How 'accomplice' to Rwanda genocide turned up in a rural English pulpit
Jonathan Ruhumuliza defended the murderous regime 20 years ago. Now,
although denounced by human rights groups, he is a priest in
Worcestershire
Saturday 15 February 2014 22.00 GMT
The atmosphere in Kigali, capital of Rwanda before the killings began.
Photograph: Liz Gilbert/theguardian.com
Chris McGreal
By the time Bishop Jonathan Ruhumuliza decided to tell the world what
was going on in Rwanda, the mass graves of the 1994 genocide were
already overflowing.
The Hutu extremist regime that seized power two months earlier had
unleashed the notorious militia, the interahamwe, and the army in a
systematic attempt to exterminate the country's Tutsi population. The
rate of killing was astonishing - 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered in 100
days - as the prime minister and members of his government toured the
country egging the murderers on. Even priests were among the killers
as churches were turned into killing centres.
But this is not what Ruhumuliza, then a bishop in Rwanda's Anglican
church and now a Church of England priest in a Worcestershire village,
told the world at the height of the genocide. In letters to foreign
churches and a press conference before a tour to Europe and North
America, he called the murderous government "peace loving", claimed it
was working hard to stop the killings that it was actually organising,
and falsely blamed a rebel army for the massacres.
Human rights groups denounced him at that time as a propagandist for
the genocidal regime. Even his own archbishop called him an "errand
boy" for the Hutu extremist government. Other accusations followed,
including from the London-based group, African Rights, that Ruhumuliza
allegedly refused shelter to Tutsis facing imminent death.
Two decades later, Ruhumuliza is a priest at the Norman church in the
village of Hampton Lovett and under investigation by the Church of
England, which said it was not fully aware of the "disturbing"
accusations against him until they were brought to its attention by
the Observer. The Rwandan authorities are also investigating the
bishop as an alleged accomplice to genocide.
Ruhumuliza declined to talk to the Observer about his part in the tragedy.
The former bishop of Worcester, Peter Selby, who appointed Ruhumuliza
in 2005, said the Church of England should consider referring the
investigation to outside authorities.
"I think that over the whole child abuse thing, it's become clear that
what the church has to do, and do immediately, is refer cases to the
police. Because there's a recognition that the church, when it has
presumed it was competent to deal with such things, clearly wasn't."
The Anglican church is the second largest in Rwanda after Roman
Catholicism. The archbishops of both churches were close to the ruling
Hutu elite when the genocide broke out. Afterwards they were
widelycriticised for their failure to use their influence to try to
stop the killings and for their refusal to condemn the politicians
organising the massacres. Many of their bishops faced the same
criticism, including Ruhumuliza, who was at the forefront of the
Rwandan Anglican church's misrepresentation of the genocide.
In May 1994, about five weeks into the killing, Ruhumuliza wrote to
the secretary general of the All Africa Council of Churches, Jose
Chipenda, defending the genocidal government by parroting the regime's
propaganda that blamed the killings on its opponents, the Rwandan
Patriotic Front rebels led by Paul Kagame, who is now Rwanda's
president. Ruhumuliza wrote that the RPF was "destroying everything,
killing everybody they meet while the government is trying to bring
peace in the country".
The bishop portrayed the genocide as a populist outburst of anti-Tutsi
hatred caused by the rebels' actions and the government as working
hard to stop the massacres. He said the prime minister, Jean Kambanda,
and members of his cabinet were touring Rwanda to appeal for unity and
peace.
"After the setting up of the new government, we see that things are
changing in a good way. The ministers are doing their best to bring
back peace to the country although they are facing many problems," he
wrote to Chipenda.
In fact, Kambanda and his ministers were travelling across Rwanda to
urge the killers on and broadcasting speeches that were thinly
disguised calls for murder. Kambanda and several members of his
cabinet were convicted of genocide by an international tribunal.
In June 1994, Ruhumuliza and the Anglican archbishop of Rwanda,
Augustin Nshamihigo, held a press conference in Kenya. The pair again
claimed that it was the RPF leading the massacres and that the
government was attempting to stop the killing.
"The RPF had planned in advance to kill their opponents. They had
weapons to kill these people. This has become a big hindrance to the
work of pacification by the interim government, the church and other
peace lovers," said Ruhumuliza.
Human Rights Watch offered a scathing assessment. "Far from condemning
the attempt to exterminate the Tutsi, Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo
and Bishop Jonathan Ruhumuliza of the Anglican church acted as
spokesmen for the genocidal government at a press conference in
Nairobi. Like many who tried to explain away the slaughter, they
placed the blame for the genocide on the RPF because it had attacked
Rwanda. Foreign journalists were so disgusted at this presentation
that they left the conference," it said in its comprehensive account
of the genocide, Leave None To Tell The Story.
