundians have a radio, and =.>.:funded songs and soap operas now
dramatiIe stories of families that have suered the burden of many
pregnancies but are saved by family planning.2 He decided to get the
operation, a simple outpatient procedure, because he and his wife,
lautilde, are very scared- that their small plot will provoke con6ict among
their children, and more ospring would only increase the chances ofviolence. But 8inIobatohana admits that even a demographic freeIe might
not save his family, or his neighbors. !he numbers ust dont add up$
%lready, too many people are s
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1ts unfortunate that these contraceptive programs came after we already
had too many kids,- 8inIobatohana says. !he damage has been done.
>ow we wait.-
1nternational e5perts say a comprehensive approach to Burundis land crisis
is necessaryone that combines policy reform, better dispute:resolution
options, family planning, and new economic opportunities that will ensure
fewer Burundians rely solely on the earth for survival. People need to have
economic opportunities besides agriculture, to incorporate people into other
kinds of obs and trades, so that not everyone is dependent on farming for
their livelihoods,- says Fobbins of 8earch for ommon Ground. Without
some prospect for economic growth within the conte5t of the region and the
ast %frican community, land scarcity will continue to be a stressor.-
But the land problem is in7nitely comple5, with roots that run deep into
Burundis history. !he resources and political will to deal with it are scarce.
%nd whether in a new law or a familys decades:long story, there will always
be critical details that go overlookeddetails that could become matters of
life and death.
1n '(((, mmanuel Hatungimana, an elderly farmer in northern >goIi,
could feel his body slipping away. ?eath was very close. 8o he gathered his
familytwo wives and '* childrenaround his bedside. 1t was time to
divide his farm.
%t A".; acres, Hatungimanas lush plot of land was a decent siIe. %n
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e
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e5pression falls over Prudences face. %round Burundi, brothers are killing
brothers. 8ons are killing fathers. %nd its all for land,- he says. Hopefully
our family wont reach that stage. But if something doesnt happen,
everything will fall apart.-
Fillian Jeenan 0RFillianJeenan2 is a writer based in >ew Qork. 8he is workingon a book about 8hakespeare and global se5uality. % grant from the =nited>ations Population +und supported research for this article.
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