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“I must now say, however, that I believe that the Lord’s present word to me…now directs me to look beyond Genesis chapters 39-45, and on into the Book of Exodus…The result, as we saw in the story of Exodus, is that God’s sovereign hand which had led His people into Africa (Egypt) in the earlier Book of Genesis, then took a dramatic turn in the Book of Exodus instructing His people that it was now time for them to leave Africa…God then begins to move within the hearts of the Egyptian leadership to make it more and more clear to the people of Israel that Africa (Egypt) could no longer be viewed as their lasting home. I now see a parallel between the Exodus story and the present situation with Rwanda and the PEAR. Things have now been made very clear to me, and I am thankful for the clarity that I now have.” – Chuck Murphy in December, 2011

AMiA 2011-12

It did not take long for Chuck Murphy to disobey the “Lord’s present word” to him. In 2012, He tried to rope Anglicans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) into supporting him shortly after “the Lord” told him Africa was not his home. For a refresher, see this post. Those efforts fell apart due to GAFCON intervention, and AMiA essentially collapsed.

AMiA 2015

Even in its current state of losing most of its churches and leadership, the AMiA continues to meddle overseas, mostly through Kevin Donlon, a man I have written about before,¹ and ‘retired’ Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini. Kolini, who grew up in the Congo (formerly known as Zaire) has served the Rwandan dictatorship in fomenting murderous unrest in that nation and has also fostered relationships there with the help of Donlon and AMiA money. An AMiA press release said:

This spring, The Mission received signed concordats from the Diocese of Kindu and the Diocese of Bukavu, both located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These concordats confirm mutually beneficial partnerships with The Mission under the oversight of Canon Kevin Donlon.

What is “mutually beneficial” about these partnerships? The AMiA gets to brush up it’s credentials with a “we’re really Anglican” fig-leaf of “oversight” as they have from day one. I imagine that Kevin Donlon can attempt to influence more oddball ideas such as the one that Emmanuel Kolini floated in 2010 for “a new Anglican Ecumenical Council, modeled on the Councils of the Early Church with a constitution taken from the ancient apostolic canons (35 & 38) on how a council should function.”² And the Congolese bishops get money and support from the remaining coffers of the AMiA, which is in fact a sort of double-dipping given that the Congolese bishops are also tied to the Congo Church Association in the UK. Don’t forget the $1.2 million or so that went missing in Rwanda while Kolini was in charge — even in its reduced state, I’m sure AMiA can provide some money to these bishops.

Congolese Archbishop Henri Isingoma put it this way:

This decision indeed taken on their own behalf, for the hope to get financial support to run their dioceses, under the influence of the retired Archbishop of Rwanda, the Most Reverend Emmanuel Mbona Kolini, and the lawyer of ASMAW, Canon Kevin Donlon.

The Dioceses that are involved

The AMiA press release goes on:

As a result of these partnerships, leaders from both Dioceses as well as Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, Bishop William Bahemuka of Boga Diocese, Bishop Sospeter Ndenza of Kibondo Diocese and Dr. Ross Lindsay met in Gisenyi, Rwanda, to plan the Anglican Leadership Ministry Institute. This joint project will bring ministry leaders from The Mission to assist lay and clergy from partner dioceses in equipping trainers in leadership development, spiritual formation and parish development. In the coming months, a team of 12 leaders from The Mission plan to work with leaders from Boga, Kindu, Bukavu and Kibondo in both the theory and practice of various areas of ministry.

The map below gives you some idea of where these Dioceses are located. Generally, they are near Rwanda, in the east of the DRC:

This just happens to be the same area where the CNDP and M23 “rebellions” occurred. Kolini helped his government support the wicked M23 movement, as Paul Kagame himself admitted in an interview with the New York Times where: “He acknowledged that some Rwandan churches have been sending money to Congolese rebels, as part of a Tutsi self-protection campaign.”³

Kolini and the Kivus

In May 2012, Kolini held a meeting to support the Rwandan/Tutsi invasion of the DRC through the M23 movement. At this meeting, Kolini conveyed Paul Kagame’s message to Congolese of Rwandan descent who lived in the Kivu provinces of the DRC:

Another similar M23 meeting with Rwandan authorities took place on 26 May 2012 in Ruhengeri, Rwanda, at Hotel Ishema. According to intelligence sources and to politicians with close ties to Kigali, the RDF organized the meeting for CNDP politicians, which was chaired by Bishops John Rucyahana and Coline {Kolini – editor}, both senior RPF party leaders. The aim of the meeting was to convey the message that the Rwandan Government supports M23 politically and militarily. All Rwandophone politicians and officers were instructed to join M23, or otherwise leave the Kivus.

