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In another of the massacres that have punctuated Rwanda's two-month
tribal war, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kigali, two other bishops
and 10 priests were killed on Wednesday by soldiers of the rebellious
Rwanda Patriotic Front.
An official of the rebel group, which is dominated by the minority
Tutsi tribe, acknowledged today that the killings were committed by
``misguided'' rebel soldiers who had been assigned to guard the clerics
at a religious center at Kabgaye in southwestern Rwanda.
All of the slain bishops were members of the majority Hutu tribe and
two of them had ties to the late President, Juvenal Habyarimana, a
Hutu whose death two months ago in a suspicious plane crash sparked
the latest revival of Rwanda's recurrent tribal conflict.
Radio Muhabura, the voice of the rebel front, quoted Lieut. Col. Frank
Mugambaga, the rebel commander in the western town of Gitarama, as
saying the bishops and priests were killed by ``undisciplined soldiers''
who had been sent to guard them. The soldiers thought these clergymen
had been implicated in the earlier massacre of their own families,
according to Colonel Mugambaga. He said the soldiers would be severely
punished.
Last month Pope John Paul II asked the Security Council to declare the
church center at Kabgaye, where some 30,000 refugees, mostly Tutsis,
are sheltering, a safe area and to send United Nations forces to
protect it. But the Council ignored the request and the tiny United
Nations force in Kigali said it could not accept responsibility for
Kabgaye unless it was reinforced.
At that time there were fears that a continued rebel advance on
Kabgaye would cause the Rwandan Army, which was protecting the
refugees, to retreat, leaving them at the mercy of Hutu death
squads. In fact, however, the rebel front managed to capture the
religious center and hold it without the feared massacre
occurring.
Council Backs U.N. Force
On Wednesday, the Security Council voted to deploy a new force of
5,500 soldiers in Rwanda with instructions to protect refugees and
vulnerable civilians and help aid workers caring for them. But the
United Nations has still not been promised all the troops it needs for
the operation, and it will be at least a month before the soldiers it
has collected are fully equipped and ready to start their mission.
Today the British charity Oxfam accused the Clinton Administration of
dragging its feet over deployment of the force, allowing thousands of
people to die.
``During the past months of slaughter, the United States has been the
key player in halting action on Rwanda, creating a series of excuses
and inventing problems that do not exist,'' Oxfam's senior policy
adviser, Justin Forsyth, said in London.
``Its previous insistence on only deploying troops on the borders and
its demand troops are deployed in phases has been nothing but a fig
leaf hiding what is in effect a callous disregard for the lives of
thousands of Rwandans,'' Mr. Forsyth added.
Criticism of Washington
American human rights organizations, like Africa Watch, have been
similarly critical of the Clinton Administration's reluctance to see
the United Nations become involved in the Rwandan fighting. The United
Nations Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has said the
Security Council's slow response to what he has termed ``genocide'' in
Rwanda is ``a scandal''.
In a statement directed to Rwanda's Roman Catholics, Pope John Paul
said today that he joined them in ``deploring the cruel death of
Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva of Kigali; Bishop Thaddee Nsengiyumva
of Kabgaye, the president of the Bishops' Conference of Rwanda; and
Bishop Joseph Ruzindana of Byumba, as well as several priests and
religious officials.''
``May the pastors who disappeared with so many of their fallen brothers
and sisters during fratricidal confrontations find forever in the
Kingdom of Heaven the peace which was denied them in their beloved
land,'' the Pope said.
Human rights campaigners say Archbishop Nsengiyumva, 58, was deeply
involved in the country's turbulent politics as a member of the
central committee of President Habyarimana's party, which has been
accused of planning a campaign of genocide against the Tutsis. Bishop
Ruzindana was a relative of the late President. It was unclear whether
the two Nsengiyumvas were related.
Alison Des Forges, an American expert on Rwanda working with Africa
Watch, said today she has received reports from Belgian Catholic
contacts asserting that at a meeting in Kabgaye on May 24, Hutu
militia leaders presented the Archbishop with a list of 16 priests, a
nun and a lay person they wished to take away. The Archbishop gave his
consent and the people disappeared, according to reports.
Rwanda's U.N. Council Seat
Meanwhile a campaign is getting under way here to remove Rwanda from
its seat on the United Nations Security Council, which is occupied by
a Hutu representative of the Government, which now controls only about
half the country and is generally believed to be responsible for the
majority of the civilian deaths in Rwanda over the last two months.
The United Nations said today that it has received reliable reports of
another massacre on Monday night in which 70 civilians, many of them
presumed to be Tutsis and including seven priests, were killed in the
Nyamirambo district of southwestern Kigali, which is controlled by
Government soldiers and militiamen.
By coincidence, Rwanda is due to take over the presidency of the
Council in September, just as world leaders will be gathering here for
the opening of the next United Nations General Assembly.
The rebel front has already challenged the right of Rwanda's
representative, Jean-Damascene Bizimana, to represent his country on
the Security Council as well as his right to vote on resolutions
affecting Rwanda. Article 27 of the United Nations Charter says ``a
party to a dispute shall refrain from voting.''
So far the United Nations' own lawyers have taken a cautious approach
saying only that the Hutu Government ``can in our opinion legally be
contacted and dealt with by the United Nations in the same manner as
other potential contributors to the peace process in Rwanda.''
The legal department also notes that Article 27 of the Charter has
been ``observed more in the breach than in its implementation,''
pointing out that Britain voted on resolutions on its dispute with
Argentina over the Falkland Islands.
