BUJUMBURA December 8th (ABP) – The Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Ambassador Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, hosted on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, in Bujumbura, an information meeting on the missions, achievements and prospects of this commission, towards diplomats and representatives of international organizations accredited to Burundi, so that they understand the history of Burundi, a check on the site by ABP has disclosed.
In his introductory remarks, the TRC chairman indicated that this meeting of information and sharing of the results of the activities of this commission was organized so that the members of the international community represented in Bujumbura know what is being done in Burundi in level of the missions entrusted to the TRC. “We are a technical commission, born out of the Arusha Peace Accords in Tanzania,” he remarked.
Mr. Ndayicariye recalled that the main mission of the TRC is to delve into the past to understand the pain, suffering and anguish carried by many Burundian families who have lost their loved ones during massive human rights violations experienced by Burundi.
According to him, the commission has an immense, heavy and complex but noble mission because, he said, that mission is to dig up the truth, to exhume the violent past, hidden from Burundians and the world.
Ambassador Ndayicariye specified that the mission of the TRC spans the period from 1885 to 2008, which is to say since the Berlin conference and what it has done in Burundi.
The TRC investigations began with the year 1972 because, he explained, it is considered in the memory of Burundians as a year of the bloodiest community fracture in the history of Burundi.
“We lived behind closed doors an unspeakable tragedy, 50 years of silence, 50 years without mourning, 50 years without daring to tell the truth, 50 years of lying”, lamented the president of the while stressing that the TRC has today here is almost all the evidence that shows that this violence was planned by the power of the time.
He also pointed out that neither Burundian historians nor foreign historians have written about the tragic history of Burundi, the mass graves scattered across the country and the arrests of innocent citizens in 1972-1973.
During the question-and-answer session, the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Burundi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi, Dieudonné Datonou and the representative of the President of the African Commission for the Great Lakes Region, Mr. Gonzague-Patrick H Balagizi, wanted to know how the TRC works so that its activities are accepted by society, the methodology used in carrying out the mission of the TRC, the collaboration that exists between the TRC and religious denominations as well as organizations both both regional and international.
The vice-president of the TRC, Reverend Clément Noé Ninziza indicated that the TRC is a commission that works in diversity through its composition. “Burundian history was poorly known by the population, but the TRC took the option of popularizing its results collected in the face of the diversity of Burundians. Those results are considered true information,” added TRC Secretary Pascasie Nzigamasabo.
As for the methodology used by the TRC to accomplish its mission, Mrs. Nzigamasabo stressed that it is a concerted and evolving methodology depending on the region.
Concerning the collaboration between the TRC and the religious denominations, the president of the TRC indicated that an information meeting on “reconciliation” had already been given to the Bible society where it was concluded that the reconciliation is a divine walk, an effort of modesty and humility.
Mr. Ndayicariye also reported that the TRC organized two days of meditation with the clerics where it was concluded that the activity of that commission worries those who do not like the truth, those who have hidden the truth, the perpetrators still alive and the surviving relatives of the perpetrators.