June 6, 1999

Interview with Bishop J. Alfred Ndoricimpa East Africa Annual Conference

by Mulegwa Zihindula

General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church

Question: Why do you live in Kenya instead of in your own country, Burundi?
Answer: I came to Kenya after the military assassination of the first democratically elected president in Burundi. Since in my role as Bishop I also served as the spiritual adviser to the president, I was warned by many in my own country to leave because my life was in danger. I first moved here in March 1994 and when it became evident that I would not be safe in Burundi, I stayed for good in August 1994.

Question: How difficult has it been for you living away from your own country?
Answer: It has been very difficult living in a foreign country, leaving my church and my people, and not being able to assist refugees as much as I would like. I receive thousands of letters from Burundian refugees in Tanzania and elsewhere looking for assistance, but I am not able to help them. Many Burundians, both Muslim and Christian, look up to me as their leader. They do not look on me as just a United Methodist bishop, but rather as a Burundian leader who is supposed to assist them. This has been painful because I feel that we are not helping the refugees as much as we should. For example, the United Methodist refugees scattered in Tanzania feel abandoned because they have not received assistance or even a visit from the Board in the five years that they have been in exile. Other denominations such as the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Free Methodists have been assisting refugees in Tanzania, but our church has not been doing anything.

Question: Are you considered a refugee?
Answer: I am not considered a refugee, because I did not flee from the government; rather, we believed that certain elements or people in the government and elsewhere would not hesitate to kill me. After the assassination of President Ndadaye in 1993, many people were rounded up and arrested without due process. Others were simply murdered. It was this that prompted many people to advise me to leave the country.

Question: Would it be safe for you to go back to your own country?
Answer: As President Pierre Buyoya pointed out recently to a team from the Council of Bishops, there is no security for anyone in Burundi, because there are all kinds of militias. It is clear that the government per se has never been against me, but there are some bad individuals both in the government and even inside the church who for reasons that I do not understand, perhaps jealousy, have tried to destroy my Christian testimony. In fact, when I went to renew my passport, instead of giving me an ordinary one, the government gave diplomatic passports to me and my entire family. So I do not really see any problem between me and the government. To tell you the truth, I am preparing myself to go back to Burundi.

Question: How can you go back to Burundi when your security cannot be guaranteed?
Answer: No one is safe in Burundi, but we have to trust in God. The Minister of Home Affairs and Security and other government officials made it clear to the visiting bishops that the government would do its best to keep me out of harm's way.

Question: Is it true that you cannot obtain a visa to visit the United States?
Answer: I can travel freely to any country, but I have not been able to obtain visas to visit France or the United States. The Germans, British, and Swiss have issued me visas, but we are still waiting and I am hoping that things will work out as far as a U.S. visa is concerned.

Question: Your wife has been sick, but she has not gotten proper medical treatment, because like you, she cannot get a visa to go to the United States. Can she get the appropriate treatment elsewhere?
Answer: The people who can best assist my wife are located in a hospital in Houston, Texas, where she had surgery ten years ago. We have been to Germany where they tried to treat her, but with little success.

Question: Is there anything that the General Board of Global Ministries can do to help your wife obtain a U.S. visa?
Answer: The Board has been trying to persuade the State Department to allow her to get a visa on humanitarian grounds, but so far they have not succeeded.

Question: There are armed conflicts in about 18 African countries. What do you think the General Board of Global Ministries and The United Methodist Church should do about these conflicts, especially since many of the countries have a United Methodist presence?
Answer: You know that the church is supposed to be the voice of the voiceless. The United Methodist Church needs to wake up and speak for those who are being oppressed. The church should work to persuade those nations around the world starting the wars to stop. For instance, when we talk about genocide, we should ask ourselves who is really causing the genocide, because to me the people causing it are the ones providing money and weapons for the wars. As the church knows, Jesus said that he came so that the blind may see, those in captivity may be released, and the lame may jump. The church as a representative of Jesus Christ should follow in his footsteps. If we remain silent against evil, then we are indirectly conspiring with it.

Question: What do you think is the cause of all these wars mushrooming in the Great Lakes region of Africa (Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo)?
Answer: Let me speak about Burundi, because I understand the situation there best. The conflict that we have there today did not originate with the Hutus or the Tutsis, but rather was instigated by the colonial powers specifically Belgium. Before 1920, both Hutus and Tutsis worked together in administering the country, but between 1920 and 1923, the Hutus and some Tutsis were removed from the administration by the Belgians. The Belgians left only the Ganywa, a Tutsi clan, to work in the administration. This caused other Tutsis to attack the Belgians in Burundi. Fearing that a Tutsi and Hutu alliance would have disastrous consequences for Belgium, the Belgians decided to bring back the Tutsis into the administration but not the Hutus. It was not until 1959, when the Hutus began to fight for independence, that the Belgians decided to bring back the Hutus as well. The only problem was that many of the Hutus were not well educated, because after the Hutus were kicked out of the colonial administration, the Belgians also deprived them of educational benefits. Some in fact had not even finished primary school. The Tutsis on the other hand were well educated. When it became evident that the Belgians would eventually have to leave the country, they decided to divide the Hutus and Tutsis by maliciously pointing out differences between the two ethnic groups. During the presidential elections of 1992 in Burundi, both Hutus and Tutsis together elected Ndadaye, but someone outside of Burundi convinced the army to assassinate the president. In brief, forces outside the continent of Africa are instigating these conflicts.