Nshamihigo's successor as archbishop, Emmanuel Kolini, accused
Ruhumuliza of collaborating with the Hutu extremistgovernment and
described the Anglican church in Rwanda during the genocide as
"corrupt".
In 1998, fresh allegations against Ruhumuliza emerged in a document
sent by African Rights to the World Council of Churches. It accused
him of collaborating with another Anglican bishop, Samuel Musabyimana,
who was later charged by the international tribunal with genocide
crimes. African Rights said Ruhumuliza refused shelter to Tutsis who
were facing imminent death and that he failed to try to save people
after another Anglican bishop, Adonia Sebununguri, said a group of
Tutsis were "wicked people" who deserved to be killed.
After the genocide, Ruhumuliza was made bishop of Kigali but his
presence proved divisive within Rwanda's Anglican church as other
clergy demanded he be called to account for his actions. In 1996, he
apologised for not speaking out strongly enough against the killings
and asked to be pardoned "because I did not continue to energetically
condemn either the tragedy which was in progress or the state
communiqués which were broadcast on the radios during this time".
The bishop added he should have used the pressconference in Nairobi
"to publicly condemn the genocide which was taking place in Rwanda".
But Ruhumuliza's critics dismissed the apology because they said his
real crime was not what he didn't say but what he did in defending the
regime overseeing the genocide.
Despite calls from within the Anglican church for Ruhumuliza to appear
before a church court, he was moved to Canada in 1997 and then
appointed bishop of Cameroon.
Selby said he had given Ruhumuliza a position in Worcestershire after
a letter from the archbishop of Canterbury's office asked if any
bishop could find a place for him because he had finished studying in
Birmingham and was unable to return to Rwanda. "I saw Jonathan, who
comes over as a very nice, humble, pious person," said Selby. "I said:
'Is it the genocide that means you can't go back?', and he said: 'Well
the government would let me back. It's just that there are people who,
in the aftermath of what happened, might go after me or my family'."
Selby said that as British law requires the consent of the archbishop
of Canterbury for foreign priests to take up positions in England, the
background check was done by Lambeth Palace. But he said he did later
have concerns.
The bishop of Stafford offered the Rwandan priest a job so he could
make a living. That required a work permit. Selby said the Home Office
spent about two years considering the request and then turned it down
in a letter he described as semi-literate. "The only thing it referred
to, and the only thing I ever knew about that had ever come up in
conversation with Jonathan, was that press conference in Kenya which
he has always been disarmingly frank about as a lack of courage on his
part, and a lack of good sense and an ill-judged thing to have done.
That was the only evidence I ever had of anything that might be called
culpable," he said.
But Selby said that Ruhumuliza's "account doesn't square" with what he
has now seen in contemporarynewspaper and human rights groups reports
of the Rwandan bishop's statements and actions in 1994.
The church paid for Ruhumuliza to challenge the Home Office ruling and
the decision was withdrawn before an appeal was heard. He was granted
six-month renewable visas.
Selby conceded that there were other concerns, including when
Ruhumuliza told him he had made an application for asylum in the UK,
that all might not be well during the visa request - the immigration
authorities questioned Ruhumuliza for 10 hours.
"I said to him: 'That's a very weird thing for you to do because
you've always said that you didn't have a problem with the government
of Rwanda. Secondly, that if the government of Rwanda ever raised any
issues about which they wished to charge you, you would immediately be
prepared to return to Rwanda.' He said that many times in
conversations," said Selby.
Selby said that Ruhumuliza replied that he was not afraid of the
Rwandan government but of continuing anger in Rwanda over the
genocide.
The Church of England would not discuss the accusations against
Ruhumuliza but it issued a statement saying that "extensive checks
were undertaken through Lambeth Palace" before he was appointed in
2005 and that "no evidence was found of complicity in the Rwandan
genocide". It said that Archbishop Kolini had "commended" Ruhumuliza
to the archbishop of Canterbury.
But the church added: "We are disturbed by allegations from African
Rights, of which we have only just been made aware, and they are being
investigated." Kolini, who has retired as archbishop, was not
available for comment.Selby said he spoke to his successor as bishop
of Worcester, John Inge, and that he was determined to get to the
truth.
"He and I are very clear that he has got an issue to deal with and he
needs to be the person that deals with that. I don't think we can do
other than confront Jonathan with this material. Then we get into our
own disciplinary procedures which are quite cumbersome," he said.
"This can't be left. No one thinks that it can. It's because he and I
were affronted by what we read."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/15/rwanda-genocide-priest-accomplice-in-england
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SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
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