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'God Spends the Day Elsewhere, but He Sleeps in Rwanda'

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'God Spends the Day Elsewhere, but He Sleeps in Rwanda' ‘God spends the day elsewhere, but He sleeps in Rwanda’ About Catholicism, conflict and peace in Rwanda Henrieke Buit 0432857 Master Thesis December 2011 History of International Relations Utrecht University Supervisor Prof. dr. B.G.J. De Graaff Second supervisor Dr. D.M.L. Onnekink Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. psalm 85:10 Contents Introduction .......................................................................................................................................3 Chapter 1 Status Questionis ............................................................................................................7 § 1.1 Academic context ...................................................................................................................7 § 1.2 Religion and conflict ...............................................................................................................8 § 1.3 Religion and the Rwandan genocide ..................................................................................... 10 § 1.4 Religion and peace ............................................................................................................... 14 § 1.5 Religion and the Rwandan peace-process ............................................................................ 17 Chapter 2 The Origins of Hutu and Tutsi ....................................................................................... 22 § 2.1 The origin of ethnic groups ................................................................................................... 22 § 2.2 The origins of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa ....................................................................................... 24 Chapter 3 Colonial Times ............................................................................................................... 28 § 3.1 Catholicism .......................................................................................................................... 28 § 3.2 Colonial rule in Rwanda ........................................................................................................ 29 § 3.3 Catholicism under colonial rule ............................................................................................. 32 § 3.4 The U-turn ............................................................................................................................ 35 Chapter 4 Patterns of violence ....................................................................................................... 39 § 4.1 Patterns of violence .............................................................................................................. 39 § 4.2 The Kayibanda years ............................................................................................................ 41 § 4.3 Catholicism under Kayibanda ............................................................................................... 42 § 4.4 The Second Republic ........................................................................................................... 43 § 4.5 Catholicism and the Habyarimana-regime............................................................................. 45 Chapter 5 The crises of the 1990s .................................................................................................. 49 § 5.1 Religion and conflict ............................................................................................................. 49 § 5.2 The October War .................................................................................................................. 51 § 5.3 Forced democratization ........................................................................................................ 52 § 5.4 The Church‘ response to violence ......................................................................................... 54 Chapter 6 Genocide ........................................................................................................................ 59 § 6.1 Religion and genocide .......................................................................................................... 59 § 6.2 Towards the genocide .......................................................................................................... 62 § 6.3 Peace initiatives of the Church.............................................................................................. 63 1 § 6.4 Genocide and renewed war .................................................................................................. 66 § 6.5 Catholicism and the genocide ............................................................................................... 69 Chapter 7 After Genocide ............................................................................................................... 77 § 7.1 Religion and post-conflict peacebuilding ............................................................................... 77 § 7.2 The quest for justice ............................................................................................................. 82 § 7.3 Catholicism in de aftermath of the genocide .......................................................................... 88 § 7.4 Towards restorative justice ................................................................................................... 95 § 7.5 The quest for reconciliation ................................................................................................... 99 Chapter 8 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 107 § 8.1 Catholicism before the genocide ......................................................................................... 107 § 8.2 Catholicism during the genocide ......................................................................................... 111 § 8.3 Catholicism after the genocide ............................................................................................ 113 § 8.4 Concluding remarks............................................................................................................ 118 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................. 119 2 Introduction ‗God spends the day elsewhere, but He sleeps in Rwanda‘1 Rwandan saying Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa. The Rwandans proudly used to say that their country was so beautiful that God spent the night there. Rwanda never attracted much attention until it experienced a genocide in 1994. By that time, many Rwandans thought of their ancient saying and whispered that God had been asleep during the genocide.2 This thesis is about the role of Catholicism in the dynamics of conflict and peace in Rwanda. The role of religion in politics and society gained a lot of attention in recent years. At the end of the Cold War, many scholars and politicians thought they would live to see the worldwide triumph of liberal, democratic ideas. Before long, their hope faded. New intrastate wars flared up that involved guerilla groups, rebel armies and ordinary citizens. Democratic values seemed to perish where leaders mobilized their constituency on the dangerous mix of ethnic identity, religious ideas and economic interests. In the last decades of the twentieth century, religious motives played an important role in the Islamic revolution in Iran. Conflicts in Sri-Lanka, Sudan and the Balkans also proved that religion was an important factor to reckon with. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 drew attention to religiously motivated terrorism. The people that were eager to witness the triumph of capitalism and democracy saw their dream ending in violence. In many cases, religion could be at least partially blamed. The genocide in Rwanda was one of the most horrific conflicts of the 1990s. During a relatively short but intensive genocide between 500.000 and 800.000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed.3 Many of them were killed by ordinary citizens who participated in the massacres with machetes. But the genocide was not a spontaneous outburst of ancient hatred. The genocide was part of a political strategy of a small elite of extremist Hutu who desperately tried to hold on to power. They felt threatened in their position. On the one hand, a war was going on with a Tutsi rebel army. On the other hand, their power was waning because of an ongoing democratization process.4 The international community stood by and did nothing while genocidal violence spread across the country. Three months of killings completely disrupted Rwanda‟s society. The Hutu extremists failed in their effort to hold on to power. A new government was installed that had to rebuild the country. After the violence was stopped and the bodies were buried the people of Rwanda had to find a way to deal with the legacy of the genocide. How could justice be done when so many people had been perpetrators? How could Hutu and Tutsi reconcile after so many Tutsi had been killed because of their ethnic 1 Joseph Sebarenzi and Laura Mullane God Sleeps in Rwanda: A Journey of Transformation (Simon & Schuster: London, 2011) 79. 2 Ibidem. 3 Alison Des Forges „Numbers‟ Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (Human Right Watch, International Federation of Human Rights: New York/Paris, 1999) [available online http://bit.ly/pi3QRj, accessed
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