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This story is incredible, LU should invite this guy to speak at a convocation or a sports luncheon or something. What an incredible story. Runners looking for training tips, check out Gilbert's Training Site at http://www.gilbertsgazelles.com/
Gilbert Tuhabonye
Nickname: T-bone Born: November 22, 1974 in Bujumbura, Berundi
Gilbert was a national champion in Burundi while still in High School.
On October 21st, 1993, members of the Hutu tribe rounded up the members of the Tsutsi tribe (one of whom was Gilbert) at the school Gilbert was attending and beat them and burned them alive in a hut. Gilbert was the only survivor, running, while on fire, to freedom.
After going to school in Georgia on a track scholarship, Gilbert was recruited by Abiliene Christian University where he earned All-America honors 6-times. The Lonestar Conference Champion in the 1500 meters in 1999 and in the 8k Cross Country, Tuhabonye competed internationally in Europe and represented Burundi at the 1999 Chiba Ekiden Relay in Chiba, Japan.
He now coaches (at RunTex) and races in Austin Tx.
With nowhere to run, I burrowed my way underneath a smoking mound of bodies Gilbert Tuhabonye is a survivor. More than ten years ago the centuries-old battle between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of Africa came to his school. Fueled by hatred, the Hutus forced more than a hundred Tutsi children and teachers into a small room and used machetes to slash most of them to death. The unfortunate ones who survived were doused with gasoline and set on fire. After hiding under a heap of his smoldering classmates for more than eight hours, Gilbert heard a voice saying, "You will be all right; you will survive." He knew it was God speaking to him. Gilbert was the lone survivor of the attack at his school, and thanks his enduring faith in God for his survival. Today, Gilbert is a world-class athlete, running coach, and celebrity in his new hometown of Austin, Texas. The road to this point has been a tough one, but he uses his survival instincts to spur him on to the goal of qualifying for the 2008 Olympic summer games. This Voice in My Heart portrays not only the horrific event, but the transformative power of real forgiveness and the gift of faith in God. This riveting story will touch you from its first page and offer inspiration for years to come.
And here's an article from ACU (Abilene Christian University), His alma mater from 1999:
This Voice in My Heart
By GARNER ROBERTS, TOM CRAIG, DEANA NALL and MICHELLE MORRIS Photography by GERALD EWING
For some ACU students, the pursuit of a university degree means overcoming physical, financial or learning obstacles to earn the education of their dreams.
Gilbert Tuhabonye was in biology class the morning of the day he will never forget.
A teacher in his Christian boarding school in Kimbimba, Burundi, brought the first warning. After narrowly escaping the raging Hutu mob outside, the teacher told the students, "Some people are coming to kill us." It was Oct. 21, 1993.
The Hutu soldiers arrived with machetes, sticks and fuel and gathered the Tutsi students in a group, shouting, "You are Tutsi! You killed our president! You die, too!
"They took our clothes, our shoes, everything," Gilbert recalls. "We were naked. They beat us on the head and chest. I witnessed my classmates dying one by one. I was waiting for my turn, too."
Hutus sprayed fuel on the wooden building and on the Tutsi students, set them afire, locked the doors and waited outside as flames began to consume the victims. Gilbert spent about eight hours in the fire, watching and counting as his friends and classmates died. "I looked and said, 'He died. He died. He died,' so I could remember and tell people."
* * *
The book's title -- "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" -- almost grabs you by the lapel, pleading to be read.
But Gilbert doesn't have to look at author Philip Gourevitch's haunting book.
Tuhabonye, 18 years old, was a witness.
On that October day in Bujumbura -- the capital city of the east central African republic of Burundi -- Melchior Ndadaye, the nation's first democratically-elected leader, had been assassinated. Disaffected Tutsi soldiers overthrew the three-month-old government of the first Hutu to be elected president, rekindling the war between members of the majority Hutu ethnic group and the minority Tutsis, who have traditionally dominated politics, the military and the economy in Gilbert's homeland.
The Washington Post estimates that from 150,000 to 250,000 people have been killed in Burundi since 1993. And 1.5 million others have fled the country as refugees. In the remaining days of 1993, up to 200 Burundians a day were dying in refugee camps from disease and malnutrition.
