I'm an American journalist traveling way outside my comfort zone, living for half a year in Tanzania and trying to cast a fresh pair of eyes on the complexities of development in one of the poorest places in the world.

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9th April 2010

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Sunday was Easter, and we made two brief stops at Kigali churches, one a musically-satisfying African-Anglican service in an auditorium at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology and the other at the Roman Catholic Church of Sainte-Famille, in central Kigali just a few steps down the hill from our hotel. The Sainte-Famille service was crowded, with perhaps a few thousand people seated and standing in the large sanctuary, and many more milling around outside during the lengthy service. We stood at the back and couldn’t follow much, but took in the building. Like many churches, it was a place where people sought sanctuary during the killings, and an estimated 20,000 people fled here (it is a large church, but unclear how 20,000 people could possibly have fit). On the wall, inscribed with the lists of parish priests and years served, we noticed the name of Wenceslas Munyeshayaka, serving in 1993 and 1994. Armed with a pistol and a flak jacket, Munyeshayaka, according to witness accounts and later indictments, ruled over the camp like sadistic dictator and collaborated with the rampaging Hutu militias. He was later accused of demanding bribes to admit refugees seeking protection, separating out the Tutsi refugees and depriving them of food and water, and finally actively participating in the selection and handing over of Tutsis to the militia for slaughter. He was also accused of rape and trading of sexual favors in return for protecting women, according to reports by Africa Rights. Some Catholic priests, of course, acquitted themselves honorably during this period, sheltering and saving refugees; others disgraced themselves and their church by fueling ethnic hatred from the pulpit and actively abetting the killings. I was a little taken aback to see Muneshayaka’s name still on the wall. As it turns out when Kigali fell in July, 1994 he fled with other Hutus to across the border to Goma, Congo. A French religious order, the White Fathers, helped secure his evacuation to France. There, the story gets complicated — there has been a 15-year legal battle involving Rwandan and French prosecutors, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Tribunal. In Rwanda, he was tried in absentia in a military court, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But his legal fate appears now to lie in France, which has been essentially trying to figure out how to try people in its own court for international law violations, which has caused the endless legal maneuvering. Muneshayaka is of course entitled to his defense, and a presumption of innocence, and certainly the Catholic Church’s oft-expressed concerns about the fairness of Rwandan military tribunals may be well-founded. Still, it’s hard not to be thoroughly appalled to read these witness accounts and learn that back in France, as his case proceeded, Muneshayaka was assigned a parish: Gisors and Epte Valley, where he has overseen the chaplaincy college and high schools. Our visit to Sainte-Famille, of course, came as the Catholic Church was again swirling in controversy over its practice of reassigning priests in the face of allegations of sexually abusing children. Perhaps the circumstances are different in the sense that it seems unlikely that, unlike pedophile priests, Muneshayaka‘s crimes are not likely to be repeated in his new surroundings. Still, the church’s ear sounds pretty tin on this one, and I’m surprised that outside a few protests and news stories his case hasn’t gotten more attention. After his conviction in Rwanda, the Church released a statement noting Muneshayaka’s continued presumption of innocence in France and stating the Rwanda conviction is part of a “a context which remains difficult in the country today.” Muneshayaka, meanwhile, probably didn’t do himself any PR favors by co-signing a letter to the pope along with 28 priests after Kigali fell laying blame for the genocide equally on the Hutus and the Tutsi-led RPF, Kagame’s group, which ended the genocide and soon afterward took over the country (This gets into a kind of difficult accounting of a longstanding conflict on which both sides have committed atrocities, but in the context of 1994 is a ludicrous claim: the genocide was perpetrated by Hutu militias against Tutsis and Hutu moderates). Presumably, the Catholic Church’s moral standing is much diminished in Rwanda, but it still a slight-majority Catholic country, and Saint-Famille was very crowded for Easter services. The standing of France, meanwhile, remains utterly in the gutter for its shameful complicity in the events of 1994 (though Sarkhozy did visit last month in an effort to begin to repair relations, showering the country with college scholarships). Next to our hotel were the weed-covered remnants of the French cultural center Kagame closed down in 2006 after a French report on the genocide he didn’t like. But Kagame’s real revenge is hitting the French where it huts them most: their tongue. The extremist Hutu regime understood that a commitment to keeping Rwanda francophone was all they needed to secure French support to prop up the regime, and they got it. Kagame is making France pay, replacing French with English in the schools, on street signs, and as the national language of the future. With the recent switch of schools from a French to English curriculum, the path seems set. French is still fairly commonly spoken here (along with Swahili and Kinyarwanda) and it was easier to communicate in French than in English. But if Kagame has his way, French will be a distant fourth within a generation.

