In Burundi, Ex-Warriors Look for New Lives

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Pastor Charles Nduwumukama, left, asks a Hutu colonel who oversees the camp to welcome a Tutsi colonel. The two tell how they tried to kill each other years ago in an ambush. Marianne McCune hide caption

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Marianne McCune

Pastor Charles Nduwumukama, left, asks a Hutu colonel who oversees the camp to welcome a Tutsi colonel. The two tell how they tried to kill each other years ago in an ambush.

Marianne McCune

Mostly Hutu ex-rebels watch members of the Full Gospel Church sing at Burundi's Camp Gashingwa, where a group of 4,000 Hutus have been waiting for more than a year. Marianne McCune hide caption

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Marianne McCune

The Central African nation of Burundi is slowly trying to put itself back together after a decade of civil war and more than three decades of ethnic conflict. Burundi is just south of Rwanda and shares a similar history of strife.

But while Tutsis and many moderate Hutus in Rwanda were slaughtered in what is now widely viewed as an act of genocide, in Burundi large numbers of Hutus were massacred under a Tutsi-led government. Voters recently approved a constitution that requires the two groups to share power.

Now another challenge is looming: how to gracefully incorporate tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides of the conflict into a new, peaceful Burundi.

Marianne McCune of member station WNYC reports.