the Rwanda genocide and the catholic church (I)

one of the most scandalous features of all that surrounds the Rwanda 1994 genocide is the attitude of a number of catholic priests and nuns and one bishop and their role in the genocide. The attitude of Pope john Paul II is also something one could hardly be proud of, to say the least.

...Habyarimana and his wife Agathe were impressive disciples of the Catholic Church...the Gospel of the White Fathers was obedience to authority. This religious foundation,more than other, threw its weight behind ethnic division and authoritarian rule. By the 60s the church and state had bonded into one entity, preaching the gospel of Hutu supremacy and total loyalty to the leadership in the capital Kigali.
....(one of the most atrocious genocidaires among the catholic clergy, Wenceslaus Munyeshyaka) managed to get out of the country and via Goma fled to France, where under the auspices of the White Fathers, who had close links to the Habyarimana regime, he was installes in the parish of Bourg-St-Andeol.
..With powerful church allies such as the White Fathers...Munyeshyaka managed to evade the courts and justice...(eventually) he moved to a White Fathers safe house when the press became interested again in his case in 2004.
( Andrew Wallis in "the Silent Accomplice")

The crime of this genocide has its roots, among other things, in the efforts of both the belgian government and the local catholic (white) hierarchy to establish an ethnic and catholic republic in Rwanda after the parmehutu party had performed their coup in 1961. At the time there were signs that the Tutsi elite wanted independence for Rwanda. It looks as if the actions taken by the catholic white hierarchy were inspired by its fear to lose its influence if that independence would indeed come about. Thus this same hierachy saw no evil in making common cause with -that much was already clear at that time- an ethnic and openly racist hutu government, that was intent on exterminatg its Tutsi citizens, only for being born tutsi. Even today, anno 2007,the catholics of Rwanda find it hard to believe that the catholic hierarchy was involved to such an extent in the killings.
Maybe the catholic leadership were still very much impressed by the genocidal myths in the bible, the old testament to be pr4ecise: (and here I am paraphrasing Jean Paul Gouteux: )the mass-killings of the original palestinian inhabitants after the jews returned from Egypt, the killing of people with the, for the tribal God of Abraham and his crowd, unacceptable sexual leanings of the people of Sodom and Gomorra. the killing of the whole human race except Noe and his people .... "when one venerates a genocidal and recidivist god, everything becomes possible". (Jean-Paul Gouteux in "La Nuit Rwandaise", april 2007, page 176).

What has lead up to all this?
As early as 1957 (so even before the Mwami (king) was expelled) the then prime minister Kayibanda published his "Notes on the social aspect of the indigenous racial problem in Rwanda" (notes sur l'aspect social du probleme racial indigene au Rwanda). Responsible for the text of this openly racist manifesto, because that is what it is, were two white fathers, Ernotte and Dejemeppe, under the auspices of the then archbishop of Kabgayi, the swiss Perraudin (also member of the White Fathers Society).
Obviously on the strength and gist of this manifesto it did not take long (1960)before the Tutsi were declared "stangers" in their own country. Rwanda is said to be the country of the Bahutu, and the Tutsi were invited to emigrate to their country of origin: Ethiopia.
Where the devil did they (Bahutu goverment) get that idea of the Tutsi origins from? Here again, the white fathers were behind it. It was one of them (Pages) who wrote a pseudo-scientific book entitled " un royaume hamite au centre de l 'Afrique" posing as dogma the theory that the Tutsi (hamitic race!!!) migrated into Rwanda about 300-350 years ago from Egypt. They are said to have conquered a country that had always been inhabited by Bahutu; this was the official theory and imaginary sociology of Rwandan society that bishop Classe (of the white fathers) had ordered to be spread among the parishes in Rwanda and all the catholic schools.(forgetting of course that the Bahutu themselves are descendents of people who migrated into East Africa about 2000 years ago from what is now eastern Nigeria and Cameroun).

The belgian colonial administration had long before the 1960's come up the stupid idea of mentioning on the identity papers of the Rwandan population whether they were Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. A distinction that never had played any practical role in Rwandan society. Often enough people did not really know what they were. And inter- marriages were common all the time. This was one of the most important mechanisms of the belgians to set up groups of the population against each other. And the white fathers followed suit admirably. For years the Tutsi were the favourite sons, but when their elite, as has been mentioned above, started clamouring for independence, they immediately fell out of favour. Imagine ! Rwanda had been dedicated by the catholic hierarchy the Christ the King, and thus what the Tutsi elite demanded ran 100% counter to the hierarchy's idea of Rwanda and Burundi being the domain of the catholic church and its spreading into East Africa. So the Tutsi became the bad boys and the Hutu the good boys: in 1959 (Rwanda was still a kingdom) the quite reactionary White ftahers, in the person of bishop Perraudin, made themselves immortally ridiculous by stating in his (Perraudin's) lenten message: "In our Rwanda there are different races each with their specific traits,..on the one hand the riches and power and on the other hand even the judiciary are for the major part in the hands of people of the same race". Together with the (later, see above) hutu manifest we see the elaboration of a racist social doctrine, the (white members of the hierarchy of) Church chose clear sides with the ethnicity idea, and maintained this to the end. It is remarkable that the christan belgian labour mouvement gave its supprt to all this. The not very intelligent flemish White Fathers compared the "walloon arrogance" at home with "the tutsi arrogance" in Rwanda, and thus the stage was set for a number of interesting developments and utterings: the flemish priest Desouter and many of his associates hating the Tutsi as much as they could dug up the old cliches of the "hardworking peasant Hutu".
When the first massacres of tutsi began in 1959 (my in-laws fled to Congo at that time) these priests and their crowd were jubilant. Years later in 1994 the openly reactionary and racist flemish White Father Aelvoet fondly remembered those great moments: "For us the history of Rwanda starts in 1994. All that came before it was Tutsi culture.The Hutu revolt, (ending the kingdom) I have lived through it with great pain in my heart, because there were many dead. But I was really happy. When the death of the Mwami (Mutara Rudahigwa, it is said he was poisoned by the belgians) was made known I told my parishoners: tomorrow were are going to celebtate a Mass of requiem. But in reality there should be a Te Deum (a hymn in the roman catholic rituals to thank God for favours received) that we ought to sing. I have buried the first Tutsi chiefs in Gitarama. the local Hutu danced with joy brandishing their machetes and shouted: "they should return to Abyssinia" They did not want these people buried and said: "Father come back to-morrow, there will be more".
It illustrates how the catholic priests had adopted the game of setting one ethnic group up against the other. Together with the White Fathers the belgian Internationale Democratique Chretienne (IDC) joined hands to fight the Tutsi aristocracy. It has all been well documented in a book by Leon Saur (Influences Parallelles), showing how strong their support was for the racist Hutu leaders, and their links with (1992) the Rwandan Information Office (ORINFOR) that had just been inciting people to commit the massacres in Bugesera. It need not surprise anyone that sniffing up the atmosphere in belgium, that even after the genocide the flemish member of parlement Jan van Erps (CVP) dared to say he was "proud to be a flemish Hutu"

(to be continued)