The role of historians in conflict resolution
Historians
record and analyze what they know through reading and/or oral inquiry.
Therefore history is an account of events, in sequence of time and why they
happened. Besides, history must always be checked for mistakes.
When
I wrote the story about “How Rujumbura’s Bairu got impoverished” in Weekly
Observer of December, 2008, I used evidence of what I had experienced, read and
collected through oral accounts. I wrote the story as truthfully as I know it
covering the period of Bashambu rule from 1800 to the start of colonial
administration; from colonial administration to independence (when Bashambu continued
their role under British indirect rule but responsibility for commission or
omission shifted to the British) and from independence to the present (when Bashambu
did not have a direct role).