Chaplains of the Militia: Guardian Shorts ebook extract
800,000 people died in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. This is an extract
from Chaplains of the Militia - the account of the part played by one
institution with more responsibility than most. The church.
theguardian.com, Tuesday 15 April 2014 06.04 EDT
Chaplains of the Militia Photograph: Adam Jones (CC BY-SA 2.0)/Guardian Shorts
The refugees didn't blame Father Wenceslas for not being able to
protect them. They accused him of failing to try and of openly
collaborating with the killers.
The international tribunal's long indictment of Father Wenceslas says
he is 'individually responsible for the crime of Genocide because he
planned, instigated, committed or otherwise aided and abetted others
in planning, preparation or execution of the crime by virtue of his
position.'
It says he deliberately inflicted on Tutsi civilians 'conditions of
life calculated to bring about their physical destruction' and that he
worked in league with 'government, political and military leaders',
naming Renzaho, Nyirabagenzi and Mukandutiye among them.
The indictment says the priest helped identify Tutsi civilians in the
church 'knowing that they were targeted for killing' and then
attempted to cover up the killings by instructing Tutsi refugees to
hide the bodies from the UN and journalists.
ICTR prosecutors say that after Father Wenceslas fled Rwanda he was
heard justifying 'the handing over of Tutsis to the Interahamwe' and
continued to call the victims inyenzi.
The Tutsis in the St Famille did not have to look very far for an
example of a very different kind of priest. Next door to the church is
the Catholic pastoral centre of St Paul. Its warren of single storey
rooms around a large gardens was also packed with several thousand
refugees, Tutsi and Hutu, at the height of the genocide.
The priest in charge of St Paul was Father Célestin Hakizimana.
'I would stand in front of the Interahamwe. They had dozens of
grenades. All the refugees would be cowering in their rooms, none in
sight. When they used to come I always tried to be on the main gate in
my robes. They would say: "Priest, we know you have inyenzi here. Give
us your list of refugees"'.
Célestin did have a list but he left off the names of those he knew
were most wanted by the Interahamwe. They included men who went on to
prominent positions in the post-genocide government but also an
ordinary driver. 'I didn't register the names of the people I knew
were very much wanted. I made up names.'
Sometimes the militia broke through and dragged off people to murder.
But whereas the survivors of the St Famille have little to say that is
good about Father Wenceslas, those in the St Paul centre praise the
courage of Father Célestin even though he was not able to save
everyone's life.
One day, Célestin was summoned to a meeting with Kigali's mayor and
Interahamwe leaders, including Angéline Mukandutiye. He found
Wenceslas waiting too. Father Célestin said the group berated him for
protecting 'the inyenzi'.
The next day, Interahamwe militiamen forced their way into the St Paul
centre and rounded up about 100 people. Célestin snatched all the cash
he could find and began to buy lives.
Some of the Interahamwe were very drunk. They grew increasingly
agitated that so many Tutsis were slipping through their fingers.
Father Célestin saved 60 people by the time the money ran out.
Devastated, he realised he could no longer stop the Interahamwe. The
militia removed 40 Tutsis, all were murdered. Yet, by the end of the
genocide, the priest had saved hundreds of lives.
Father Célestin said he had his own run ins with Wenceslas. The two
trained together and he felt he could speak frankly as he berated his
fellow priest for calling the Tutsis inyenzi and for identifying to
the militia those who requested to be evacuated to the rebel zone.
Father Célestin said he asked Father Wenceslas: 'What are you doing?
Don't you know these people will be killed if the lorries don't come?
Are you trying to get them killed?'
The other priest walked away.
Father Célestin said that when he strongly criticised Father Wenceslas
for wearing a gun and flak jacket, the priest was sanguine: 'It's OK,
I want to defend myself against your inyenzi friends.'
'I don't know why he did what he did,' Father Célestin told me. 'I
blame him for three things. The language. Calling Tutsis inyenzi when
he spoke to the Interahamwe. I blame him for his friendship with
officials and soldiers. He would drink beer with them in front of the
refugees. And I blame him for putting on a gun and a military uniform.
All of this was a sin against God.'
Father Célestin made another observation about his fellow priest.
'During the war he would curse Tutsis but he would hide some Tutsis.'
