Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka: In the Eyes of the Survivors of Sainte Famille (review)

Book Review African Rights, with photographs by Jenny Matthews. Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka: In the Eyes of the Survivors of Sainte Famille. London: African Rights, 1999. Pp. 96, paper. $10.00 US Reviewed by Samuel Totten, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville The headline of the 21 July 2007 edition of the New Times (billed as ‘‘Rwanda’s First Daily’’) reads, ‘‘Genocidaires Munyeshyaka, Bucyibaruta Are Finally Arrested.’’ In the article itself, journalist James Munyaneza reports the following: Munyeshyaka, who was until his arrest an active priest, was last November sentenced by Rwanda’s Military Tribunal to life imprisonment in absentia for his role in the slaughter of over 200 people at St[e]. Famille Parish, St. Paul Pastoral Centre and CELA [Centre for the Teaching of African Languages] in Kigali during the 1994 Genocide. Rwanda has for the last decade been calling on France to apprehend Genocide suspects on her territory, so did the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) last month. . . . The two men [Munyeshyaka and Laurent Bucyibaruta] have been arrested a month after the ICTR prosecution transferred their cases to Paris, implying that they will most likely be prosecuted in France. However, what remains unclear is whether Paris will extradite Munyeshyaka to Rwanda to serve his life sentence since he is already a convict. According to an ICTR charge sheet, Munyeshyaka, 49, is charged with genocide and three crimes against humanity (rape, extermination and murder). (2) When Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka: In the Eyes of the Survivors of Sainte Famille was published in 1999, Munyeshyaka was still on the run from justice. Although Munyeshyaka had been arrested in France, following the filing of a petition by a lawyer on the behalf of the Rwandese community in France (which included relatives of various victims of the genocide and the survivors of the massacres at the Parish of Sainte Famille) in June 1995, he was—following the hiring of top-flight Parisian lawyers by the French Catholic Church to defend their priest, much legal wrangling, and a series of convoluted and highly illogical legal decisions—set free. This was a man who not only ‘‘let the interahamwe roam around the church freely, drawing up their death-lists, but exposed us to danger by calling [the Tutsis] Inyenzi in front of them [the Interahamwe]’’ (71). His release constituted a gross mismanagement of the legal system and a horrible insult to those seeking justice on behalf of those Tutsis who were murdered because of his actions and his failures to act (e.g., his silence in the face of the murderous activities of the Interahamwe and other Hutu extremists) during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. This ninety-six-page book begins with a succinct but valuable discussion of the background leading up to the massacres perpetrated at the Parish of Sainte Famille in Kigali; the massacres themselves; the role of Father Munyeshyaka during the period of the massacres; the political influence of the Catholic Church in Rwanda; Samuel Totten, review of Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka: In the Eyes of the Survivors of Sainte Famille. Genocide Studies and Prevention 2, 3 (November 2007): 289–294. ß 2007 Genocide Studies and Prevention. doi: 10.3138/gs.2.3.289 a summary of the charges against Munyeshyaka as they stood in 1999; the legal proceedings against him through 1999; and the ongoing debate in France over his innocence or guilt, as well as ‘‘a plea for action’’ by Africa Rights, calling on the Catholic Church to make ‘‘an effort to establish the validity of claims against the [Rwandan] clergy’’ and to bring those cases to justice that merit it (10). The rest of the book (11–96) features more than forty first-person accounts by survivors of the Sainte Famille massacres. In addition to harrowing accounts of the murder of innocents, these first-person statements provide a host of information about those who sought shelter at the parish; the vastly different ways in which Hutu and Tutsi were treated by the different parish fathers; Munyeshyaka’s relationships with the Hutu extremists, the Tutsis, and the general Hutu population; the views Munyeshyaka espoused during his sermons, in which he denigrated the Tutsis, accused them of culpability for the ongoing civil conflict, and stated...