2023-10-22 06:00:00
“Sometimes I feel tired, but if I see a child who is suffering, I forget everything. I go back into battle,” smiles the woman who has just overcome cancer and who will, this October 24, officially inaugurate her new school. “It’s a nursery and primary school, but we will grow. It meets all international standards. I want the best for my children. The director of the establishment is Belgian and three teachers also come from Belgium.”
The establishment will accommodate 50% refugee children from Burundi or the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also Rwandans. “I want this mixing, this mix between children of more modest origins and those who are more advantaged. I want them to all be on an equal footing. They will rub shoulders at school, in the canteen, in school transport. We must break down the barriers,” continues Maguy, who has received distinctions all over the world for his fight.
Read: Burundi, a country in permanent crisis
“Nothing can bring me down”
“These prizes allow me to open doors, that’s the biggest advantage of these decorations,” she says with a huge smile.
She started her fight when she was 24 years old. “Another massacre in Burundi. I adopted seven children without being married, without worrying about whether they were Tutsi or Hutu.” There is no question for Maguy of playing the ethnic card in a region where the stigmatization, or even the elimination of the other, often serves as the main political program. “When I adopted my first children, I wanted to light a little candle in the middle of the darkness of morbid hatred. I wanted to stand up to the leaders of my country. I did not want to fall into their logic.”
By opposing these segregation policies, she made a name for herself, but she also built strong enmities in the Burundian political class. In 2014, a few months before President Nkurunziza stormed to win a third unconstitutional term, Maguy became angry with those in power when a police officer shot and killed a teenager. She did not hesitate to return all the decorations received from the hands of the President of the Burundian Republic. “I admit that I lied to be able to have an interview with the President. When we found ourselves in the same room, I told him that if he continued like this, Burundi would be destroyed. We were in full Lent, March 11, 2014.” The President will not forgive him. A few months later, after she opened a large center to welcome children with the support of Unicef, she was warned that she was under death threat. She receives a text message warning her: “We have orders to kill you.” She is forced to flee. She will find refuge at the Belgian embassy and will use all her contacts, in particular a strong relationship that she has built with the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.
To read: Burundian power or the art of dividing the opposition
“The authorities issued an arrest warrant against me. I couldn’t stay at the embassy, I put on makeup, I put on a blonde wig and I rushed to the airport. Everyone was in the scheme. The SN flight took me on board at the last minute. I was safe, but I had to leave everything behind.”
Everything has to start again
Thousands of Burundians are thrown onto the road to exile. “Many ended up in Rwanda. So I left there. I took up my pilgrim’s staff to go find funds to rebuild everything. I was able to count on Belgian and Luxembourg institutions who have always helped me . Others came too. You know over the years, I’ve been able to travel, I’ve met presidents, kings, three popes, no one impresses me. I’ve lost dozens of members of my family. I was tied up while my loved ones were killed in front of my eyes. I have seen hell and I have rubbed shoulders with palaces. But I will never give up. They will not silence me, they will not will not stop. Nothing can stop love. As long as a life is in danger I will stand up,” she continues.
In Rwanda, everything had to be redone. “We bought land to allow refugees to farm, eat, trade. They are not beggars. I have been working with refugees for forty years, they are people who have talent. Look at my outfit, they are they who made it. They also make the uniforms for the school. They can be an economic contribution to their host country. We must not welcome them like disabled people. We must let them develop. Here, we are wrong in the way we welcome them.”
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