Christian churches participation in politics

Grégoire Kayibanda, the first President of Rwanda from 1962 to 1973, was a former seminarian, the private secretary of Bishop Perraudin, and senior news editor of the Roman Catholic newspaper called Kinyamateka.⁷²³ “His struggle was in the perspective of a Christian who was against animism, the feudal system and communism.”⁷²⁴

Then after, Grégoire Kayibanda started to “denounce the injustices of which the Bahutu were the victims, recalling their humiliation as a means to mobilize the masses through scapegoating, and stating that genuine decolonization should be preceded by the abolition of colonization of the black by the black.”⁷²⁵ He created in June 1957, the Muhutu Social Movement, based on the program outlined by the Bahutu Manifesto of March 1957 which he helped to write.⁷²⁶

In September of the same year, the White Fathers sent him to Belgium for Journalism studies.⁷²⁷ After his return to Rwanda, on September 26, 1959, he created the Party for the Emancipation of the Hutu People (PARMEHUTU).⁷²⁸

The PARMEHUTU party was an exclusively ethnic political party whose strategy generated violence and hatred; it was officially supported by the Roman Catholic Church. For Bishop Perraudin, “there was a need to repair the injustices of which the Bahutu had been victims.”⁷²⁹ PARMEHUTU, spreads violence against Batutsi and Muslims with the full support of the Christian Church. In 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1967, and 1973, massacres were carried out under President Kayibanda‟s PARMEHUTU.⁷³⁰ It is estimated that 10.000 Tutsi were killed and 200.000 to 300.000 fled, including Muslims, to neighboring countries during that period.

723 Déogratias Ndayishimiye, The role of Church before, during and after Burundi and Rwanda Genocide, Jakarta 2009, p.10.

724 Context of religion and violence, <http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2007/2007-9.pdf>, 20th August 2016.

725 Context of religion and violence, <http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2007/2007-9.pdf>, 20th August 2016.

726 Emmanuel Viret, Kayibanda Gregoire, online Encyclopedia of mass violence, < quoted Lemarchand, 1970:150- 151,<http://www.massviolence.org/Kayibanda-Gregoire>, 23rd January 2013.

727 Ibid. quoted Linden, 1999:325.

728 Ibid.

729 Context of religion and violence, <http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2007/2007-9.pdf>, 20th August 2016.

730 Oscar Gasana and Vern Neufeld Redekop, Ibid, p128.

Juvénal Habyarimana, the second President of Rwanda from 1973 to 1994, with his Regime, prepared the genocide. Bishop Perraudin head of Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda from 1956, promoted Bishop Thaddée Nsengiyumva to the top post as Kigali Archbishop in 1976. He became a member of the Central Committee of the ruling party, MRND (Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement). “Besides, he came from the same Northern region as the president of the Republic and as such, had direct contacts with the highest authorities, participating in the definition of the country‟s political, economic, military, and ideological standards.”⁷³¹

In the “face of massive abuses of human rights against the Batutsi minority, the Roman Catholic Church found itself delivering the same speech as the Habyalimana regime.”⁷³²Speeches and messages hide the truth of maintaining a political and social exclusion of Tutsis in the country. In the opposite, the “Church actively shaped the ethnic and political realities that made genocide possible by acting to define and politicize ethnicity, legitimizing authoritarian regimes, and encouraging public obedience to political authorities.”⁷³³ The leadership of the Church offered moral support to the Habyarimana regime⁷³⁴, and the Church proclaimed peace, love and justice but practiced discrimination and hatred; the Church itself became a place where Tutsis were discriminated^.735

Far from being condemned by the Church, this discrimination was rather practiced at its very heart. Furthermore, all nominations or promotions to leadership posts obeyed ethnic criteria, certainly with a discretion skillfully hidden by sweet, correct words in ecclesiastical milieu.⁷³⁶Ethnic balance, a quota system officially limited the number of Tutsi admitted to schools was practiced in Christian schools and Church administration. By refusing to condemn the scapegoating of Tutsis early, or to denounce the violent attacks against Tutsis, Church leaders

731 Ibid, p.129.

732 Ibid.

733 Timothy Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, Cambridge, University press, 2010, p.10.

734 Henrieke Buit, Ibid 735 Ibid.

736 Timothy Longman, Ibid, p.95. Quoted A. Karamaga, Les églises protestantes et la crise rwandaise, p.302.

allowed ethnic tensions to escalate uninhibitedly.⁷³⁷ Churches helped to give legitimacy to actions initiated by the government and military by teaching obedience to authority and allying themselves publicly with established powers.⁷³⁸