M23 was active in the Kivus, two provinces of the DRC that Rwanda claims are hers.⁴ You will notice a great overlap between the Dioceses aligned with AMiA and the activity of illegal Rwandan groups. Kolini’s familiarity with this region presumably helps him both to support illegal Rwandan groups and to cultivate Congolese bishops, connecting them to Kevin Donlon and spreading money – if Archbishop Isingoma is correct.

According to AMiA: “The Diocese of Kindu covers …the territory of Shabunda in the neighboring Province of South Kivu. The Diocese of Bukavu…serves parts of South Kivu and parts of North Kivu.”

M23

The group that Kolini and John Rucyahana supported was brought to an end through international intervention, but not before it committed great acts of wickedness such as killing a “4-year-old girl when she asked M23 fighters where they were taking her father”, starving deserters to death, forcing deserters to rape a girl, burying deserters alive, and on and on. If this bothers Kolini, Rucyahana, the AMiA, PEARUSA or ACNA, I haven’t heard of it.

AMiA’s senseless African connections

By my count, the AMiA now has some sort of relationship with eleven Dioceses in five nations. That’s a whole lot of reverse colonialism to use Chuck Murphy’s phrase! A table of these connections follows:

Diocese	Nation
Dunkwa- On Offin	Ghana
Boga	DRC
Kindu	DRC
Bukavu	DRC
Kibondo	Tanzania
Lake Rukwa	Tanzania
Kagera	Tanzania
Tabora	Tanzania
Northern Malawi	Malawi
Upper Shire	Malawi
Toliara	Madagascar

Perhaps in the year 2000 there was some justification for outside oversight, but it is now 2015, and:

• There is a full-fledged, orthodox Province in North America.
• You cannot tell me that these five nations are going to “re-evangelize” the USA like you said about Rwanda.⁵
• Chuck Murphy said Africans “directing  and shaping what happens in North America is a bad idea.” In fact, it could be “missiologically crazy and practically foolish.” So we know these bishops have no say over AMiA and are simply window-dressing.

Further, it is an embarrassment to Anglicanism in general and the AMiA in particular to have retired Archbishops Emmanuel Kolini, Moses Tay and Yong Ping Chung involved in this micro-denomination that defies ACNA and GAFCON whenever it feels like it, and is highly influenced by a canon lawyer with dubious writings.

As Archbishop Isingoma put it, the most recent actions of AMiA are “…contrary to the constitution of the Province of the Anglican Church of Congo” and serve “…to destabilize a sister-province of the Anglican Communion.”

Timeline of recent events

April 3 – As I wrote here, AMiA announced that two new bishops were on the way.

April 13-17 – GAFCON primates meet in London. “Isingoma shared the situation with his fellow Primates…The Primates then requested its chairman, the Most Reverend Eliud Wabukala, to officially write to Jones to stop him from going ahead with the consecration” (Virtue).

April 19 – Archbishop Isingoma writes a letter Anglican Primates denouncing the AMiA plan.

Sometime in April – AMiA “Primatial Vicar” Jones writes Isingoma attempting to “fix the problem” according to David Virtue.

Sometime in April – Isingoma writes Jones back and again asks him to stop the consecrations.

May 2 – AMiA goes ahead with the consecrations, defying GAFCON and the Anglican Church of Congo.

The Consecration

Bishop William of Boga Diocese, Bishop Bahati of Bukavu, Bishop Sospeter of Kibondo and Archbishop Kolini along with Philip Jones and Chuck Murphy consecrated Carl Buffington and Gerry Schnackenberg on May 2nd.⁶

According to AMiA Bishop Silas Ng⁷ someone had a heart attack when the service started:

Michelle and I went to Florida two days ago to participate in the consecration of the Very Rev. Carl Buffington and the Very Rev. Gerald Schnackenberg as two new AMiA bishops. It was a glorious celebration yesterday. Today we went to Bishop Carl’s church to participate in an ordination for two deacons as priests.

When the service came to the time of ordination and Bishop Edmund D Ahmoah from the Anglican Church of Ghana was reading the first line of the ordination part, a parishioner had an heart attack with his heart beat stopped. It was a holy moment when everyone was praying, including four bishops, many priests and deacons and the whole church of the New Covenant Church, Winter Springs, Florida. There were three nurses there using CPR and a defibrillator(AED). We heard the loud sound of a voice from the defibrillator to guide people to use that and we were singing, praying in an atmosphere full of peace. The new consecrated Bishop Carl stood next to me and he was praying and singing in a very peaceful mode. Ten minutes later two paramedic came in and in five minutes time the parishioner got his heart beat again and was sent to the hospital for observation. The whole church clapped hands when they saw what happened of how God gave peace to all of us in a crisis during an ordination.

