Burundi’s football-loving president is rumoured to be standing for a controversial third term, despite the two-
term limit in the current constitution. It’s one factor contributing to mounting tensions in the nation, where it now seems a morning jog could result in life
imprisonment.
The drive out of Bujumbura last Saturday provided an image that will stay with me for a long time yet.
It was just after dawn, and we were climbing away from Lake Tanganyika, towards the high plateau of the
interior. The escarpment wound on and on. From time to time, on my left, the curtain of banana trees andacacias would swing open, and the hills and valleys
would spill away from us, towards a horizon of forest.
The people of Bujumbura were running. Up, and up. A great, long line of them.
Some were in clusters – others, in their private reveries. Most were young men. But I also saw a man and a woman – of late middle age and generous girth
– running together and holding hands.
The tradition of Saturday morning runs started during Burundi’s long years of ethnic conflict. The last spasm
of war only ended back in 2005, with 300,000 dead from the population of eight million. Then, no-one jogged up these hills.
This was where the militias – now the men of government – would hide.
So it was in the city of Bujumbura itself that people would try to vent their fear and frustration and claustrophobia, by running, often in a group.
But on this Saturday morning I was taken aback to see some young men, running together, as a group. It was a
surprise, because back in March, the country’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza had decreed that such a practice was to be banned.
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