Action Rwanda in the Wake

¶ … Action Rwanda

In the wake of the Rwanda tragedy, a tragedy beyond the scope of human imagination there are many ghosts. As described by Fergal Keane of the BBC who was present in Rwanda, about a month after the killing there had begun and who revisits the country still today to reconnect with the people he encountered there, the country was oppressively silent, there were no voices and no people except soldiers he describes Rwanda as "Screaming Silently" and the survivors of the atrocities as ghosts, devoid of expression, emotion or visible thought. These people were so shocked by the events that they witnessed, neighbors killing neighbors amongst an already charged civil war, the visible carnage left in its wake with piles of bodies lying about leeching into the earth, with no one left to bury or pray for them has left the people in a state of unnatural calm a silence that is soul deadening. Estimates from investigations have concluded that in the span of 100 days more than 800,000 people had been slaughtered, almost the entire number being civilian Tutsis and a few Hutu moderates. Prior to that first day in April when the president of Rwanda's plane was shot from the sky upon landing and the killing began most of these people were living a simple life, very few were activists or even resistors to the racially motivated cataloging and identification system that had been employed by the Hutu government and had then been used by their appointed killing squads to attempt to erase the Tutsi from Rwanda, before the Rwanda Patriotic Front (the Tutsi rebel army) took control of the nation and removed the Hutu from power.

In the very real context of the killings and in retrospect the failings on the part of the international community have been posthumously attacked and most would believe rightfully so. As Grono Alex of the UN peace keeping force stated in the very moving retrospective film that was very recently mailed to me, Ghosts of Rwanda states about the experience it was like "the world out there had disappeared." The UN forces were cut to 450 unarmed peacekeepers all from third world countries and the rest of the world refused to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, despite constant reporting of the speed and scale of the events. The UN resolved to send 6,000 troops to Rwanda after 6 weeks of killing had occurred but in seeking soldiers the UN was refused by more than 80 countries. In retrospect president Clinton stated in a press conference in Rwanda that he regrets that he was not fully aware of the speed at which Rwanda was being engulfed in conflict and then in another interview to American journalists he stated that with a mere 10,000 U.S. troops the lives of more than half of the civilians who had been killed could have been saved, but the U.S. And the international community failed to respond. In the wise words of Anslem in Book I, man's inability to restore what he owes to God, an inability brought upon himself for that very purpose, does not excuse man from paying; for the result of sin cannot excuse the sin itself. (14)

The international community has a grave sin to pay reparations for and the value of these reparations must be judged by God to be worthy of peace and reconciliation in Rwanda, and all the other places where atrocities are ignored.

Rwanda will likely never be the same and Rwandans as well as all those who failed to act, failed in their missions to help for lack of support, witnessed any of the atrocities or went to Rwanda to try to begin the peace and reconciliation that is needed to allow Rwanda to move forward a changed nation, will never be the same. For some this means stepping away from faith, shaking a fist at a God who could allow such senseless destruction of human life. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae demonstrates that the justice of God is not the justice of man and that the justice of man will not reward those who wish to reconcile injustices with the Lord's word. "...whatever is in God, is His essence. But justice cannot belong to this. For Boethius says (De Hebdom.): "Good regards the essence; justice the act." Therefore justice does not belong to God." (1)

The BBC reporter Fergal Keane remembers the vision of bodies strewn in and around a church in Nyarubuye, a place he visited while traveling with the advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front before the forces eventually won the civil war, as he was leaving he encountered the greater than life sized starkly white statue of Jesus, arms open to offer protection, with the juxtaposed vision of a rotting human body at his feet. Though Keane professes to a lack of faith the vision engulfed him with the need to pray. As he was leaving the scene of destruction and death, he began to recite the Our father prayer, remembered from his childhood of faith:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. *

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us to the time of trial, * but rescue us from the evil one. *

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Mat 6:9-15)

This prayer is a prayer of reconciliation and peace prayed with vehemence and conviction, and with desperate heartfelt need. This is the prayer of Rwanda, in its bid for peace and reconciliation in the wake of immense tragedy and grave social losses, comparable to almost no others.

Reconciliation:

Without such prayers, of the sustained kind there will be no peace in the hearts and minds of the Rwandan Ghosts. Prayer and action driven by prayer is the avenue in which true reconciliation will take place, after all the trials and political visits that have already occurred there will be prayer sustaining survivors. Those who chose to help to be brave, to stand in front of safe houses, without arms and stop angry armed peoples from entering to kill those seeking shelter. The brave men and women, such as Mbaya a Senegali UN peacekeeper who against command smuggled hundreds to safety, the Red Cross doctors and nurses who sought and received aide from the world to directly effect the lives of the Rwandan wounded and displaced, the Valentina's who lived with dire injuries amongst the bodies of her family and others in the Nyarubuye church for a month before she was found and relocated to safety, and who now wishes to be a doctor, will serve as the guiding lights to see the millions through such devastation. The convictions of these souls will engender the future.

Acknowledgement must also be made that though there were a brave few who stepped forward seeking to help, even at the risk of their own lives, there were also many who through contrition or vile action assisted in the slaughter of 800,000 innocent peoples. These individuals must live every day remembering their part in the near total destruction of their country and their way of life. These people must be comforted and forgiven and reconciliations that have already begun in the nation should be fostered through continued and increased shared worship and peaceful conversations.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 for if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? 47 and if you greet only your brothers and sisters, * what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Math 5:43-48)

In an interview with Helen Cobban, an outspoken contributing editor of the Christina Science Monitor, speaks of the condition of Rwanda in 2004, the effects of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, slated to finish in 2008, that the positives that she sees in Rwanda today are not associated with the extensive outlay of resources and man hours used to prosecute those 60 of some 200 recognized leaders of the Rwanda genocide, in fact she believes the trials are furthering the continued racial division, are related to the incredible manner in which faith has stepped forward out of the ashes and sought to reconcile the individuals in need of healing. Cobban a witness to the aftermath in fact notes that the activity of the evangelical community is so active that in many places Hutus directly involved in the genocide are worshiping beside Tutsis who survived the massacre. ("Rwanda Today: The International Criminal Tribunal and the Prospects for Peace and Reconciliation; Interview with Helen Cobban," 2004 at (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/today/)

The works that foster such shows of faith must continue and accelerate to meet the needs of the wandering souls who still carry the burden as ghosts of the Rwandan spirit. The Catholic church is also noted by Cobban as a very active member in this process and this is reflected in the words of Pope John Paul II in his Dives in misericordia, where he intones that the faithful take an anthropocentric view upon the state of humanity and step away from worldly designations of chauvinism of race, gender, and creed as a delimiting designation allowing humanity to shirk acknowledgement of its connectedness as one.

The more the Church's mission is centered upon man -- the more it is, so to speak, anthropocentric -- the more it must be confirmed and actualized theocentrically, that is to say, be directed in Jesus Christ to the Father. While the various currents of human thought both in the past and at the present have tended and still tend to separate theocentrism and anthropocentrism, and even to set them in opposition to each other, the Church, following Christ, seeks to link them up in human history, in a deep and organic way. (2)