Search the Episcopal Press and News

Allegations Against Rwandan Church Leaders Haunt Carey Visit

Episcopal News Service. May 18, 1995 [95089]

(ENS) Amid allegations that Anglican church leaders in Rwanda took part in last year's horrific massacre, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey visited the troubled country in May on a five-day mission of compassion and hope.

"The church in Rwanda lost an opportunity to be prophetic during the genocide," Carey said. "The church should have been calling out for justice but by and large its voice was silent."

A genocidal campaign of massacres directed against Rwanda's minority Tutsi population and moderate Hutus, after the killing of Rwanda's Hutu president in April, 1994, was followed by civil war and the exodus of millions of people. The role of some of the bishops, priests and laity in the Eglise Episcopale du Rwanda during the genocide has prompted widespread criticism.

"Our hearts weep because of all the people of Rwanda who have been murdered," Carey said to thousands who packed into the Anglican church in the village of Gahini to greet him. The home of the country's first Anglican mission, Gahini was a scene of horrific conflict during the massacres. Carey said that he had come "not to judge," but to "listen," and to bring greetings of love from fellow Anglicans around the world.

Referring to the tragedy in which at least 500,000 people died, Carey said that "the answers are not easy," and expressed his astonishment that no one has been brought to justice in the year since the genocide. He called for a tribunal to bring those guilty to "the day of justice."

Carey stressed to parents that they should teach their children that "in Jesus Christ all divisions are done away. He doesn't see Hutu or Tutsi, but people."

Troubling allegations against church leaders

During the visit, protesters waved placards naming bishops, including the country's Anglican archbishop, who they claimed were involved in the genocide. On his return trip to England, Carey made a point of visiting Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo of Rwanda and Bishop Adoniah Sebununguri of Kigali on a stop in Nairobi where they and several other bishops fled at the height of the genocide.

Carey said that the bishops had been accused of "being in too close liaison with the previous regime," and that he told Nshamihigo that he should either return to Rwanda or resign his position. A meeting of the Rwandan church's synod is scheduled for June to "discuss the structures of leadership," Carey said. It will be moderated by the Rev. Canon John Peterson, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, who accompanied Carey on the trip.

Carey said he gave Nshamihigo the message from the Rwandan prime minister that the government would welcome back from exile those whose "conscience was clear." The two bishops reported on their ministry with the hundreds of Rwandan refugees who remain, most of them in Uganda and Tanzania, afraid of returning to Rwanda.

Churches desecrated by massacres

Carey visited several massacre sites, including a Roman Catholic church in the village of Nyarubuye where 5,000 people were butchered and the corpses left unburied

"It was deeply depressing to go into a situation where churches, which are symbols of the sacred, became places of deep defilement," he said. "People were herded into places of safety where they could be massacred."

Carey knelt at the altar of the desecrated church to pray for the thousands killed there, and later said that he could almost "hear the screams and crying of people seeking refuge."

He was told that "women were raped before they were mutilated and killed. There were tiny babies and little skulls. In one church there were bodies with feet and hands chopped off before they were killed."

In the village of Ruhanga, an estimated 1,000 people, including the parish priest and his wife, were killed in the church. Because of the killing, the church is no longer used, but Carey laid the foundation stone for a new building.

Signs of hope

Despite the constant reminders of the horrific past, Carey and his party found signs of hope, including a hospital run by Italian volunteers. At an orphanage operated with Swiss staff and support from Compassion International, Carey said that "when there is genocide and war, it is the children who suffer first and most."

Following a separate schedule, Peterson visited a secondary school where all but one of the 50 teachers had fled or were killed. In spite of the horrors of the recent past and challenges remaining, he said that he hoped all "churches of the Anglican Communion would be as exuberant as the Church of Rwanda." He also visited an orphanage run by World Vision and saw the work of Christian Aid, largely supported by English Anglicans, with the Twa people, a pygmy commune in the bush.

On the last day of the visit, Carey visited Barakabaho Foundation, a foster family center and orphanage run by Anglican Bishop Alexis Bilindabagabo. There Carey's wife, Eileen, held a child that had machete wounds in his head while visiting with what remained of a family led by the oldest male, a teenager.

An honor guard of Episcopal bishops, priests and deacons lined the path for Carey's entrance to Kigali Amahoro (or "Peace Be With You") Stadium for a concluding service attended by over 3,000, including the country's vice president and other government ministers. In his sermon, Carey praised both Christian Hutus and Tutsis who stood alongside each other and "have refused to allow the blood of tribalism to transcend the waters of baptism." He stressed that "the angels have not left you. God has not deserted you, and his message of love and compassion is always there for you."

[thumbnail: Horrors of Massacres Evid...] [thumbnail: Archbishop Carey Visits R...]