Category: Rwanda

Background After the United Nations Group of Experts delivered its interim report on the crisis in the Eastern Congo in 2012 and prior to the issuance of the final report, the Government of Rwanda issued its usual attacks on the facts, methods and conclusions of the report. On November 6th, 2012, an “Ecumenical Letter” ostensibly…

The latest interim report of the United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC has leaked online. The report shows dissension between two factions of M23, one led by Bosco Ntaganda and the other by Sultani Makenga. The Makenga faction was supported by Rwanda, while the Ntagada faction lost Rwanda’s support, and of course Bosco eventually…

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa served as the Secretary General of Rwanda’s ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), as Ambassador of Rwanda to the United States, and as President Paul Kagame’s Director of Cabinet (Chief of Staff). He has authored a book about Rwanda called Healing A Nation: A Testimony: Waging And Winning A Peaceful Revolution…

On February 23, 2011 Rwandan Anglican Bishop Nathan Gasatura spoke during the chapel message at Wheaton College. During his message, he mentioned that he went to high school with Rwanda’s dictator, Paul Kagame: I have been in the presence of the Presidents, about four, in our region, and every time I ask the Lord, “Lord give…

The Bagogwe If the West knows about ethnicity in Rwanda at all, it is in the familiar form of the Hutu and Tutsi. However, there are further sub-groups and clans within these broader configurations. One clan that features prominently in the story of Bishop John Rucyahana and his support for M23 is the Bagogwe clan.…

Gerald Gahima was “central to the rebuilding of Rwanda’s justice system in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, first as the chief of staff to the Rwandan Minister of Justice from 1996-1999, and subsequently as the country’s Attorney General from 1999-2003.” He has just written a book called Transitional Justice in Rwanda: Accountability for Atrocity and was interviewed…

Roger W. Bowen has an essay called “Genocide in Rwanda 1994 – An Anglican Perspective” in the book “Genocide in Rwanda Complicity of the Churches.” Bowen served in Rwanda at the time leading up to the genocide as the representative “of the main Anglican mission society relating to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.”  He traces…

In 2007, All Souls Anglican Church, which was an AMiA congregation at the time, scheduled Paul Rusesabagina, the hero portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda, to speak at their church. However, Rusesabagina had dared to criticize Rwanda’s dictatorial President Paul Kagame in a 2006 book. Word got back to Kagame that Rusesabagina was going to…

Reading about the Anglican Church prior to the genocide shows how the church was totally co-opted by the one party (MRND) state and the Hutu majority. The heterodox Rev. Roger W. Bowen wrote “Genocide in Rwanda 1994 – An Anglican Perspective.” He said of the Anglicans: Within the Anglican Church it was hard for Tutsis…