Reminders of Rwanda Genocide Prompt Concerns for Future in Sudan
Episcopal News Service. April 8, 2004 [040804-2]
Matthew Davies
Even as the world remembers the tenth anniversary of the devastating genocide in Rwanda, during which more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu extremists, religious leaders and human rights activists are drawing attention to the crisis unfolding in the Darfur region of the Sudan, where shocking reports of ethnic cleansing are being conveyed and nearly 20,000 people have been displaced during the last week.
Speaking to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) at a special meeting April 7 to observe the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who has drawn up a five-point plan to prevent future genocides, said that "a sequence of deliberate actions has been observed that seem aimed at achieving a specific objective: the forcible and long-term displacement of the targeted communities, which may also be termed 'ethnic cleansing.'" This assessment, Annan said, was based on reports from international staff on the ground in Darfur, which has witnessed first-hand what is happening there. "Such reports leave me with a deep sense of foreboding," Annan said. "Whatever terms it uses to describe the situation, the international community cannot stand idle."
Annan proposed to send a high-level team to Darfur to gain "a fuller understanding of the extent and nature of this crisis, and to seek improved access to those in need of assistance and protection." He added, "It is vital that international humanitarian workers and human rights experts be given full access to the region, and to the victims, without further delay. If that is denied, the international community must be prepared to take swift and appropriate action."
Access urged
After hearing reports from the Sudanese Primate, Archbishop Joseph Marona, on the current situation in the Sudan at the House of Bishops meeting in March, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold issued a statement April 8 urging the international community, to "make it clear that it...will act immediately to take swift and appropriate action if full access to the region and protection for humanitarian groups is delayed."
Supporting the call for a special rapporteur on human rights for Darfur, Griswold said, "We believe these steps necessary to fulfill the commitment of the General Assembly of the United Nations last December when it called 'on all states to act in accordance with the Convention for the Prevention and Suppression of the Crime of Genocide in ensuring that there is no repetition of the events' that occurred in Rwanda."
Conversion and confession
During a short service of remembrance for the Rwanda genocide, held at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York and attended by ecumenical guests and survivors of the genocide, prayers of peace were read and messages heard from those who had been caught up or involved in the devastating atrocities 10 years ago.
One of the messages came from a person who had participated in the genocide and had since become a Christian. "I knew some of the people whom I killed," he said. "I got involved because of ignorance, the temptation to loot people's belongings and bad authorities persuading us that we had to kill the Tutsis." After the genocide he was taken to Kigali and imprisoned for seven years. "During imprisonment I became a Christian, confessed, and apologized for what I did," he said. "I encouraged others to confess too."
Bishop Christopher Epting, deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations, who attended the service, said, "I found the simple liturgy for Rwanda in the chapel at the Church Center for the UN very moving. Penitence for the Church's failure and even complicity in the genocide was mixed with the fervent hope that, even out of such tragedy, reconciliation and new life may emerge. That is, after all, the Easter message."
'Never again'
During a speech to the United Nations General Assembly (GA), a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda, Jacqueline Murekatete, recalled a chilling experience of her Hutu neighbors: they were like family to her, she grew up and played with the children, her mother fed them, yet they were the same people that took her parents and six siblings to the river where they were hacked to pieces.
"There were not many people at the General Assembly chamber without tears," said Archdeacon Taimalelagi Fagamalama Tuatagaloa-Matalavea, Anglican Observer at the United Nations, adding that the clear message is that the victims of the genocide must not die in vain. "They would be living today if the international community heeded signs, warnings and the plight of the people of Rwanda. Therefore, [Murekatete's] plea was not to allow what happened to her people be repeated in Rwanda, Sudan or anywhere else in the world."
The archdeacon said that Murekatete's words should have reminded those present of the resolution they unanimously adopted three months ago which stressed that "never again" should genocide be permitted to occur anywhere in the world. She added, "It should be everybody's duty now in the global community to take the GA resolution and Jacqueline's plea seriously by stopping the killing in Darfur immediately."
Situation on the ground
Over the years, the Episcopal Church's Office of Government Relations (OGR) has set up meetings with its Sudanese partners at the State Department and the National Security Council, as well as working with members of Congress to address critical human rights issues in Sudan. "The office has been able to provide critical information for policy makers seeking first-hand reports of the situation on the ground," said OGR's director, Maureen Shea.
Canon James M. Rosenthal, director of communications for the Anglican Communion Office, visited the Sudan with former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. Having traveled to almost every province in the Communion, he said, he has never seen such desperation as in the south of Sudan. "It's like a lingering captivity of which there seems to be no escape," he said. "But their faith is so strong...it's their faith that keeps them going."
A representative from Rwanda will be attending the Anglican Peace and Justice Network meeting, which will be held in Jerusalem in September, 2004, at which the issue of conflict transformation and the rebuilding of civil societies will be high on the agenda, said the network's director, the Rev. Brian Grieves. "This has become a pressing priority for several Anglican provinces," he said. "The cycle of violence and reprisal just has to be broken and the church must rise to this task."