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August 9, 2008
(Saturday)
more on Friday's (8-8-08)mediation
I'm going
to transcribe some of my notes about yesterday, which I think was a
keypoint to all of the efforts do train mediators for the last two
years beginning with Judy Friesem in 2006 and continuing into the
present and hopefully the future. In the four pictures attached, the
one of a group of people is the photo the Peace Committe rep. of the
village asked be taken to hang up in the classroom where the mediation
took place. We have two mediations scheduled at a place about 10 miles
from Gitega. Pr. Elie has arranged transport.
click on photos
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| mediation success |
mediation site |
Jean Marie |
brick kiln |
Phillipe and Louise-Jeanne wil co-mediate one case and Edith and
Anne-Marie will do the other one. After that we will come back to the
Center in Gitega, finish packing and take a bus down to Bujumbura about
60 miles and 2 and a half hours away (mountainous driving, lots of
stops) I'll probably stay at Hotel Pacific where I was last year.
(Graham Greene atmosphere of decay and better days). We drove almost 45
minutes on a bumpy dirt road to get to a primary school where we were
greeted by a representative of the local peace committee. The
participants in the mediation arrived shortly after. All greeted us,
but some refused to greet each other, and it was clear that lines had
already been drawn and tensions were high.
In greeting people, I met one man who had come as an observer,
Jean-Marie Vianney Hazushimana. He greeted me in Kirundi, which I don't
speak but said I could understand and speak Swahili or French. He spoke
both fluently and told me he had first fled Burundi to Tanzania in
1972, had com back several times but each time was forced again to
flee. He said he was neither Hutu nor Tutsi, but had descended from a
mwami (chief) clan the Hansa family and they were considered royalty
and not tribalized. I had read about this the night before. He had a
younger sister in Ottawa, Ontario, and I said I would try to contact
her when I got home to say I had met him. He had a cell phone which had
her number registered, so he is able to call her from Burundi. And I
know that overseas it is much more convenient and cheaper to do
international calls from the states. He let me record his story on
film. I then went into observe one of the two mediations which had
already started in the peace center office, a building still under
construction.
It had walls and and a roof, dirt floor, some loosely fitted broken
bricks on the floor, covering about 25% of the room. The mediators sat
facing each other in the middle of the room and the disputants sat
against the opposite walls. There was a good breeze coming through the
open shuttered windows. The sun warmed the tiled roof but the breeze
kept us cool. There were four people in the dispute. An older woman and
a younger woman about 25 sat on one side and another younger woman and
and older man sat on the other side. It turned out, much later to me,
that the man was not a party to the case but a member of the peace
committee there to maintain some order. The older woman began talking
and talked and talked and talked with little intervention by the
mediators. I might have done some interventions sooner, but the
mediation belonged to the parties and the mediators were there to
follow them.
The older woman's discourse continued for more than an hour. I could
catch that she was accusing the woman across from her of having
assaulted her and she had medical evidence to support those statements
in the form of an x-ray, medication and doctor's statements. The woman
across, laughed at the implications. At one point the older woman came
before the mediators and knelt down took of her blouse (topless, I am
not exaggerating) and showed her injuries to Edith. Then she got up got
dressed and went back to her seat and continued to talk for another 30
minutes at least. The way the other woman was belittling those
statements, I began to be concerned about all the loose bricks on the
floor and the potential for another confrontation. The two observers
beside myself were Prosper and Louis and I had counselled the class in
the training about avoiding violence in a mediation. They are also both
trained in Alternatives to Violence workshops so I felt quite certain
that order would be maintained if things started to get out of hand..
It seems that this is a property dispute between the mother and the
angry daughter, and the question is how to divide the adjoining parcels
that each of them wants to possess.
The younger woman begins talking in a derogatory manner, both angry and
amused, laughing occasionally. Anne Marie, the other mediator starts
making some interventions. She has been recording a lot of what both
have been saying. Edith gives a signal to Anne. I'm not sure of the
context.... The women manipulate their Kangas during the mediation, and
it almost looks like they have changed their appearance by doing this.
During a short break, Anne Marie gives me some of the background of the
case which I've already described above. I'm way behind on this one.