Bishop Ng says he has a prophecy for one of the new bishops, namely that he will resurrect the Mission:

After Bishop Carl and I received communion, I said, “Bishop Carl, I got a prophetic word for you, one word “resurrect”. I feel that God is going to pour down His fresh anointing on you that you are going to raise up more priests for the Mission to resurrect “dead people”. There are so many dead people walking around us.” He said, “Wow! That is quite a prophetic word because the past 30 years since this church was found we have 23 people being ordained as priests.” I asked, “How many years for you as the Rector of this church?” He said, “Twenty-two years.”

Another ordination

The irregular consecration of two bishops was not all! Bishop William Mugenyi of Boga in the DRC also ordained Walter Volmuth to the permanent diaconate as a Deacon from Boga Diocese. Does Archbishop Isingoma realize that “Congolese” clergy are now multiplying in AMiA? Of course, if the Archbishop does something about it, AMiA will probably transfer orders to another Diocese. Bishop Murphy knows that once you establish facts on the ground, there is little willingness in Anglican circles to undo them.

My takeaways

1. The AMiA will not police itself. It does not care about defying governing authorities when it is clearly in the wrong. It does not care about what Kolini did with M23. It does not care about where 1.2 million dollars went in Rwanda. It does not care about possible plagiarism.
   To be clear, PEARUSA, ACNA and GAFCON also seem unconcerned when their member churches are subservient to wicked governments, but I am focusing on AMiA in this post.
2. GAFCON and Rwanda made a mistake allowing AMiA to walk away with no consequences. There was some talk of stripping Bishop Murphy and others of their orders back when AMiA imploded. Archbishop Rwaje insisted on real reconciliation, but none of that ever happened, AMiA went its own way, crippled yes, but still breathing. Because GAFCON and Rwanda did nothing in terms of discipline, AMiA, Murphy, Kolini and Kevin Donlon are still out there causing havoc.
3. The Congo is a mess. Three bishops have a relationship with a sub-Anglican group in America and never tell their Archbishop. He orders them not to ordain Americans, and thy go ahead and do it anyways.
4. This is a test for Archbishop Isingoma. Can he do anything to his disobedient bishops? Can he do anything to the new AMiA bishops and other clergy?
5. This is a test for GAFCON. I don’t think GAFCON has any real authority over anybody about anything, but do they stand totally impotent in this case? Does this spur GAFCON to at least think through the crazy quilt world of CANA and PEARUSA?
6. Could the AMiA spend enough money to oust Archbishop Isingoma? AMiA has already poached a third of the bishops in the DRC, if it could nab a couple more, could it influence the election of the next Archbishop? I don’t know when Isingoma’s term is up, but I wonder if this is even a remote possibility.
7. Chuck Murphy puts words in God’s mouth. Was God wrong about AMiA and Africa in 2011? I don’t think so. That means that Chuck Murphy was wrong when he said God called AMiA out of Africa, because AMiA is right back in Africa. As the Lord said, “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”
   AMiA’s terrible theology allows for this kind of nonsense.
8. Archbishop Beach and ACNA should make it clear that AMiA remains a renegade group. Unfortunately, the “be nice” philosophy has carried the day recently, with former Archbishop Duncan telling us about a phone conversation he had with Philip Jones on his way out as Archbishop.⁸
   Jones was also in the procession at the Investiture of Foley Beach and was recently at the C4SO retreat (see below). This thaw of relations is clearly not reciprocated when AMiA disregards another Anglican Primate and the will of GAFCON. These kind of gestures should end.

P.S. Here is an Anglican Unscripted episode covering the mess:

---

1. Also, see these posts: 2, 3, and 4. ↩
2. My assumption is that this proposal came straight from Donlon, not Kolini. ↩
3. I asked Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman about this quote and he told me “I asked Kagame about allegations of Rwandan government support to the M23 and he said that the government is not providing support but some private individuals inside Rwanda are.” This is clearly untrue, but it does confirm Anglican support for M23. ↩
4. A claim that has no historical basis, see here. ↩
5. Which was a farce anyhow. ↩
6. You can watch a video of the ceremony here. ↩
7. Bishop Ng made all kinds of false predictions/prophecies/words of knowledge a few years ago; see here. ↩
8. “I called Bp. Philip Jones the other day. We had a lovely conversation.” Source. ↩

One year ago, Rwandan dictator and atheist Paul Kagame attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Kigali, where he gloated in his assassination of former friend Patrick Karegeya. Karegeya had been murdered just a couple weeks prior to the prayer breakfast, and Kagame was riding high on his death. He shared a table with Anglican Archbishop Rwaje, and other Anglicans were in attendance.

