A week later Misago was in jail–the first Roman Catholic bishop ever to be charged with genocide. The case underscored the Tutsi-led Rwandan government’s continuing anger at foreign nations and international institutions that failed to check the killing in 1994. As the bishop’s trial opened last week in Kigali, it wasn’t clear whether Kisago or the Roman Catholic Church as a whole was in the dock–or why Rwanda was bringing new charges so long after the crimes were committed. Accused both of failing to defend his parishioners and of helping to plan the killing, the bishop will face a firing squad if convicted. “I consider myself a hostage,” Misago told NEWSWEEK.
The government has made no secret of its hostility to the church. Tutsis say that Belgian colonial church officials participated in a divide-and-conquer strategy for dominating the region–nurturing the Hutu-Tutsi hatred that eventually led to the genocide. And once the killing began in 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsi victims died in churches and cathedrals, where they took refuge, thinking that the executioners would not violate the sanctity of holy places, and that the church hierarchy would protect them. More than 20 local Catholic priests and nuns have been accused of collusion with the Hutu militias that carried out the slaughter. Some clerics actually opened the gates of their compounds to the machete-wielding mobs.
Although the pope had appealed for peace after the killing broke out, Rwanda repeatedly demanded an apology from the Vatican for failing to fight the genocide more vigorously. Rwanda is more than 60 percent Catholic. But the Vatican refused to acknowledge any culpability as an institution. Its position contrasted with that of Protestant sects, which apologized early and often. The Rwandan government’s anger grew when the pope appealed for clemency for those facing execution after genocide trials. Rwanda still holds about 125,000 genocide suspects; 2,800 have been tried and more than 30 have been executed.
Hostility began to focus on Bishop Misago three years ago. African Rights, a London-based human-rights group that is close to the Rwandan government, published a report that accused him of having surrendered three Tutsi priests from his bishopric to the Hutu mob during the 100-day killing spree in 1994. The report also said he had ignored a plea for help from 30 schoolchildren in his prefecture who were later slaughtered. The Vatican did not respond publicly, but privately the papal nuncio asked Misago to defend himself in writing. The rights report “caused quite a stir” in Rome, and “efforts were made to find out what happened,” according to a source close to the Vatican. But ultimately the bishop’s explanation stood.
More recently, a propaganda campaign has targeted the Hutu bishop and the Vatican. Progovernment newspapers published a series of articles questioning the need for Catholic missionaries and priests in Rwanda. A hit pop tune accused Catholic missionaries of having “brought the ideology of hatred” into Rwanda. And two days before Misago was arrested, a cartoon in the progovernment weekly New Times showed Misago standing in a field of skulls wearing the pointed hat of a bishop emblazoned with a swastika.
Partly as a result, Catholic churches have begun losing members to Protestant sects. But authorities haven’t wanted to challenge the Vatican directly. The church still has huge influence in the mainly Hutu hinterlands, and the government doesn’t want to complicate its continuing counterinsurgency drive by stirring up a backlash among the devout. The Vatican has already struck back. Its official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, accused the Rwandan government of orchestrating a “campaign of slander.” The editorial also accused Tutsis of perpetrating a genocide of their own against defeated Hutus who fled the country after the genocide.
As Misago’s trial opened, the government’s case looked weak. The first deposition against him was dated two days after his arrest. Although he is charged as a planner of the genocide–a so-called category-one offender–the prosecution’s 300-page file contains no incriminating testimony from any of the meetings Misago attended with officials of the Hutu government. Misago says he met with the officials in order to get permission to feed Tutsi refugees massed in a camp in his district. The bulk of the case appears to be accusations from genocide survivors who say that, as an influential figure, Misago could have exercised his moral authority to save those who had sought sanctuary in schools, hospitals and churches in his diocese.
But the crowd that packed the courtroom was convinced of his guilt. “I lost my mother, my father, my sister and all my brothers,” cried an old woman outside the courtroom. “Even though he had the power to, he never lifted a finger.” The 56-year-old bishop, wearing a pink Rwandan prison shirt with a large silver cross around his neck, compared himself to Christ; his attorney declared the case “political.” But the Rwandan prosecutor, Edouard Kayihura, declared that “This is not the Catholic Church on trial. This is Misago. If it happens that the church is also tried, so be it.” Whatever the three-judge panel finds, Rwanda’s war with the Vatican clearly won’t end with the verdict.
