NEVER AGAIN?
Sibomana, André
NEVER AGAIN? The church & genocide in Rwanda Andre Sibomana Andre Sibomana, a Rwandan Catholic priest, journalist, and human-rights activist who was an outspoken critic of both past and present...
...others have called into question the behavior of several priests during the killings...
...Whatever we may think of these accusations, we can't help wonder about the role of the church...
...In my capacity as director of Kinyamateka, the church's organ of social communication, I had several clashes with the archbishop of Kigali, Vincent Nsengiyumva, who...had been a member of the MRND central committee [Rwanda's ruling party from 1978 to 1994] and remained a close friend of Juvenal Habyarimana [the MRND leader and Hutu Rwandan president whose assassination precipitated the outbreak of the genocide...
...The church & genocide in Rwanda Andre Sibomana Andre Sibomana, a Rwandan Catholic priest, journalist, and human-rights activist who was an outspoken critic of both past and present Rwandan governments, died in March 1998...
...In December 1991, priests from the diocese of Kabgayi published a forty-page document, "Let Us Convert to Live Together in Peace...
...Now translated into English, the book consists of interviews with Sibomana by two French journalists...
...laure guilbert & herve deguine: Some people accuse the church of having actively participated in the ideological preparation of the genocide...
...In this document, they attacked the passive attitude of the church in the face of "mismanagement of public funds, corruption, social injustice, individual freedoms, the war, and AIDS...
...When I received Cardinal Roger Etchegaray [president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace] in May 1993, this is what I said in my speech: Your Eminence, let me be frank with you: In the context of human-rights violations, the main moral authority in the country, namely the Roman Catholic church, should have made every effort to rectify the situation and revive people's consciences...
...Actually priests were among the first to denounce this weakness, long before the genocide...
...All rights reserved...
...This excerpt focuses on the role of the Catholic church during the 1994 tribal genocide in Rwanda, largely perpetrated by the majority Hutu against the minority Tutsi...
...In the aftermath of the killings, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front defeated Hutu forces and took control of the nation...
...Originally published in French by Desclee de Brouwer, 1997...
...Reprinted with the permission of Pluto Press...
...As you can see, there was deep unease within the church...
...Instead, it has distinThis article is adapted from Hope for Rwanda by Andre Sibomana: Conversations with Laure Guilbert and Herve Deguine, translated by Carina Tertsakian, Foreword by Alison Des Forges...
...When the bishops were informed that a genocide was about to happen, when they saw the increase in Commonweal I Tk November 5,1999...
...A few of us were aware of this and wanted to find a way to go forward...
...The church did nothing to prevent tragedies which it could have prevented...
...His book Hope for Rwanda was published in France in 1997...
...In early 1992, a pastoral letter took up the same arguments and called for a meeting of a national conference...
...It's a reality which no one can deny...
...andr£ sibomana: There is no doubt that the Roman Catholic church did not live up to its moral responsibility in the years which preceded the genocide...
...guished itself by its complicit silence and its absence in the most stricken places...
...and with a few exceptions, Roman Catholic officials have lost their credibility because of their complacent attitude toward the state...
...The cry of distress of the people of God has not always been heard in time...
...Published in English with a postscript by Pluto Press, 1999...
Vol. 126 • November 1999 • No. 19
