Em 1987, um visionário, Little Pebbles, afirmava ouvir a voz e ver a Virgem Maria – seria a mesma de Fátima?. Estas vozes eram sangrentas e pressagiavam o apocalipse. Depois a Virgem apareceu no monte Kihebo, aparição esta considerada verdadeira pela Igreja Católica.
As visões afectaram a tlodos desde a 1ª dama do Ruanda a Vincent Nsengiyumva, bispo de Kigali e membro do comité central do Movimento Revolucionário Nacional de Desenvolvimento, o partido de hutus que dominava o país.
Estas visões sancionadas pela Igreja e pelo poder vigente culminaram numa série de profecias de que as «baratas» tutsis iriam sofrer. A Igreja e o Bispo participaram no massacre de mais de 1 milhão de tutsis e hutus moderados, incluindo padres – o que não é de estranhar uma vez que a Igreja já tinha feito algo semelhante na América do Sul -. Os que se refugiavam na Igreja acabavam por ser apanhados mais facilmente que os outros, pois os padres e as freiras participavam nos esquadrões da morte.
Várias foram as noticias de jornais sobre padres acusados e considerados culpados:
“The UN-backed tribunal has increased the sentence of a convicted Rwandan Catholic priest from 15 to life sentence.
Athanase Seromba was sentenced to serve 15 years in jail in December 2006 after he was proven guilty of being responsible for the deaths of 2,000 Tutsis who sought refuge in his church in Nyange, western Rwanda during the country's 1994 genocide. He was charged with aiding and abetting genocide.
He was not satisfied with the outcome of the trial, and decided to file an appeal. But the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda realised that Father Seromba deserved life sentence.
Seromba was the first Catholic priest to be tried for Rwandan genocide. He denied all the charges brought against.
But prosecutors argued that the priest did ordered not only ordered the bulldozing of the church, but he also invited the Hutu extremist militia to kill any survivors with matches and guns. During the operation, all those who sought refugee inside the building were killed. [i]
Um capelão military foi condenado a 25 anos de prisão:
“A United Nations tribunal sentenced a Roman Catholic priest, a former military chaplain, on Friday to 25 years in prison for genocidein Rwanda. The priest, Emmanuel Rukundo, 50, left, a Hutu extremist, on at least four occasions betrayed Tutsi refugees hiding in a seminary to soldiers, who subsequently killed them, the court said. The tribunal had earlier handed life sentences for genocide to two other Hutu priests. Clergy members were both perpetrators and victims of the 1994 genocide. Ten priests, two bishops and the archbishop of Kigali were held captive and killed by Tutsi rebel soldiers, now part of the Rwandan Army. Members of the Tutsi military have not been prosecuted by the court.”[ii]
Vários padres já foram condenados ou encontram-se em julgamento:
“Arusha, 14 May 2009 (FH) - A Rwandan Hutu Catholic Priest, Joseph Ndagijimana, accused of having partaken in the 1994 genocide committed against mainly ethnic Tutsis, will appear on Tuesday before a semi-traditional Gacaca Court in southern Rwanda, reports Hirondelle Agency.
The priest, who is accused of having killed Tutsis in Kabgayi, has been in prison for more than ten years.
Another Catholic priest from the same Diocese of Kabgayi, Josephat Hitimana, also accused of genocide, fled at the beginning of the week after being summoned by a Gacaca court.
Some believe that Hitimana has left for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where he has family.
He was to appear before the gacaca court of the Nyamabuye sector, Muhanga district.
Several clergymen were convicted by Rwandan justice for their role in the 1994 genocide.”[iii]
Poderia pensar-se que as freiras não seriam levadas por este ódio irracional. Nada está mais longe da verdade. Testemunhas oculares afirmam que algumas freiras ajudavam as milícias levando gasolina para queimarem inocentes, muitos deles vivos.
“On 22 April 1994, Séraphine Mukamana had hidden herself in a garage when militias attacked a convent in Sovu in southern Rwanda. "We sought refugee in the garage and closed and barricaded the doors. Outside a bloodbath is going on. Suddenly an orphan begins to weep as it gets to hot in the garage. At once, the killers approach the garage." As the refugees refuse to come out, the militia leader Emmanuel Rekeraho decides to burn them alive in the garage. "'The nuns are coming to help us. They are bringing gasoline,' I heard [Rekeraho] say. Looking through a hole that the militiamen meanwhile had made in the wall, I indeed saw Sister Gertrude and Sister Kisito. The latter was carrying a petrol can. Shortly upon that, the garage is set on fire." [iv]
Actualmente o filme, O Hotel Ruanda, fala da história verdadeira de um grande herói ruandês, Paul Rusesabagina que se lembra do padre Wenceslas Munyeshyaka falar da mãe tutsi como «barata». Este padre, depois de ter ajudado a matar inocentes e violado jovens, que lhe pediam protecção, ainda conseguiu fugir para França onde exercia a sua actividade de pastor do rebanho.[v]
Sobre este padre ainda se pode ler nas notícias internacionais:
“In 2006, a military tribunal in the Rwandan capital Kigali found another local Catholic priest guilty of rape and other genocide crimes. Wenceslas Munyeshayaka, who resides in France, was sentenced to life in prison in absentia.
Munyeshyaka was accused of delivering hundreds of Tutsis refugee adults and children at his Holy Father Cathedral in Kigali to the genocidal militias, which brutally slaughtered them.
He had been jointly tried with General Laurent Munyakazi, leader of the army in Kigali's Nyarugenge District, where the church is located.
"Munyeshyaka and Munyakazi worked with militias to deliver hundreds of innocent children, women and men to militias to be killed," Brigadier-General Karenzi Karake, a judge of the military tribunal, told a packed courtroom.”[vi]
NOTAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS
[i] http://www.afrol.com/articles/28303
[ii] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/world/africa/28briefs-PRIESTGUILTY_BRF.html
[iii] http://www.hirondellenews.com/content/view/3310/182/
[iv] http://www.afrol.com/Countries/Rwanda/backgr_cross_genocide.htm
[v] Hitchens C. Deus não é grande. Publicações Dom Quixote. 2007.
[vi] http://www.afrol.com/articles/28303
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