Question: What are the prospects for peace in your own country?
Answer: That is a very good question! We have been trying to figure out what would be the best process of bringing peace to Burundi. We have been observing the work of more than 18 political parties from Burundi that have been participating in peace talks in Arusha, Tanzania, but none of them cares about the peasants in the villages. The only thing they care about is themselves. As we studied ways to bring peace to our own country, we finally created the Council for Restoration of the Dignity of Burundi. The council aims to restore the monarchy in our country. The king, whether a Tutsi, Pygmy, or Hutu, would become the head of state. Working with the king would be a prime minister who would serve as head of government. We want to bring in a system that the people of Burundi can understand. If we keep the present system, it will always bring conflict. We need to restore the system that ruled the country for over 60 years until it was overthrown in 1966. Under the old system, the people did not fight; they knew their place in society. The current system is full of confusion, and even those who led the coup in 1966 still do not understand what the word republic means. They simply appropriated the country's resources for themselves, putting the country in debt. People are still killing each other. When people complain that we are trying to bring back an outdated system, I ask if they can point to one thing in the past 32 years that has moved the country forward. Is killing one another what they call progress?

Question: What is the cause of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and what do you think it would take to end this war?
Answer: The war in Congo is purely for minerals. Once again, someone outside the African continent wants those minerals in the DRC. When people tell me that Rwanda and Uganda are at war with the Congo, I just laugh, because we know the economic conditions of Rwanda and Uganda and we know that they do not have the means to fight a war on their own. How the war in Congo will end depends largely on the Congolese people, who should unite and reject aggression from outside their own country.

Question: Do you support the Jubilee 2000 Campaign?
Answer: Of course I do. The Jubilee 2000 Campaign is asking that debts be forgiven. These debts are not owed by the people. No one should be asking the people to pay back money they never benefitted from. The World Bank and many other financial institutions lent money to corrupt governments, which used the money to stay in power and not to help the people. Many countries around the world knew that the money was not being properly used, but they still kept giving loans to dictators.

Question: How many countries are under the jurisdiction of the East Africa Annual Conference?
Answer: We have Burundi, which is the main church, followed by Rwanda. In addition, we have Kenya. In Uganda, we are still struggling with getting the church registered, among other things. The conference covers churches in Sudan, but we do not have a stable situation there because of the war. I have written to Bishop Ntambo, one of the Congolese Bishops, asking him to allow Tanzania to become part of our conference.

Question: How many members does your conference currently have?
Answer: Right now our conference has 110,000 members.

Question: During my visit to St. John's United Methodist Church in Kayole, I noticed that the church is also a school. Can you give us more details about that?
Answer: The church in Kayole is five years old and was built with funding from Indiana. The people there had raised money for the church in Burundi, but because I saw the need here in Kenya, I asked them if they would allow me to use that money to build a church in Kayole. The church also serves as a nursery school, primary school, and vocational school on weekdays. Despite some constraints, we have plans to expand, because as you saw it is very difficult for several different programs to run in the same room. We are planning to buy a plot right next to the church.

Question: In addition to having churches in Nairobi and Busia, we understand that the United Methodist Church in Kenya is expanding into the rural areas. Can you tell us more about what you are doing in rural Kenya?
Answer: You must be talking about the expansion to Migori. The United Methodist Church was introduced to Migori by Pastor Josephat Rungu, a native of Migori. Presently, he is serving at a United Methodist Parish in Connecticut. He came to Kenya on vacation and spent six months in Migori last year. His father, an overseer of a Pentecostal Church, was persuaded by his son to move from the Pentecostal to The United Methodist Church. The people running the churches in Migori are more experienced at overseeing churches than the people in Busia. Although the church there started only last year, we already have about 11 congregations averaging 100 people each. Our success results from the fact that people there are very dedicated to what they are doing. I am very excited about Migori and I believe that it will be the cornerstone of The United Methodist Church in this country. But we have urgent needs in Migori. We need to build new churches. People have already given ten expensive plots to the church and they are asking us to raise sufficient funds to build United Methodist churches in their areas. We also need to build schools and develop women's programs, but the main priority now is to build the churches. We can also build infrastructure as we go along. This would depend largely on the availability of finances. Most of the churches are located in villages, but I would like to see a church built in Migori town. After that I would like to see a church planted in Kisii. The UMC would benefit greatly in Kisii in terms of growth, because Kisii is a very productive land from which large amounts of food supplies are sent to Nairobi.

Question: Is there anything else you would like to say?
Answer: I would like to see the Board do more with education and leadership development in East Africa. It is absolutely essential that the Board become more involved in evangelism and church growth there.