* * *
Gilbert didn't want to be counted among the dead that October day. "I was scared," he says. "I prayed to God to help me survive." Faced with a life-or-death decision of whether to stay inside the blazing school or try to escape, he chose to jump from the building and run to freedom.
"I heard this voice in my heart," he remembers, "and it said I would be all right. Now I know it was the power of God that allowed me to get away and live. They tried to cut me with their machetes, but I was able to get away." He had used a charred bone from a body in the school to break a window.
"Something was telling me, 'You not die.' Anybody else see the fire, they lay down. Anybody else see someone come for them, they give up."
But Gilbert's escape was successful, probably for at least two reasons. A cross country runner, he was also Burundi's 400- and 800-meter national champion in athletics. And his Hutu attackers likely thought, "He is going to die," because his back was on fire as he raced from what seemed like certain death.
After evading the Hutu mob, Gilbert leaped into a ditch and rolled in the dirt to douse the flames on his back. In the dark of the night, it was time to make another decision.
"I spent two hours wondering what to do and where to go," Gilbert said. So he resumed running, again rescued by "this voice in my heart." Soon he met some Tutsi soldiers who took him to a hospital.
"I had nightmares while I was in the hospital," Gilbert said. "I just couldn't sleep."
His physical wounds began to heal. Within two weeks he was no longer coughing up blood from the beating he took, and within three months he was sufficiently healed from the burns to his back, legs and arms to leave the hospital.
But the scars remain, painful reminders of that day when his school became part of the killing fields of east central Africa. He often thinks back and wonders. Today he says, "God had something in store for me."
* * *
Burundi is a small landlocked country just south of the equator. Its border measures only 605 miles -- 215 miles from north to south, 165 miles from east to west. With about 7.1 million people, it is one of the most densely populated nations in Africa. It occupies a high plateau with mountains in the west. The climate is tropical, moderated by elevation.
The country has 398 miles of paved roads, no railroads, three airfields, one daily newspaper, one television station and four radio stations.
Burundi's political instability has not helped its economy, and its population density has exacerbated the ongoing conflict between the majority Hutu population (85 percent) and the minority Tutsi people (14 percent). Its economy is based primarily on subsistence agriculture, making it one of the poorest nations in the world. Coffee is the main commercial crop.
Many people also raise cattle, goats and sheep, and other crops include tea, cotton, sweet potatoes, cassava, bananas, sugarcane, maize, peas, beans and groundnuts.
Rundi and French are the official languages, but Swahili also is spoken, and English is taught in some schools. The principal forms of religion include Roman Catholicism and indigenous beliefs. Burundi's birth and death rates are high by world standards (average life expectancy is 51.2 years). Many children do not attend school, and only about half of the adults can read and write. Burundians generally are gregarious people, and they like playing soccer, listening to music, celebrating Christmas, making crafts, and maintaining a clean, neat appearance.
Despite its serious environmental and health threats, peace between Hutu and Tutsi peoples is the most urgent matter. Land pressures, population growth and the deteriorating environment make conflict resolution even more urgent.
Political regimes often come to power by rebellion, civil war or military coup.
Burundi gained its independence from Belgium on July 1, 1962, but it has been blighted by seemingly insolvable hatred between Hutus and Tutsis. As early as 1965, Hutus rebelled against exploitation, and the Tutsi elite has strongly resisted. As a result, Burundi has experienced recurring ethnic violence on a horrendous scale rivaled only in neighboring Rwanda, where the government in 1994 implemented a policy that called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority.
The chilling phrase that gave Gourevitch the title to his book was taken from a letter sent by seven pastors in one Tutsi community in Rwanda to their church president, a Hutu.
"We request you to intervene on our behalf," they wrote. But he didn't.
* * *
On April 8, 1996, Gilbert arrived in the United States at the International Training Center in Savannah, Ga. After recovering from his injuries, he first started riding a small stationary bicycle. By 1994 he was able to jog, and he returned to competition in 1995. Through a grant program conducted by national and international Olympic committees for athletes from developing nations, he was able to travel to the training center to continue working toward his goal of running in the Olympic Games.
