The Church’s hands aren’t clean in the Genocide

Editor, The roots of Rwanda’s misery up to and beyond the 1994 Genocide against the country’s Batutsi can be traced to the Church’s active role, as an institution, in the politics of the country. This is not an opinion; it is a verifiable historical fact. The Church was a full partner in the subjugation and colonisation project, and its leaders in Rwanda, from Classe to Perraudin did more to shape our politics and history than even the colonial administrators. The Genocide might not have happened or would not have had its magnitude without the “moral blessing” of the Church. To add insult to unimaginable injury, the Church has done everything it could to shield its clergy from facing justice for their role in the Genocide. A few examples illustrate a more generalised pattern of the Church’s obstructive efforts to shield its clergy from deserved justice. The Church persists in protecting Abbé Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, despite the grave accusations, including of rape of young women who had taken shelter at Ste Famille in Kigali. He continues to say mass and dispense sacraments as a parish priest in Gissors, Normandy, France. The Church is very dismissive of the complaints from his many victims. The case of Father Anastase Seromba, helped by the Church to change his identity and assume the name of Father Anastasio Sumba Bura while similarly continuing to exercise his priestly functions under that assumed name in a Tuscany bolthole to avoid extradition for trial at the ICTR in Arusha, is also a clear indicator of the Church’s real attitude than the mere claims of Bishop Smagarde Mbonyintege. Why, for instance, did the Church help him change his name and allow him to continue to exercise his clerical functions under that assumed name if the Church hierarchy did not think he had something to hide? The Church’s role makes it an after-the-fact accessory to Father Seromba’s crimes. His eventual extradition to the ICTR was effected in the teeth of extremely strong pressure on the Italian Government from the Vatican. Other cases of the Church’s obstruction of justice involve its opposition against the transfer of Father Emmanuel Rukundo from Switzerland to the ICTR, and the undue pressure against witnesses to dissuade them from testifying against Sisters Gertrude Mukangango and Maria Kizito, eventually convicted for their role in the Genocide by a Belgian court, in spite of the Church’s determined opposition against the very idea of their trial. Until the Church recognises and apologises for its role, as an institution, and the wholesale involvement of many of its clergy in the Genocide, many of us former Catholics will continue to regard it as no longer concerned with the Christ’s mission. Thank you. Mwene Kalinda, KigaliRwanda Reaction to the story, “Genocide: Should the Church prefer reconciliation over accountability?”, (The New Times, April 23)

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The Church’s hands aren’t clean in the Genocide