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The Burundi Programme A third national programme was launched in Burundi, which, in 1993 had recently gone through a bloody civil war and seemed on the verge of further violence. I had managed to get a Burundian activist named Nestor Bidadanure admitted to the Mombasa seminar on peacemaking which was described above. Like Noel (with whom he came to be a friend), he was inspired by the Mombasa experience. He suggested that we apply the methodology of Ledarach and Assefa in the Burundian context. On that basis, I spoke to Hizkias Assefa and he agreed to serve with Nestor as a trainer. I then contacted the United Nations Development Programme, and they agreed to provide the funding for the trainers and to make available UN volunteers and their Burundian counterparts to be trained as peace promoters. That was in August 1994. But at the same time, another unit of UNESCO was making other plans for the culture of peace in Burundi without any consultation with us. The Director-General was accompanied on a visit to Burundi by his former Chef du Cabinet, who promised the Burundi government that UNESCO would provide a "house of the culture of peace" staffed by a five full-time professionals. At first this seemed to be compatible with the plans we had made and we might use such a house and professionals for the training programme we were working out with UNDP, but on contacting the office of the former Chef du Cabinet, I discovered that he had already promised the staff positions and that they were not interested in this approach. The decisions about Burundi by the former Chef du Cabinet were doubly ironic. On the one hand, they precluded the development of the training programme we had envisaged. At the same time, the commitment to a house and five professional staff which he had made to the Burundi government became a drain on the budget of the Culture of Peace Programme over the next few years to the extent that we had no money left for any other programme activities, including programme activities in Burundi! To add insult to injury, Nestor Bidadanure was never paid for the work he did on a contract signed with the new team put in charge of the Burundi project at the CPP Unit. It was Nestor's suggestion that the programme in Burundi should include a school for the Ubashingantahe, the traditional sages dating from pre-colonial times who were experts in the palabre and conflict resolution, so they could teach their skills to a new generation. As far as I know the school exists to the present day despite the political turmoil in Burundi. |