Nkurunziza, Kasirye Ggwanga, and the statues that will fall

A senior military officer in Kampala recently suggested, on social media, that statues of certain Bush War commanders be erected in every town. It is an interesting proposition, if you consider that with time, today’s heroes could come tumbling down, in the way that we are seeing statues of colonial era personalities getting toppled today.

History belongs to the victors, but because you can’t win all the time, that also means that history and its interpretation can shift. Those that emphasise the limitations of African education systems and curriculum, citing the fact that students have to study the Canadian Prairies and French Revolution, will eventually have their day with Kabalega and his Abarusura, and the Nyabingi rebellion.

The current global events such as “Black Lives Matter” and closer to home, the death of Gen Kasirye Ggwanga and Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza, make for great case studies on how history can shift. Since the early 2000s, Burundi had enjoyed relative stability – not to be confused with security – thanks to the Arusha Peace Accord of 2000, which had brought all warring factions to the same table. In 2015, however, President Nkurunziza decided that he wanted a third term, a decision that others in his government viewed as a contravention of the agreement that had brought him to power in 2005.

The fragility of his government should have told him that the decision wasn’t going to end well. But you see this is not a region where logic often dictates decision-making at the highest level of power. Only interests. So as photos from the May 2015 regional heads of State Summit in Tanzania filtered through social media, a certain Maj Gen Godefroid Niyombare, announced a coup in Bujumbura.

Niyombare who had been Burundi’s intelligence chief and an allay of Nkurunziza, had lost his job three months before that. It seems the top leadership in the Burundian government had fractured after Nkurunziza announced that he would seek a third term. You also can’t rule out outside interference – as Nkurunziza alleged – because that’s just the nature of power play in this region.

It took about two days of fighting for Nkurunziza to regain the upper hand, but the violence that followed was anything but worth a presidency. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, reported mass atrocities and crimes against humanity that were primarily committed by State agents and the ruling party youth militia (Imbonerakure).

According to the commission, there were arbitrary arrests and detentions, summary executions, torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, forced disappearances and sexual violence. Thousands were forced to flee for safety as refugees.

His excesses went as far as detaining little school girls for doodling his face in a text book; and the eccentricities of awarding a national medal to his daughter for being a good girl at home.
This year, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was little protection and leadership given to the population on how to act to protect themselves from coronavirus.

Instead, thousands converged at political rallies participating in a Presidential election – and it is not known how many are infected. Was Nkurunziza a liberator, a man of peace? The answer is complicated because it depends on who you ask. In much the same way that you will find those who argue that Mahatma Gandhi aficionados should tone it down because there needs to be scrutiny over his views on race, etc.

Does it matter how people are remembered? If they are loved or hated? To answer that would be harder than simply saying that on the legacy of those who choose a life of contradictions, it is okay to agree to disagree.

Mr Rukwengye is the founder, Boundless Minds. [email protected]