Sunday was Easter, and we made two brief stops at Kigali churches, one a musically-satisfying African-Anglican service in an auditorium at Kigali Institute of Science and Technology and the other at the Roman Catholic Church of Sainte-Famille, in central Kigali just a few steps down the hill from our hotel.

The Sainte-Famille service was crowded, with perhaps a few thousand people seated and standing in the large sanctuary, and many more milling around outside during the lengthy service. We stood at the back and couldn’t follow much, but took in the building. Like many churches, it was a place where people sought sanctuary during the killings, and an estimated 20,000 people fled here (it is a large church, but unclear how 20,000 people could possibly have fit).

On the wall, inscribed with the lists of parish priests and years served, we noticed the name of Wenceslas Munyeshayaka, serving in 1993 and 1994.

Armed with a pistol and a flak jacket, Munyeshayaka, according to witness accounts and later indictments, ruled over the camp like sadistic dictator and collaborated with the rampaging Hutu militias. He was later accused of demanding bribes to admit refugees seeking protection, separating out the Tutsi refugees and depriving them of food and water, and finally actively participating in the selection and handing over of Tutsis to the militia for slaughter. He was also accused of rape and trading of sexual favors in return for protecting women, according to reports by Africa Rights.

Some Catholic priests, of course, acquitted themselves honorably during this period, sheltering and saving refugees; others disgraced themselves and their church by fueling ethnic hatred from the pulpit and actively abetting the killings. I was a little taken aback to see Muneshayaka’s name still on the wall. As it turns out when Kigali fell in July, 1994 he fled with other Hutus to across the border to Goma, Congo. A French religious order, the White Fathers, helped secure his evacuation to France. There, the story gets complicated — there has been a 15-year legal battle involving Rwandan and French prosecutors, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Tribunal. In Rwanda, he was tried in absentia in a military court, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But his legal fate appears now to lie in France, which has been essentially trying to figure out how to try people in its own court for international law violations, which has caused the endless legal maneuvering.

Muneshayaka is of course entitled to his defense, and a presumption of innocence, and certainly the Catholic Church’s oft-expressed concerns about the fairness of Rwandan military tribunals may be well-founded. Still, it’s hard not to be thoroughly appalled to read these witness accounts and learn that back in France, as his case proceeded, Muneshayaka was assigned a parish: Gisors and Epte Valley, where he has overseen the chaplaincy college and high schools.

Our visit to Sainte-Famille, of course, came as the Catholic Church was again swirling in controversy over its practice of reassigning priests in the face of allegations of sexually abusing children. Perhaps the circumstances are different in the sense that it seems unlikely that, unlike pedophile priests, Muneshayaka‘s crimes are not likely to be repeated in his new surroundings. Still, the church’s ear sounds pretty tin on this one, and I’m surprised that outside a few protests and news stories his case hasn’t gotten more attention. After his conviction in Rwanda, the Church released a statement noting Muneshayaka’s continued presumption of innocence in France and stating the Rwanda conviction is part of a “a context which remains difficult in the country today.” Muneshayaka, meanwhile, probably didn’t do himself any PR favors by co-signing a letter to the pope along with 28 priests after Kigali fell laying blame for the genocide equally on the Hutus and the Tutsi-led RPF, Kagame’s group, which ended the genocide and soon afterward took over the country (This gets into a kind of difficult accounting of a longstanding conflict on which both sides have committed atrocities, but in the context of 1994 is a ludicrous claim: the genocide was perpetrated by Hutu militias against Tutsis and Hutu moderates).

Presumably, the Catholic Church’s moral standing is much diminished in Rwanda, but it still a slight-majority Catholic country, and Saint-Famille was very crowded for Easter services. The standing of France, meanwhile, remains utterly in the gutter for its shameful complicity in the events of 1994 (though Sarkhozy did visit last month in an effort to begin to repair relations, showering the country with college scholarships). Next to our hotel were the weed-covered remnants of the French cultural center Kagame closed down in 2006 after a French report on the genocide he didn’t like. But Kagame’s real revenge is hitting the French where it huts them most: their tongue. The extremist Hutu regime understood that a commitment to keeping Rwanda francophone was all they needed to secure French support to prop up the regime, and they got it. Kagame is making France pay, replacing French with English in the schools, on street signs, and as the national language of the future. With the recent switch of schools from a French to English curriculum, the path seems set. French is still fairly commonly spoken here (along with Swahili and Kinyarwanda) and it was easier to communicate in French than in English. But if Kagame has his way, French will be a distant fourth within a generation.

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