He did not make Burundi's team for the Games in Atlanta in 1996 (he was an alternate), but he did run in the World University Games in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1995. And he did get to carry the Olympic torch during its relay through Alabama. He studied English, one of five languages he knows, at two community colleges in Georgia, and in December 1997 he and countryman Patrick Nduwimana visited Abilene Christian University at the invitation of ACU cross country head coach Jon Murray.
Nduwimana signed with the University of Arizona, but Gilbert decided to attend ACU.
"I think I made a good choice," he said.
"It is a good Christian school, and it helps me focus on my goal. The environment will nurture my faith and help me grow as a Christian. I get along with everybody, and people are very nice."
Now 24 years old, Gilbert likes to read and watch movies. He is studying agronomy in ACU's Department of Agriculture and Environment in the College of Arts and Sciences. This year, the likeable ACU junior is joined on the Wildcat team by another Burundian distance runner, Alfred Rugema.
Gilbert has earned all-America honors in NCAA Division II in cross country and both indoor and outdoor track and field. He was 10th last fall in the 1998 NCAA cross country national meet. In 1999, he has already won the 800 at the NCAA indoor championships and the 1500 at the Lone Star Conference meet.
"Perseverance is definitely one of his strong characteristics -- perseverance and hope," Murray said. "He has high goals for himself. He doesn't get upset about a lot of things. He handles adversity well.
"I think one thing that draws people to him is his cheerfulness, his easy-going attitude. He is encouraging and a good motivator for his teammates. He has a tremendous attitude," Murray continued.
"We don't know what a bad day is," the ACU coach told one reporter. "He does, and he's still having a good day."
Gilbert's story has attracted plenty of attention. In addition to the Abilene Reporter-News, this spring he has been chronicled in the Austin American-Statesman, Philadelphia Inquirer and USA Today. Also, CNN and the BBC have aired stories about the Wildcat runner.
He will again represent Burundi in the World University Games (July 9-13 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain). In April, he went to the White House in Washington, D.C., on National Student-Athlete Day to meet President Clinton as one of two national winners of the Courageous Student-Athlete Award from the National Consortium for Academics and Sports.
Gilbert continues to work toward two goals. He still dreams of competing for Burundi at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. And although now he may be a marked man in his homeland, he wants to return to Burundi.
"There is no place like home," he said.
"I miss my family, my friends, food, everything. Even if there is war, it is still my country.
"My dream and goal is to make Olympic history and help my people know the reality between right and wrong."
* * *
The United Nations declared genocide a crime under international law Dec. 11, 1946. Two years later, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution that obliged "contracting parties" to "undertake to prevent and to punish... acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."
But writers such as Gourevitch have cried out in Rwanda and Burundi about "wholly inadequate reactions of international humanitarian organizations and foreign governments -- not least the United States." Indeed, the U.S. didn't sign the resolution from the Genocide Convention of 1948 until 1989.
The book's author describes one scene where "tiny skulls of children were scattered here and there, and from a nearby schoolyard the voices of their former classmates at recess carried into the church. Inside the nave, empty and grand, where a dark powder of dried blood marked one's footprints, a single, representative corpse was left on the floor before the altar. He appeared to be crawling toward the confession booth. His feet had been chopped off, and his hands had been chopped off. This was a favorite torture."
President Clinton visited Rwanda on March 25, 1998, and agreed that "these events grew from a policy aimed at the systematic destruction of a people... Each bloodletting hastens the next, and as the value of human life is degraded and violence becomes tolerated, the unimaginable becomes more conceivable... Never again must we be shy in the face of the evidence."
Gilbert understands the pain of bloodletting. "It is not easy," he said. "You are safe. Then something comes, and you have to run away."
But he also knows, "Nothing is impossible because I got out of that fire."
Its flames burned the skin on his back but the fire in his heart is stronger, keeping alive his dreams of running in the Olympic Games and returning to his homeland.
Gilbert! He's a great guy who we did a bunch of stories on when I worked over in Austin. He's got a thick accent, but I think he'd go over very well at convo (then again, I think I would do well if given the opportunity).
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