On October 21, 1993, five months after a democratically elected government was installed in the central African country of Burundi, a military coup sparked massive ethnic violence throughout the country. Within weeks, tens of thousands of people were killed in massacres. Among the more than 350,000 Burundians who fled to Rwanda for safety was a young medical student by the name of Jean Paul Bigirindavyi. Jean Paul was a student in pre-med classes in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, when the violence broke out. He lost members of his immediate family in the mass killings.
Jean Paul recalls the terrible conditions of the journey from Burundi to Rwanda. "There were many people who died on the trek, mostly from sickness and hunger. It was the beginning of the rainy season, and the temperatures dipped to unusually cold levels for that region of the world. The deaths continued unabated after the refugees reached camps in southern Rwanda because shelters were not prepared for so many thousands of sick and dying children and elderly people." Jean Paul and his classmates tried to help along the route, but the challenge was daunting.
After arriving in Rwanda, Jean Paul tried to keep up with his medical studies by reading medical books that he borrowed in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. He still hoped to return to Burundi some day to continue his studies. But then massive ethnic violence and massacres that exceeded those in Burundi broke out in Rwanda, forcing him to flee for Zaire (now renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Jean Paul had no idea what awaited him as he fled toward the Zairean border.
"It was May of 1994. I remember climbing up a hill with my friends, not far from Zaire's border. Suddenly an explosion went off. I fell unconscious and my friends saw that I had stepped on a landmine that had blown off my left leg. My loyal friends managed to move me by jerry-rigged hammock to a hospital back in Kigali, where my leg was amputated just below the knee. After the amputation, I was moved to a tent infirmary outside Kigali for recovery. It was not until July of 1994 that my friends carried me to the border to cross into Zaire, where we reached the Bukavu refugee camp. In September, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) employed me as an interpreter for a project that provided medical relief to the children in the refugee camps."
At the end of 1995, when security deteriorated in the Bukavu refugee camps andUMCOR closed its operations, Jean Paul was evacuated to Nairobi, Kenya. He applied for
refugee immigration status, was accepted by the US Refugee Resettlement Program, and was
assigned to UMCOR for resettlement. He arrived at his new home in Minneapolis just about a
year ago. He was sponsored by the Elk River United Methodist Church, located in a suburb of
the Twin Cities. He has received a new prosthesis and resumed his medical studies at Gustavus
Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. In May of this year, he married Laura Moldenhauer,
an American volunteer he had met and worked with in the Bukavu refugee camp. For Jean Paul,
life is much brighter--but thousands of other landmine victims around the world will never have
the opportunity to begin a new life.
Reliable sources tell us that each year more than 26,000 people, many of them being women and children, will lose their lives or limbs to landmines. A new study from Human Rights Watch reports that approximately 20 million mines in southern Africa have claimed over 250,000 victims since 1961.
Increasing awareness of the enormous human cost exacted by these indiscriminate weapons has intensified cooperation among nations to rid the world of this terrible landmine scourge. At the Fourth International Conference to Ban Landmines, held in February 1997 in Maputo, representatives from Mozambique and South Africa introduced new proposals to ban the use, development, production, and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. Other nations in Africa--including Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, and Zimbabwe--have made similar pronouncements and taken action in support of a total ban on antipersonnel landmines. They join more than 40 other nations around the world.
International efforts to ban the use of landmines made important progress in late June, when nearly 100 countries participated in Canadian-led talks in Brussels, Belgium. Representatives promised to sign a treaty that would ban the production, use, and transfer of landmines by December of 1997. Further, the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva appointed a special coordinator for landmines and launched preliminary discussions on the issue. The United States has focused its efforts on this Geneva Conference, but negotiations have not made significant progress.
Representatives attending the Maputo Conference called on the United States to join the more immediate drive initiated by Canada for a total ban on antipersonnel landmines. While the United States has invested resources in landmine-clearance operations in about 13 countries around the world, at the current rate it would take decades to clear the existing 110 million landmines now deployed in some 70 countries. Once a war ends, all subsequent mine victims are civilians or peacekeepers. The physical, psychological, social, and economic consequences of this cruel weapon for the world's most vulnerable human beings are immeasurable.
In December of this year, Canada will host the Ottawa Treaty Signing Conference, intended to speed up the ban on landmines. The goal is to produce a treaty that ends the legacy of landmine use. Scores of nations have committed themselves to seeking the earliest possible conclusion of a legally binding agreement that would also increase support for mine-awareness programs, mine-clearance operations, and victim assistance. Were such a treaty achieved, an end would be in sight for the immense suffering brought to the people of Bosnia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, and all the other countries where landmines are in use.
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All photographs are copyright © The General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church and courtesy, New World Outlook magazine.
Send comments and questions to nwo@gbgm-umc.org.
William Sage is the Coordinator for International Programs for the Church World Service
Immigration and Refugee Program in New York City.
Reprinted from NEW WORLD OUTLOOK: The Mission Magazine of The United Methodist
Church, published by the General Board of Global Ministries, copyright © November-December
1997, by permission of the Editors.
