Women of Zepce

Barry Hart

After four and a half years in the former Yugoslavia, it is good to be back in Virginia. I now have the opportunity to reflect on my work with war-affected individuals and groups in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. I think about my involvement in school-based programs that attempted to provide communication, prejudice reduction and problem solving 'life skills' to forth, fifth and sixth graders in eastern Croatia. As leader of a team of local and international people, I remember the long nights of preparation for workshops in Serbia and Bosnia that brought religious leaders together for the purpose of building bridges of understanding and networks for strengthening reconciliation efforts and peacebuilding. Finally, the rivers and mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina come to mind, and I remember the Welcome Centers project I worked on there for an international NGO. This project established information centers that provided legal, social and human rights information as well as psychosocial help.

There were clear ups and downs in all of this work. At times I wondered if anything I did made a difference in the light of the tremendous suffering caused by the war and the ongoing political manipulations and/or stonewalling from every quarter. What I kept in mind, though, and what helped me to keep going, was the belief that seeds of hope and ways of working at rebuilding societies practically and relationally needed to be planted. I was one of the many local and international individuals there to plant these seeds; and to water them with the hope that they might grow. That I was there for the harvest was a special blessing.

One of these blessings occurred in Zepce, a small city in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There, one of our "Welcome Center" mobile teams developed a training program on trauma healing and conflict transformation for two women's groups - one a Bosnian Croat group, the other a Muslim/Bosniac group. Both ethnic groups have lived in or around Zepce for centuries, but the war deeply alienated them. And in the case of the Bosniacs, who mainly lived in Prijeko, just across the river Bosna from Zepce, many were killed, raped and expelled from their homes by their Croat neighbors. In late 1997 and early 1998, the Bosniacs began to return to their destroyed homes in Prijeko. Distrust of the Croats in Zepce continues and there is still a certain amount of fear of them due to what happened during the war.

What helped me to keep going
was the belief that seeds of hope and ways of working
at rebuilding societies practically
and relationally needed to be planted.

I led several workshops for both groups of women, starting with the Bosnian Croats. The workshop topics included trauma awareness and healing, domestic violence issues, and problem solving related to these women's difficult post-war social and economic situation. With the Bosniac women, additional trauma issues were discussed concerning their being incarcerated, raped and forced from their homes. During intervals between these workshops, our trauma trainer and social worker spent much time listening to the pain, fears and needs of these women.

Over the many months of working with the two groups, a level of trust was established and a suggestion was made that the groups meet each other, ostensibly to discuss common interests and needs. There was also the hope that this meeting might be the first step in a long reconciliation process.

The encounter took place on neutral ground in the city of Zenica, fifty kilometers southwest of Zepce. Several of the women had met before, but many were meeting for the first time since before the war. It was a surprisingly friendly and open meeting and one that produced an interesting and potentially significant outcome--they decided to form an official group that they called "Women of Zepce." They agreed to work together to build relationships and a stronger economic base for themselves and their families. Welcome's lawyer offered to research the legal implications of this union and members asked Welcome for information about starting a small business. The business was eventually established when an international organization gave the Women of Zepce several thousand chickens and assistance in setting up their business endeavor.

The bridge built across the river Bosna is still a foot bridge, but one that allows these women to reconnect in order to build more tolerance and trust and to acknowledge the reality of their coexistence. The physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of this relationship will need ongoing work. They have been, and will continue to be, challenged by radicals and political forces that want the divisions between Croats and Muslims to remain. But, an important step was taken in the healing process through this coming together and these women will help in a small but significant way the transformation of conflict in their region. It will no doubt be a lengthy, perhaps even decade long, process, but the values and attitudes are respectful and ones that may encourage others to risk creative coexistence and over time, reconciliation.

For me, the women of Zepce are an example of boldness of decision, of something far greater than the measured and destructive power decisions made by manipulative political entities. Their human act gives me hope and helps me see that attempts to heal trauma and transform conflict through processes of reconnecting people is a good path to be on.

Barry Hart is an Associate at the Conflict Transformation Program. He has taught SPI courses each year since the beginning. He has just returned to the US after four years working in the Balkan region.

Back to: In this Issue

Challenging Life Together

Janice Jenner

December 31, 1999 was the end of the year/decade/millennium, and it was the beginning of a new stage of their lives for CTP student Moussa David Ntambara and Esperance Uwambiyeyi, who were married that day in Harrisonburg, Virginia. A group of CTP faculty, staff, and students celebrated with them.

Both Moussa and Esperance were married previously; their spouses and children were killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, with the exception of Esperance's son Dacy, now nine. Both experienced the full horror and suffering of that violence as they lost these loved ones.

Moussa and Esperance met in 1995 at civil society meetings of Survivors' Associations in Rwanda. At that point, they were professional colleagues who viewed each other with respect, but no special friendship. Moussa remembers especially the respect that he felt when he learned that Esperance was starting her own small business in order to better support her son.