The combative daughter is quite disturbed by the mother's leaving the
father in the first place many years ago. Anne Marie thinks this
daughter needs counselling. The three woman are barefoot, they wear
Kangas over their clothing. Kangas are two pieces of square, colorful
material that can form wrap around skirts, capes, and slings for
carrying a baby on the back. They can be worn in different styles to
include covering the head. I initially thought the mediation was
between the older woman and the man. But it turns out that the older
woman was a widow, and the two younger women were her daughters.
Obviously she had had a falling out with the one who had assaulted her.
The older woman had divorced her husband years ago, and he had later
taken a succession of three wives. I doubt that he was married to all
three at once as this is a fairly catholic area.
Eventually Edith, the lead mediator began reflecting back to the woman
the crux of what she had been saying. Not ready for an hour rebuttal, I
decided to go to the other mediation to find out how it was going. When
I got there, they were in caucus (talking to each side separately). On
of the mediation observers, Josias, a Quaker pastor from Kibinda, told
me, "George, this one is very difficult. A widow and her two young boys
are in conflict with her brother in law , the brother of her deceased
husband. By custom, the brother-in-law is supposed to dispose of land
to benefit the widow and himself. It seems that the widow took it upon
herself to sell off the piece of the land that the brother-in-law
wanted to keep for himself.
Back in mediation: The widow is sitting with her two boys, about 11 and
12 The brother in law is sitting with his family. There are a number of
spectators on the far side of the room. The disputants are against the
walls on both sides of the co-mediators. There are a number of people
in the room apparently from the extended families on both sides. It
looks like a trial with spectators. One of the borother in law's
relatives walks out followed by his wife. Capitaline, a
mediator/observer goes out with them. The older boy now speaks. the
brother in law shakes his head asserting he is not in accord with what
the boy is saying. Now the widow speaks. I had to leave to take a phone
call from Bujumbura, and there seemed to be a lot of action while I was
outside. When I come back in Louise-Jeanne is making of summary that no
one seems to agree with. OK, they can correct and clarify. It's part of
the process. Who are all the spectators? Relatives? Does this become a
face saving exercise with so many spectators? I don't know, but the
disputants apparently agreed to the spectators being in there.
The widow makes another impassioned speech which the brother in law
sems to dismiss. Louise-Jeanne does some more summarizing that seems to
strike more chords in a positive way. The older son now speaks again
and the brother in law, his uncle, replies. The older son gets up to
sit with the spectators, family members, but is sent back to sit with
his mother and brother. The buyer of the land the mother had sold is in
the room. He apparently said that he would back out of the deal if the
parties would be willing to start over from the beginning in the
traditional way. I think he will still get some land and the brother in
law will save face. There is a bargain struck, and all the family
members stand up and applaud. I'm sitting as an observer but am near
the brother in law and reach over to congratulate him. Louise-Jeanne
summarizes again to make sure everything is clear.
The peace committee leader then makes a speech to the room, tells the
young boys that he hopes they will remember this day, and that problems
can be resolved. It must have really been bothering the extended
families as so many were here. Everyone made the sign of the cross and
sang a beautiful and unusual hymn in that it had no beat, no hand
clapping at all. It was a very haunting melody. I wonder if Marie will
recognize it as something from the old liturgy. I was allowed to record
this part of the process and it was a truly wondrous event. I've never
seen anything like this in ten years of mediating. The peace committee
person also wanted me to take a picture of the event that it could be
hung in that room as a reminder to the community. We went from there to
the other mediation which was dismissing, because we were out of time
and had to get back to town for the bus ride to Bujumbura. The other
mediation had almost settled, and parties agreed to come back next
Tuesday when we would be up there again for the regional conference.
Hopefully it will then be finalized. We had a boistrous ride back to
Gitega, amazed that both cases had come together in the last minutes
before our scheduled departure. To me it was like days when I was a
cross country and track coach and the athletes had trained hard and
performed well.
Those rides home are great but the euphoria wears off quickly and you
know that the next weeks will bring other cases that may not finish so
well, but after a day like this one, your hopes will always be high and
you will look forward to the next. George
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