GITEGA March 23rd (ABP) – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) started, on Tuesday March 20, 2023, by the province of Gitega (center of the country), the campaign to disseminate its achievements made from 2018 to 2022.
According to TRC Chair Pierre Claver Ndayicariye, the main objective pursued is to make all socio-professional strata from all the provinces of the country discover the truth that past governments or public authorities have hidden, on the cyclical crises that bereaved Burundi from 1885 to 1973, that is to say, from the Berlin conference on the partition of Africa in 1885 to the bloody events of 1972-1973.
We have therefore dissected all the serious violations of human rights that Burundi has known under the German, Belgian, monarchical presence and especially during the first years of the first Republic, Mr. Ndayicariye explained. He specified that the vision of the TRC is to call on the Burundian social components to no longer sink into darkness, but rather to live and survive together.
In terms of discussions, the participants in that session recommended that the TRC not only establish the ins and outs of those crises but also identify the people in good faith who intervened to save their neighbors, their colleagues, communities under their care, individuals or organizations who have advocated for an end to the ignominy.
To this concern, Mr. Ndayicariye replied that it is in the specifications of the TRC. Such a reaction was delivered to the preoccupation of the rewriting of the best shared Burundian history. Mr. Ndayicariye argued that the documents produced by the TRC will be made available to a team that will be designated for that purpose, specifying that today Burundi has a manipulated history. Speaking about the concern in connection with the reparation of the victims, the TRC chair made it known that the public authorities in place are aware of it. He specified that a related reflection is underway to seek a body that will deal with that issue.
That dissemination session attendees included executives in public administration, national defense and security forces, representatives of civil society organizations, representatives of religious denominations, young people in and out of school and people from the city of Gitega and its surroundings. It was also attended by some parliamentarians elected in the constituency of Gitega and provincial representatives of political parties.