Father Wenceslas did indeed save some Tutsis. The other refugees in
the church eyed them with envy and sorrow. They had access to food and
water, and could protect their families as well as themselves. But at
a price.
Survivors said that some women and girls were offered their lives in
return for sex.
Among those who bowed to the pressure was a young woman called Agnes.
I met her a couple of years after the genocide. She described the
priest stopping to talk to her at the back of the church and inviting
her to his rooms. She had been there long enough to interpret the
invitation as a threat.
'I knew where his room was. I went there and waited on the steps.
There were other girls. I asked them what I should do. They said that
if I wanted to live then I had better do what the priest wanted. They
told me what would happen. One of them asked me if I had ever done it
before. I said "no", I was only 16. I asked her how a priest could do
such a thing. They said God has forgotten us.'
Agnes returned to her mother when the priest released her. She sat
weeping on the pew. Her mother said prayers. Father Wenceslas later
gave the teenager and her mother food.
A succession of young women tramped to the priest's quarters. At other
times, when the rebel shelling got too close to the church, he would
take one or two of them and head to a nearby hotel.
Some women said they were able to get their families evacuated by
submitting to Father Wenceslas but those who refused his advances
returned to the mass of refugees with a mark against them.
One of those who viewed the priest's exploitation of the desperate
situation of young women was Rose Rwanga.
'Father Wenceslas would stop and talk to the Tutsi girls. If they went
to his rooms they were eventually evacuated. Those who refused were
not evacuated. It was no secret that he was sleeping with them. You
could see them go to him at night,' she said.
One of those the priest propositioned was Rose's daughter, Hyacinthe.
'She told me what he wanted. She refused.'
The UN launched another rescue mission in mid-June. It passed off much
like the earlier one, with the priest and the Interahamwe taunting
those who left and threatening Tutsis who did not get away.
Hours later, the RPF launched its own rescue mission in the middle of
the night to save the refugees at St Famille and St Paul. The rebel
soldiers helped many of the Tutsis in St Paul to get across the front
line to safety. But the refugees in St Famille, thinking the
Interahamwe was outside, refused to open the heavy wooden doors.
The next day the militia and Father Wenceslas, already furious that
Tutsis had escaped in the UN convoy, raged over the RPF raid.
Survivors said the priest warned that the militia was coming to get
them. Shortly afterwards, the Interahamwe flooded into the church, led
by the schools inspector, Angéline Mukandutiye, who, according to
survivors and the international tribunal indictment, Father Wenceslas
was consulting with ahead of killings.
She climbed onto the tabernacle to get a better view of potential
victims. One of those called forward to die was Jean-Claude Rwabakika,
who arrived at the church after his parents were murdered. The
Interahamwe took him outside and shot him.
'The shooting went on for a long time. They shot us one by one,' he
said. 'The bullet hit me in the neck and I collapsed unconscious to
the ground. The bullet went straight through my flesh and didn't stay
inside me.'
After the militia left, fellow refugees dragged the unconscious
Jean-Claude into the church and bandaged his wound.
The militia also tried to grab Aimable Uwurukundo.
'I saw them calling people one by one. I realised there was nothing
else to do but start running. We went over a large wall next to St
Paul. It was difficult for the killers to follow. They were loaded
down by their guns.'
Another name called was Rose Rwanga's daughter, Hyacinthe.
'My daughter pleaded with Wenceslas Munyeshyaka to hide her. He
refused. I'm sure it's because she refused his propositions. He could
have saved her like he saved other girls.'
'My only daughter was shot dead next to me.'
Father Wenceslas arranged a funeral for the young woman. Rose
describes the service as 'crocodile tears' on his part.
Rose Rwanga accuses Father Wenceslas of a direct hand in her
daughter's death. So does the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda, saying in its indictment of the priest that he 'instigated an
Interahamwe to kill a Tutsi girl named Hyacinthe Rwanga'.
This is an edited extract from Chaplains of the Militia: The tangled
story of the Catholic church during Rwanda's genocide
by Chris McGreal (Guardian Shorts £1.99 / $2.99)
http://www.google.ca/gwt/x?gl=CA&hl=en-CA&u=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/apr/15/chaplains-of-the-militia-guardian-shorts-ebook-extract&source=s&q=hakizimana+celestin
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