Up to 1994, “the Church never actively promoted reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi. Neither did the Church reflect upon its role during colonial period. It was blind to the cultural violence that lay at the foundation of the Rwandan society.”⁷³⁹ About 95% of Rwandan churches were used as killing places⁷⁴⁰ because the majority of Tutsi people find refuge there. During the genocide they believed to be safe and to be protected in different churches. “According to local officials, 17.000 bodies were exhumed from one set of latrines beside a Church, only one of several mass graves at the site.”⁷⁴¹ In general, Christianity as a system of belief and Christian churches as institutions served more as a support for the organizers of the genocide than as a hindrance⁷⁴²

These tensions will continue long time into the future because some Roman Catholic and Protestant churches recently become monuments of memory and “its contents are a reminder of the horrifying violence that took place at these site during Rwanda's 1994 genocide.”⁷⁴³ Many churches were left bloodied, desecrated and cluttered with bodies. Clergy were not able to protect the people who hided themselves in the churches. The Roman Catholic Church denied any responsibility for the genocide. In 1996, Pope John Paul stated: the Church itself cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of its members who have acted against evangelical law.⁷⁴⁴

Many Catholic clerics, including Bishop Augustin Misago of Gikongoro region in the south of Rwanda, have been accused of taking part somehow in the execution of the genocide. Accused in April 1999 by his henchmen of exposing his own

737 Ibid, p.171.

738 Ibid, p.197.

739 Henrieke Buit, Ibid, p.42,

740 Alexandre Kimenyi, Trivialization of Genocide, the case of Rwanda, <http://kimenyi.com/trivilization- of-genocide-the-case-of-rwanda.php>, 02nd December 2012.

741 Timothy Longman, Ibid, p.5.

742 Ibid, p.196.

743 Nyamata Genocide memorial site, <http://www.cnlg.gov.rw/stories/memorial-site/nyamata-genocide- memorial-site>, 30th November 2012.

744 Henrieke Buit, Ibid, p.10.

priests and Tutsi students to the massacres in the province, Bishop Misago spent 26 months in preventive detention before being acquitted in late 2000 by a Kigali tribunal. Bishop Misago was the highest-ranking Catholic to be charged by Rwandan Justice.⁷⁴⁵

The role of religion in violent conflict can be visible at the surface, but can also be hidden.⁷⁴⁶In the case of Rwanda, some bishops, priests, nuns, and pastors did not hide their hate and violence against Tutsis. They participated in the killings or actively encouraged the killers because they felt protected by their leaders.⁷⁴⁷

In an interview published by De volstrant, on 26^th June 1994, in the middle of the Genocide, Bishop Phocas Nikwigize, of the Ruhengeri Diocese declared that: “as in all wars, there were spies… Batutsi were collaborators, the friends of the enemy. They were in contact with rebels.

They had to be eliminated so that they do not betray us.”⁷⁴⁸

Tutsi Seven Adventist pastors gathered at Mugonero and sent a letter to Ntakirutimana Elizaphan,⁷⁴⁹ president of the Seventh Day-Adventist Church of Kibuye, informing him that they were in risk to be killed, but he reportedly responded: “you must be eliminated. God no longer wants you.”⁷⁵⁰This report shows the level of hatred which pushed a Church leader to change and to transform the God‟s love of Christianity.

Also, Father Rutembesa compares Bishop Nikwigize‟s comment to racism when he said that Batutsi are cunning, hypocritical and bad people by nature. The lack of courageous stands against evil was partly responsible for the 1994 Genocide.⁷⁵¹ Tutsi refugees reported that in

745 Parnell McCarter J., In Rwanda Rome’s shame is Islam gain, Puritan News Weekly, <http://www.puritans.net/news/rwanda040804.htm>, 30th November 2012.

746 Henrieke Buit,Ibid, p.9.

747 Ibid, p.11.

748 Oscar Gasana and Vern Neufeld Redekop, Ibid, p. 129.

749 Elizaphan Ntakirutimana and his son were found guilty of Genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal of Arusha.

750 Timothy Longman, Ibid, p.194.

751 Context of religion and violence, <http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2007/2007-9.pdf>, 20th August 2016

several locations Hutu priests had barred the doors of their churches to death squads, claiming that they could not be killed in a church.⁷⁵²