the blood cries out

7/21/2019 The Blood Cries Out

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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=buffer


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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.
https://twitter.com/JillianKeenanhttps://twitter.com/JillianKeenan

the blood cries out

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