Hafsa Mossi: Crime most foul as a candle is put out

Bang in midmorning on July 13, it was bang, bang. Yes, it was as absurd as that. On a street in the Mutanga suburb of Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, the life of an exceptionally noble and accomplished lady was blasted out of her by an assassin’s gun.

I was just setting off on yet another of my endless peregrinations when I heard the terrible news. So, the horror did not sink in immediately. But of course the name rang a loud and clear bell in my mind. I “knew” Hafsa Mossi. She was the stellar international Kiswahili broadcaster who had become the spokeswoman for the Burundi Government and eventually a minister.

Only the other day in Nairobi, I was talking to Ramadhan Kibuga, another Burundian who has followed Hafsa Mossi into international Kiswahili broadcasting. I told Kibuga, who briefly interviewed me, how much I respected his work and that of his colleagues, like Ismail Misigaro and Prem Ndikumagenge.

But Hafsa Mossi, whom I actually never met face to face, was my point of entry into Burundian Kiswahili broadcasting. In the early days of my return to Uganda in the 1990s, I found myself seriously deprived of quality Kiswahili programmes. Turning to the international broadcasters, I discovered several excellent announcers, including Hafsa Mossi. But, for me, she stood head and shoulders above most of them for several reasons.

Apart from her flawlessly fluent Kiswahili, Ms Mossi impressed me with both her meticulously accurate reporting and her courageous tackling of apparently delicate topics. A god example of this was the memorable “Kimasomaso” series in which, with our very own Jamhuri Mwavyombo, she tackled the HIV/AIDS pandemic at its height.

DISTRACTING SMILE

Indeed, the full shock and pain of Hafsa Mossi’s death sank into me when I heard Jamhuri Mwavyombo talking about her later that day. Describing her former colleague as a dear sister, Ms Mwavyombo recounted how the two of them had crisscrossed East Africa together, collecting and recording material for their programmes. In the process, Ms Mwavyombo said, the two had shared practically everything, from hotel rooms to young women’s confidentialities.

For they were quite young women then. Even now, they and their generation are in the prime of life. I remember when I first met Jamhuri Mwavyombo, in Arusha, a few years ago, how I laughed at her, for being so much smaller and younger than I had expected. From her full, rich Swahili voice, and the hefty “Jamhuri” name, I had envisaged a bigger and older woman.

Later, when she was interviewing me about my involvement with the spread of Kiswahili in East Africa, I remember telling her, half-seriously and half-jokingly, that she should stop smiling as she asked me her questions. The smile distracted me from the substance of the interview, I pointed out.

I do not know if Hafsa Mossi had the same kind of sense of humour as Jamhuri. But I have reason to believe that the two professional sisters shared a similar enthusiasm and love for their practice of quality Kiswahili communication. Thus, Jamhuri’s lament for her friend brought home to me the enormity of the loss that the murder of Hafsa Mossi had brought to not only Jamhuri but also to the whole of East Africa.

Now you know two reasons why I personally mourn Ms Mossi. She represented two of those things that I hold particularly close and dear to my heart, Kiswahili and East Africa. Even before Burundi was made a part of East Africa, Ms Mossi spent a lot of her life in East Africa and was fully integrated into our Kiswahili heritage. Indeed, it was Hafsa Mossi, as Burundi’s Minister for EAC Affairs, that was responsible for negotiating that country’s formal admission to the Community.

Sadly but appropriately, she was, at the time of her death, a member of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) in Arusha, where she was deeply mourned. But there was more to this woman than her Swahili and East African endowments.

HUMANE LEADERSHIP

She was a member of the ruling party of President Pierre Nkurunziza, whom I reprimanded in these columns some time back, for policies that did not live up to his “good news” name. Matters have got worse since I wrote that piece, and thousands of Barundi have had to flee into exile, while politically motivated killings escalate in Bujumbura and elsewhere in the country.

In the middle of all this, Hafsa Mossi demonstrated what human and humane leadership should be when, some months ago, she visited a camp housing Barundi refugees in Rwanda. There she assured her compatriots that there were people back home who cared about them and wanted them to return.

This, I am sure, could not have gone down well with all the hardliners in power in Bujumbura. But it shows how the motherly instincts of a courageous woman can override the petty prejudices and narrow self-interests that frequently besmirch our humanity. 

Burundi’s affairs may be a disturbingly murky pool. They have been for generations. You and I, dear reader, may find it difficult to understand all the issues at play in the situation. But we cannot afford to be indifferent to it. After all, Burundi is, naturally and irrevocably, a part of East Africa. Whatever happens there affects all of us, as exemplified by the many of us who are mourning Hafsa Mossi.

It is high time East African citizens raised their voices and said enough is enough. Whichever side of the political divide our Burundi relatives are on, they must be made to understand that those senseless murders and counter-murders are not going to lead them anywhere. Certainly the killing of our compatriots, including our mothers and sisters, is not going to lead to any solution.

In any case, there is only one side to be, as Hafsa Mossi’s reaching out to the refugees in Rwanda suggests. It is the human side.