problems. It was catholics v catholics so how can you claim that to be
Post by FranLast month two Benedictine nuns were convicted in a Belgian court of
collaborating in the murder of thousands during the 1994 genocide in
Rwanda. Sister Gertrude Mukangango and Sister Maria Kisito were
sentenced to fifteen and twelve years' imprisonment, respectively, for
their roles in turning over to their Hutu killers seven thousand Tutsi
who had sought asylum in the nuns' monastery. In addition to betraying
those who had found refuge at the monastery, the sisters willingly
provided the gasoline used by Hutu militiamen to burn down a garage in
which five hundred Tutsi men, women, and children were hiding. The two
women subsequently fled to Belgium, Rwanda's former colonial ruler, in
the hope of escaping prosecution by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),
the Tutsi-led government now in control of the traumatized Central
African country. More than eight hundred thousand Tutsi were killed in
less than three months at the hands of the Hutu majority in what is
considered one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century.
There appears to be little doubt about the women's guilt. Crucial to
the prosecution was the willingness of other Benedictine sisters to
testify against them. Sister Gertrude and Sister Maria were tried
under a Belgian law that allows the state to prosecute crimes
committed in another country. The convictions are unprecedented
because this is the first time that a jury in one country has
convicted anyone of genocidal acts that occurred in another country.
Human-rights activists are hopeful that the Belgian verdicts will give
new impetus to the prosecution of war crimes.
Of course, bringing the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to
justice is notoriously difficult, especially when the killers comprise
a large portion of the population of an entire society, as was the
case among the Hutu of Rwanda. There are still one hundred thirty
thousand people suspected of genocidal acts in jails in Rwanda.
Currently, the UN is conducting trials in Tanzania of a few of the
accused, but the process has been fitful, and only eight convictions
have been secured in seven years. With few surviving witnesses,
evidence hard to come by, and severe logistical and financial
constraints, justice can seem all but unattainable. Added to these
obstacles and complications is the poor internal human-rights record
of the current government, which has also played a large role in the
civil war and widespread massacres now convulsing the Congo.
In this context, the Belgian verdict appears remarkably fair and a
welcome instance of measured justice. And that makes the Vatican's
response to the convictions doubly disappointing. Joaquin
Navarro-Valls, Vatican spokesman, went out of his way to cast doubt on
the motives of the prosecutors. "The Holy See cannot but express a
certain surprise at seeing the grave responsibility of so many people
and groups involved in this tremendous genocide in the heart of Africa
heaped on so few people," he said. While acknowledging that those
Catholics guilty of murder must accept full responsibility for their
acts, Navarro-Valls insisted that the church "cannot be held
responsible for the sins of its members."
This sort of language is, of course, familiar from "We Remember," the
Vatican's parsimonious 1998 statement on the Holocaust. Unfortunately,
the institutional and theological defensiveness that colors such
Vatican reactions cast more doubt than light on the church's claims.
To be fair, Navarro-Valls's statement can be understood as a response
to the way the RPF has used the Catholic church as a scapegoat in an
effort to deflect attention from its own crimes and abuses of power.
But the Vatican is wrong to raise such suspicions in the context of
the Belgian trial, which was not under RPF influence, and which
represents a significant step toward the successful prosecution of
human-rights crimes. It is equally dispiriting to learn that prominent
Belgian lay Catholics and church officials attempted to block the
trial altogether, and, when that failed, tried to discourage the other
Benedictine nuns from testifying against the indicted sisters.
Rwanda is a predominantly Catholic country, and the church's
missionary work early in the last century often did exacerbate ethnic
antagonism between Tutsi and Hutu. That said, the church cannot be
held responsible for the genocide, which was planned and carried out
by Hutu leaders motivated by political grievances and ethnic hatred.
Catholic bishops, priests, and sisters suffered martyrdom at the hands
of the militias, and ordinary Hutu Catholics were killed trying to
protect Tutsi neighbors. It is equally true, however, that other
clerics and nuns supported the Hutu genocide or stood by silently as
it unfolded. Catholics were found on both sides of this enormous
crime, and it is sobering that the pervasive Catholic institutional
and cultural presence in Rwanda proved little impediment to such
mind-numbing savagery.
Faced with these facts, the church's response to the lawful
prosecution of Catholics involved in mass killings should never hint
at grudging acceptance or parochial interests. That those schooled and
trained for visible leadership in the church succumbed to hateful
violence is an occasion for self-examination and humility, not
self-serving lectures about the distinction between the church "as
such" and her fallible sons and daughters. Some Catholics never tire
of warning that the tolerance and pluralism of Western democracy has
resulted in our losing sight of the existence of moral truth.
Democracy is doomed, they say, if it does not recognize the
relationship between God and humankind as well as the relationship
between morality and politics. There is something to this critique.
But the genocide in Rwanda once again reminds us that even when the
church enjoys a place of preeminence in a culture, there is no
guarantee that the truth about the relationship between God and
humankind will be a living reality in people's hearts, even among
those who represent the official church.
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As to it being intertribal, the division between "Hutu" and "Tutsi"
was entirely artificial, a creation of the Belgian rulers. Those with
ten cows were declared Tutsi, and those without, Hutu, in some cases
splitting families.
One of the backwashes of the genocide has been the growth in Islam,
which was not involved.
FRAN