the Rwanda genocide and the catholic church (II)

In 1997 the belgian White Father Guy Theunis, formerly professor at the Nyakibanda Major Seminary in Rwanda, declared before a Parliamentary Committee of the Belgian senate that the rwanda genocide was "inimaginable" Yet when he was in Rwanda he had very close connections with the genocidal regime of Habyarimana and it's hard to believe he was unaware of what was going to happen. As a matter of fact, lateron he confessed that about three weeks before the start of the genocide he knew of the aims of the ruling party CDR: to repeat the 1959 massacres of Tutsis and this time do not make the mistake of letting some people live. According to the catholic magazine GOLIAS the italian priest Carlisquia had been active at the various massacres ( 1959, 1961,1963,1965). In 1994 he was again deeply involved in the massacres at Rusumo in particular the killing of his own parishioners. In he sermons he encouraged his listeners to hate the Tutsis, to hunt them down. In 1994 once the genocide had started (april)he put up roadblocs and guarded them with his rifle, accompanied by the killers he had personally trained in the use of weapons.

The only one protesting against these early killings was the bishop of Nyundo, but the killers did not allow him to intervene in favour of the victims.

After the Lenten letter by archbishop Perraudin (1959) the catholic hierarchy got ever deeper involved in the sort of racist rhetoric we hear from bishop Nikwigize of Ruhengeri (in an interview by a flemish paper in 1995) "A hutu is simple,and straightforward, but a Tutsi is cunning and hypocritical. He shows himself well, polite and charming, but when he gets a chance, he will come down on you. a Tutsi is by nature wicked." Indeed the kind of rhetoric that stimulates hatred. And the following enlightening piece of prose can be read in "Bulletin d'information africaine ANB/BIA" of the white fathers (1 May 1994): "in Europe people get passionate about defending minorities, rubbing out the extermination of the majority..The Tutsis have managed to subject people, to get a foot within international organisations. Even Radio Vaticana and the Vatican press have been infiltrated by them, by getting tutsi priests to work there who spread lies and false information with an extraordinary skill, they are masters of "intriges". Young and pretty Tutsi girls have infiltrated humanitarian organisations "conquering terrain" with their charm." The Hutu propaganda in a nutshell in a missionary magazine.!!! The author of the text is the white father Walter Aelvoet, the same one who rejoyced at the 1959 massacres. He belongs to that caste of militant christian (?) flemish sponsoring the "hutu cause" against the well-spoken Tutsi who are like the "loathsome walloons".
The white fathers were the godfathers of the magazine "Dialogue", one of the most important catholic publications in Rwanda. The founder of dialogue was abbé Massion, a priest very close to the racist Parmehutu political party. After the genocide Dialogue got a restart in Brussles due to the afore-mentioned father Theunis. The magazine's tone was clearly ethnocentric and negationist (denying that a genocide ever took place); typical is what the white father Desouter wrote: "The RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front, the Tutsis returning from exile in Uganda), is at the origin of the genocide. It was a suicidal action of the RPF against its own people. By its offensive (1990) it instigated the desperate hutu masses to commit those massacres. There have never been more Tutsis in Rwanda than after the massacres". If one does not know the truth one might easily fall for such an explanation. The reality is however that the RPF never permitted its fighters to kill hutu or other civilians. And they did not.
After the genocide a group of hutu priests who had fled to DR Congo wrote to pope John Paul II in a similar strain: "the massacres that have taken place in Rwanda are the result of provocation and harrassment of the Rwandan people by the RPF.

The explanation of the Osservatore Romano (vatican newspaper) (in1999) chimes in nicely with all this: " In Rwanda a campaign of diffamation of the cathiolic church is on the way, so as to make it co-responsible for the genocide in 1994. The arrest of bishop Misago 5 years after the genocide must be considered as the most recent act of the Rwandan government to elimnate the conciliatory role of the catholic church in the history of Rwanda...to stain the church's image in every possible ways..One should remember that there was question of a double genocide, one directed at the Tutsis and one directed at the Hutu. The genocide of the Hutu took place in the Conga forest, where the Hutu had sought shelter against the RPF, without the least protection by the international community (???!!!????). About 1 million Hutuwere massacred (!!!??? !!!!!)"
It's a good thing the Osservatore Romano is not infallible for there is not shred of evidence of a massacre of Hutu.!!

