Ntitangirageza, Therence

Ntitangirageza, Therence

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Interviewee Age

Born 2nd of October 1957

Interviewee Gender

Male

Interviewee Occupation

Catholic priest

Interviewee Level of Education in 1972

Was at school in Buta seminary

Geographical Location(s) during the genocide

Vugizo commune, Makamba province

Current Geographical Location

Makamba commune and province

Interview Date

1-7-2025

Interviewer Name

Member of the GHRAD research team

Summary of Oral History

Thérance Ntitangirageza is a priest who was born in 1957, in Vugizo commune, Makamba province. When the 1972 tragedy happened, Thérance was at school in Buta seminary. As the school was ruled by priests they didn’t tell them openly what was happening in the country.When they came back at home for holidays, they found that people who were there, were not there anymore, so a lot of people had been killed. Many neighbors were killed, but not close members of Thérance’s family. At school they had seven teachers but only two of them were still alive. Seeing what had happened, people were flabbergasted, they noticed that hutu people were persecuted. The perpetrators and tutsis were protected by the leadership of that time. It was something which had been prepared and the government didn’t stop it. Hutu people were thunderstruck. Clever and rich people were killed, others escaped and went away in Tanzania and elsewhere.

Before the tragedy, there was a normal relationship between hutus and tutsis, but after it the relationships between the two groups broke. It was really a situation of suspicion, fear and terror for the hutus and on the other side of tutsis there was arrogance and impunity; that was transmitted to young people who were coming from those schools without any idea of division. There was an open impunity and arrogance of the regime so the Tutsi students felt protected and friends of the regime and the others felt to be victims, so they had to keep quiet and were still afraid of doing any fence movement or something which could be the origin of something bad for them.

According to Thérance, the future of Burundi country is a very big question because ethnic conflict is one of the problems which prevail. The worst thing done in that country is to emphasize so much on ethnic differences and conflict, forgetting that there are other realities and other problems which should be dealt with. According to him Burundians need leadership which really has to focus on the matters of well fair economic development in order to solve even other questions.

Named Persons

Thérance Ntitangirageza

Named Places

Vugizo: commune, Bururi, Gitega,Makamba: Provinces, Buta, Burasira: Seminary schools where Therence studied, Burundi, Tanzania, Italy are countries.

Length of Oral History

00:39:29

Language(s) of Oral History

English

Language(s) of Transcripts

English

Field Folder Number

136

Rights

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Download Therence Ntitangirageza - Oral History Transcript (English) (154 KB)

Ntitangirageza, Therence

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