Dear editor,

Around the world, commemorations of the 14th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide were launched. The central actors responsible for allowing Hutu extremists to perpetrate the genocide are well known: the government of France, the United Nations Security Council and, by no means least, the Roman Catholic Church.

The Organization of African Unity also refused to condemn the genocidaires and proved to be largely irrelevant throughout the crisis. As a consequence of these acts of commission and omission, 1000,000 Tutsi and thousands of moderate Hutu were murdered in a period of 100 days.

From the beginning of the genocide to its end, no government or organization other than NGOs formally described events in Rwanda as a genocide. The Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda was the largest and most influential denomination in the country, with intimate ties to the government at all levels.

It failed to denounce the government’s explicit ethnic foundations, failed to denounce its increasing use of violence against Tutsi, failed to denounce or even name the genocide, failed to apologize for the many clergy who aided and abetted the genocidaires, and to this day has never apologized for its overall role.

The Pope has refused to apologize on behalf of the Church as a whole. So far as is known, not a single person in any government or in the UN has ever been fired or held accountable for failing to intervene in the genocide.

In fact, the opposite is true. Some careers flourished in the aftermath. Several of the main actors were actually promoted. We can consider this the globalization of impunity.

Kimisagara