wfn.org | CHURCHES CALL FOR END TO ETHNIC VOCABULARY

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

March 21, 1997 
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications, 
Anglican Communion Office
London, UK

[97.3.3.3]

RWANDA: CHURCHES CALL FOR END TO ETHNIC VOCABULARY 

(APS)The Churches in Rwanda have appealed to the global press and
electronic media, international and ecumenical authorities, to stop
using the ethnic vocabulary "which encloses Rwandans in the shackles of 
'Hutu-Tutsi' as this term has become deadly".

The Church in Rwanda has also been challenged to condemn any ethnic
ideology as well as all other negating attitudes and statements that are
a hindrance to reconciliation among the Rwandese people.

These recommendations were made by Rwandan Church leaders attending an
ecumenical seminar in Kigali this month on the subject - Christianity
before and after genocide in Rwanda. They called on the Church of the
future in  Rwanda to be one of hope, a Church that integrates the
positive aspects of  people's culture, that is poorer but freer, more
attentive to people's  concerns and challenges from the society, to
which is should react in a truly evangelical manner.

The seminar was organised by the Protestant Council of Rwanda and 60
church leaders, including Roman Catholics, were present.  They noted
that while the  1994 genocide was a sign of failure on the part of the
local and universal  Church, the Church should now acknowledge its
responsibility in the genocide, repent, humbly ask for forgiveness and
make amends.

In recommendations made at the end of the seminar, Church leaders
pointed out that the Church should not thwart human justice but should
encourage people to repent and forgive. They also recommended that the
Church should create a place in their communities where members,
victims, culprits and witnesses, can relate the truth about the past
through discussion and confession.  Whilst saying that the Church should
be deeply involved in reconciliation the seminar emphasised that in
undertaking this process the requirements of truth, justice and making
amends should be respected.

Members of the seminar acknowledged the role of the Church as a key
institution in society that has responsibility for elaborating,
circulating and sustaining the ideology of ethnicity in Rwanda. Noting
the history of the ethnic divides in Rwanda and the role of missionaries
and the Church in that, the members of the seminar went on the say that
from 1959 until the time of the 1994 genocide, the Churches in Rwanda
had never, in an official and explicit way, said no to the violence and
massacres of the innocent. On the contrary, they noted, Church men and
women have been part of these humiliating acts either by helping
passively, opening taking part in the crime or by justifying the
unacceptable.

"After the genocide, the Church continues to act as if there was
nothing," the Church representatives noted as they challenged the
Rwandan Church to come out openly in support and solidarity with its
members and help them instill healing and reconciliation in Rwanda."