Thanks to the popularity of movies like Hotel Rwanda, most Americans are vaguely familiar with the 1994 genocide that took place in the central African country of Rwanda, but few are aware of the mass slaughters that occurred in neighboring Burundi and the Congo.

Last night Burundian native Prosper Ndabishuriye spoke at Thomson Hall about the need to rebuild hope and homes in his war-torn African nation through “compassion and action.”

“We really lived [during] a very hard time,” Ndabishuriye said of the massacres that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Hutus and Tutsis, the two majority ethnic groups in the area. “People killed until they were tired.”

Before German and Belgian colonial rule in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Hutus and Tutsis lived in relative peace, even speaking the same language, Ndabishuriye said. Under colonial rule, however, ethnic divisions became exacerbated as the Tutsi minorities were given preferential treatment by whites. After independence, the Hutu-led majority government in Rwanda orchestrated the mass murders of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

In Burundi, the opposite occurred, with the Tutsi-led government and military killing hundreds of thousands of Hutus. Neighbors were turned against one another, and families torn apart, Ndabishuriye said.

“Young people were being forced to kill,” he said, outlining the terror that gripped his country. “They were destroying their bright futures.”

Ndabishuriye, who at the time was the national director for Campus Crusade for Christ International, organized a workshop in the midst of the atrocities called “A Mission of Hope,” where he brought together young people of both ethnicities.

“It was hard to bring ethnic rifts together,” he said. “But we were risking our lives to save the lives of others.”

The ethnic conflict in this part of the world has gone largely unnoticed by the international community, Ndabishuriye said, and others in the audience agreed.

“We are being censored by our corporate media about the levels of genocide that are still continuing,” one woman in the audience said.

Ndabishuriye’s mission was the origin of the non-profit organization called Youth in Reconstruction of a World in Destruction (YRWD), which focuses on the “material and moral reconstruction” of Burundi.

In partnership with the organization Youth for a New World, YRWD has provided shelters and latrines for over 2000 families.

Ndabishuriye said that he hopes the future for Africa will be bright.

“Big dreams require big actions. Big actions require commitment. … Commitment goes together with courage and patience,” he said. “Together we can make an abandoned country smile again.”

[Reach reporter Arla Shephard at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]