By the end of 1996, a closer friendship had developed between them. However, over the next two and a half years, the relationship wavered as first one and then the other felt unready to commit to a new relationship. Several times they decided to marry and then later terminated the engagement.

Meanwhile, their professional lives continued. Esperance became the head of the "Association of Widows of the April 1994 Genocide" in Kigali. Moussa continued his work with Catholic Relief Services, first in Rwanda and then in Liberia. Moussa attended the Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 1995, 1996, and 1997, and then decided to enter the MA program. He moved to Harrisonburg in August 1999.

This past October, each of them decided that they wanted the marriage. After overcoming a few visa problems, and after Esperance was able to hand over her duties at the Widow's Association, she and Dacy joined Moussa in Harrisonburg in late November. Last week they married, many miles from Rwanda, surrounded by their religious community and CTP friends.

"This marriage is helping me challenge life again," says Moussa. "We can give each other support. After first having and then losing a family, you feel weak and that you don't belong. You want to belong and have people belong to you. However, only people with experience in life similar to yours, can understand your wounds."

And Esperance adds, "After going through such a painful experience, there comes a time you think life should continue; you need a partner. I am praying for those who have been through such things to find each other and to rebuild life again."

Janice Jenner is a program associate at CTP, and a graduate of the MA program. She is the project director for the USIP grant which is collecting the peacebuilding stories.

Back to: In this Issue

Gumisiriza Comes Home

Grace Kiconco and Janice Jenner

The Conflict Transformation Program is developing a peacebuilding manual for use by community peace workers throughout Africa. The project, funded by the United States Institute of Peace, is collecting peacebuilding and conflict transformation experiences that are occurring throughout the continent. Some of these activities involve government and NGOs. Others, as in this story, involve families and communities, for whom the language of conflict transformation is unknown, though the concepts are lived out in their lives.

This is the story of one young man, a child soldier in Africa, though his story is far too common throughout the world. It leaves me with questions - what happens when a victim becomes a perpetrator, a child-soldier an armed robber? How is justice done in cases like Gumisiriza's? And yet more than the questions, this story reminds me of the reconciliation that takes place every day even in the midst of violent situations, between family, friends, and even enemies.

Gumisiriza (name has been changed) was fifteen years old when he joined the army of Uganda in 1987. He had very little formal education, just five years of primary school. Coming from a poor peasant family, he could see few opportunities for improving his life. He hoped that if he joined the army he would make a lot of money. He wanted to be able to build a better house for his parents and for himself, buy a piece of land, and then marry.

Gumisiriza joined the army, and for five years was a bodyguard for one of the high-ranking officers. The army did not bring him the life he had wanted, and he left the army when he was twenty years old. He was disappointed; his expectations for a good life had not been met. He felt he had been treated unfairly, having heard rumors that some young soldiers - from certain groups -- had been given opportunity to go back to school, something he wanted but was not offered.

Gumisiriza was already at odds with his parents and with some village members as two years before his leaving the army he had impregnated a 14-year old girl. The young woman often went to his parents to ask for material and financial help. The last time Gumisiriza was at home, he had ordered her not to visit his parents' home again or he would shoot her. He hated himself and people did not seem to mean much anymore for they did not bring him any happiness, they only added misery.

Gumisiriza fled from the army with his gun. He says the gun was "his father and his job." As long as he had it he was secure. He used it to rob people, convincing himself he was revenging the state and civil society that had let him down.

I felt
human
again.

After living a terrorist life for three years, Gumisiriza says that one day he heard that one of his brothers had died and the burial had already taken place. His family had no way to notify him of the death. He was very depressed and felt very alienated. "I no longer belonged to my own family. I was sure my family loved me, although my father was not friendly. My brothers missed me and the last time I was home we spent a whole night talking. I also heard that my grandfather was still alive, and if I went to see him before going to my parents' home, he would help me gain favor with my father. I had not made much money through robberies and I used the little money I got for food, drinking and smoking.

"I started my journey back home." I stayed at a friend's house five miles from home. He told me army men had searched my home for the gun. I decided to turn the gun in the following day, even though I risking being arrested by doing so. I was tired of the gun. It had become a burden. It had not given me the glamour I expected. I was not arrested because I returned it through another army officer.

"I felt free and eager to go back home." I went to my grandfather who was very happy to see me. He asked my cousins to cook for me some good food. It was millet and fish, my favorite dish. I felt human again. My cousin reported my arrival to my mother later in the evening. She came running to my grandfather's home, embraced me and started crying, telling me how my brother had died. She could not hide her happiness for my homecoming.

"I have decided not to join a terrorist group or rebel fighters because as a young man I have suffered a lot. Terrorism or rebellion cannot save me. My parents have land and I want to try and develop that. I brought my wife to our home as my mother asked me to do. Life is not easy but it is better to be forgiven and live with your own people than with people who only use you."

Grace Kiconco, who collected this story, works for Prison Fellowship in Uganda. She attended SPI in 1998.

Go to: Page 3