Who was this bishop Misago? He was (and is again) the bishop of Gikongoro in western Rwanda. During the genocide he systematically refused to protect the Tutsi christians in his diocese, avowing that "the Tutsi are a damned race anyway". Bishopo Misago cooperated closely with the prefect Bucyabaruta and major Bizimungu commander of the gendarmerie, who together organised the killing of Tutsis in their district. Misago sent the Tutsis who had come to him for protection to Murambi where they (150 000 0f them) were slaughtered. He knew that hutu militias had set up roadblocks all over the place, nevertheless he sent two Tutsi from Gikongoro parish who had sought refuge with him, on their way, who were subsequently dragged out of their car and killed on the spot. Neither did His Excellency lift a finger to save the lives of 90 school children at Kibeho collage; he came to visit them on May 4. They begged him to protect them. Three days later 82 of them were brutally massacred. No reaction from the Right Reverend (testimony: an letter to John Paul II from Rakyaa Omaar, the school director, dated May 19, 1998)
Bishop Misago was put in jail in 1999 accused of complicity in then genocide. During his trial the so-called affair of the machetes came up: witnesses testified that the catholic church had purchased a great number of machetes and had these distributed among the killers. On the basis of his research in Rwanda Pierre Galant estimated that there had been at least 100 000 machetes with a total value of over 725 000 american dollars. A number of these machetes so it transpired had been used to kill Tutsi priests in Misago's diocese who had sought shelter with their bishop and had been handed over to the militias. At a part of the trial behind closed doors, Sister Milghita had shouted at the bishop "If I had been you I would have turned myself in to the judicial authorities much earlier." One of the most bizarre things about Misago is that the vatican, Pope John Paul II, has interfered directly in the trial, sending Misago even a letter of encouragement (!!!!???) "hoping that he would soon be released from jail" with a special Apostolic Blessing into the bargain. After considerable "apostolic" pressure on the Rwandan President Misago was indeed released (to the dismay of many banyarwanda!) from prison in 2000 and has (with a particular display of vatican sensitivty) been reinstated as bishop of Gikongoro. The reaction mr Mutagwera, president of the association IBUKA (remembrance): "Misago had participated in meetings in which statistics of Tutsis already killed and of those still to be kiled were handed out" .
Unfortunately for Rwanda the catholic church is still a formidable power bloc in the country. A refusal to set Misago free would undoubtedly have resulted in severe political and even economical repercussions due to the international power of the catholic church.

One of the worst scum-priests, the parish priest of Nyange, the reverend Athsanase Seromba had the 2000 Tutsi who thus far escaped the genocide, buried alive in his church by having the church demolished by bulldozers. African Rights have found witnesses who stated that Seromba after the demolition of the church entered what was left over of the building and personally shot any survivors. This character Seromba has for a while been active as a priest in Italy, in the chiesa dell'Immacolata near Florence. After his escape from Rwanda, via Congo and Nairobi. From there he had been smuggled out by the white fathers, and been taken in by the Marist Brothers. In Italy he lived there under a false name Sumba Bura He has since been on the wanted list of the Rwanda Tribunal in Arusha. It is not unlikely that under pressure of the Vatian Italy has not extradited him to Arusha. It was only due to international pressure that he finally gave himself up in february 2002.
Sadly there were many more priests like that. The reports of African Rights on these priests are clear enough about that. So is its letter to Pope John Paul II in which it names a number of priests and their atrocities. The Pope never bothered to reply.

Apart from this bishop and the many priest-genocidaires, there were also nuns involved.
Two benedictine nuns from Sovu, sisters Gertrude and Maria Kizito, have been accused of sending 7000 (!)tutsis, who had sought refuge in the convent, to their death. Many nuns have abandoned their Tutsi co-sisters to the interahamwe, who raped them and then murdered them. These two nuns lateron found refuge in Belgium, where eventually they were tried and condemned (2001) to 13 and 15 years respectively in a belgian jail. Here too, when the trial was being conducted, the Vatican through the OPUS Dei figure Navarro-Valls interfered, asking himself whether 'the two accused nuns had been given an opportunity to tell their views of the facts in a strange country ever so far from Rwanda...Awaiting the outcome of the trial the vatican cannot but express its surprise.."" (!!!???)
One of the things sister Kizito had done (22 april 1994) was to provide petrol to set fire to a gararage where a dozen Tutsi families had hidden. They were all burned alive. Witnesses have even stated that sister Kizito herself had lit the fire. Brothers of these 2 nuns were members of the Interahamwe.!

(to be continued)