wfn.org | Rwandan Lutheran Church Calls for Preventive Measures against

["Frank Imhoff" <Frank.Imhoff@elca.org>]

Rwandan Lutheran Church Calls for Preventive Measures against Genocide
LWF's Contribution to UN Thematic Discussion on Early Prevention of
Genocide

GENEVA, 18 March 2005 (LWI) * Eleven years after the genocide in
Rwanda, an official of the Lutheran church there has called upon the
United Nations (UN) to "learn from our mistakes of the past and to
determine what approaches work in the prevention of genocide" in the
future.

Based on what he experienced during the 1994 killings in his country,
Rev. John Rutsindintwarane, general secretary of the Lutheran Church of
Rwanda (LCR), appealed to the community of nations to take seriously all
warning signals that suggest an impending genocide.

His statement formed the basis of a Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
contribution to a UN thematic discussion on genocide prevention that
took place in the context of a meeting of the UN Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) between 28 February and 1
March 2005 in Geneva, Switzerland. The UN Committee is the body of
independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its state
parties.

Rutsindintwarane described malicious government propaganda directed
against ethnic minorities, religions or skin color as a clear sign of an
impending genocide. This was how the looming genocide in Rwanda became
apparent two years before it actually occurred. The LCR official urged
the UN to "send warnings to states which sponsor or generate such
propaganda" in due time.

In order to prevent genocide before it happens, it was necessary to
work on "trust building with people who are both perpetrators and
victims of [hatred]," he said. Rutsindintwarane asked the UN to
support
such an approach, pointing out that international assistance was
essential for local communities in crisis to reconstruct and engage in
conflict transformation successfully.

The LCR general secretary urged that warnings expressed by UN staff
members be heeded, as they were best able to assess the looming conflict
situation. General Rom*o Dallaire, Commander of UN peacekeeping troops,
who was sent to Rwanda in 1993, had repeatedly sent warnings to the UN
headquarters. Radical Hutu militias in the Central African nation killed
at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate members of their own ethnic group
between April and July 1994.

Mr Peter Prove, LWF Assistant to the General Secretary in the Office
for International Affairs and Human Rights (OIAHR) emphasized that to
prevent genocide before it happens, the LWF has been increasing its
level of active cooperation with CERD and other human rights treaty
bodies. These treaty bodies rely to a significant extent on information
provided by civil society sources, in order to get a true picture of the
situation in any given country.

According to Prove, "The LWF wishes to encourage the further
development of international mechanisms to prevent genocide and other
forms of human rights violations."  The CERD has developed an early
warning mechanism that has an obvious role in this regard.

The LWF Geneva secretariat affirmed its role as a bridge between the
LCR and CERD in order to convey perspectives from the LWF constituency
in Rwanda on steps that could be taken by the international community to
better guard against genocide recurrence.

Rutsindintwarane is a Tutsi who survived the genocide in a refugee camp
near the Tanzanian border. He is a leading figure in the 20,000-member
LCR, which was officially registered in the country in 2001. It joined
the LWF in 2002. Among other activities in Rwanda, the LWF runs a
project for the reintegration of former genocide perpetrators in
society, with the aim to sustaining long-term peace. (597 words)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 138
member churches in 77 countries all ove
r the world, with a membership of
nearly 66 million Christians. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work.
Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service.
Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the
dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be
freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]

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