I spoke up about this at the time (see this post) and many news outlets around the world took notice since Kagame was boasting about murder to the applause of clergy. Characteristically, PEARUSA, the American branch of the Rwandan Anglican Church, was silent about its Anglican Archbishop staying mute in the face of a modern Idi Amin.

Three days ago, Kagame returned to the Prayer Breakfast and as far as we know, he did not boast about killing.

The Anglican presence at this year’s event was far less than at last year’s event, although Anglicans were not absent, as you will see. Why is this? Is it because:

1. PEAR in Rwanda was stung by the criticism last year?
2. They were not invited this year?
3. PEARUSA was embarrassed at last year’s event, and expressed this to their Rwandan oversight?
4. Rwandan Anglicans are silently protesting Kagame? This is highly unlikely but I add it here as a possibility.
5. Something else?

If you have insight into the reasons for Rwaje’s absence, let me know.

UPDATE: No sooner did I click publish, then I looked closer at another picture (below) and saw Archbishop Rwaje, near the right of the picture:

So it seems that Anglican learned nothing from last year’s debacle.

This year, Archbishop Rwaje was replaced by Bishop Enoch Dusingizimana of the Community of Christian Churches in Africa (C.C.C.A). There was still an Anglican at the dictator’s table however, none other than the notorious Antoine Rutayisire.

Antoine Rutayisire – Kagame’s Anglican

Pastor Rutayisire has been a shill for Kagame for many years, defending him at every turn, in contradiction to all Christian theology. The Bible says, “It is an abomination to kings to do evil,” (Proverbs 16:12) and yet Christians stand inert before Kagame, dumb and deaf, saying nothing of his wickedness.

Rutayisire has made outlandish statements in favor of this modern day Pharaoh. In the past, he said of Kagame:

“He is not authoritarian to the level I would wish. When you’re ruling a country that’s coming out of chaos … you don’t go for democracy, you go for autocracy.”

This year, he moved from saying that Rwanda is an autocracy to saying it is a theocracy! According to Jean Paul Ibambe on Twitter, Rutayisire said Rwanda is a theocracy, “which is better than democracy [which is] full of noise.” If Rwanda is a theocracy, is Rutayisire implying that Kagame is God’s anointed? What does this say to those whom he has tortured and murdered?

Is Rutayisire a renegade Anglican, outside the normal circles of the Church? Far from it. Here are some pictures of him just recently with Archbishop Rwaje and Bishop Muvunyi, and again, teaching in Musanze to Bishop Mbanda’s clergy:

What does it say of the Anglican Church of Rwanda that a man at its heart is attached at the hip to a dictator? It is consistent with the actions of Rucyahana, Kolini, Rwaje, Mbanda, Gasatura, Ahimana and others. It is the action of a compromised man within a compromised church, embracing a dictator instead of rebuking him.

Not only does Rutayisire have an audience in Rwanda, he has one in the United States. Last summer, he spoke at Washington D.C Anglican parishes The Church of the Resurrection and the Church of the Advent. He is the President of the As We Forgive Rwanda Initiative, where he shares leadership with many Americans. This is shameful.

In the excerpts of Kagame’s speech available to us this year, he refers to Rutayisire, and says:

Even though I said that I am not a pastor like Rutayisire, I actually love many teachings from the Bible. The teachings of life. History; how it happened, its consequences, its goodness, we find it all in the Bible.

If Kagame is reading his Bible, that is a good thing. He can perhaps open to Psalm 52, and read:

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?
The steadfast love of God endures all the day.
Your tongue plots destruction,
like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit.
You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
You love all words that devour,
O deceitful tongue.
But God will break you down forever;
he will snatch and tear you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
The righteous shall see and fear,
and shall laugh at him, saying,
“See the man who would not make
God his refuge,
but trusted in the abundance of his riches
and sought refuge in his own destruction!”

A couple months ago, the new Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) made some appointments to assist him in governing the Province. While I don’t see anything about Deans in the Canons of ACNA, they do say:

Section 5 – Concerning Officers of the Church

The Archbishop shall be the Presiding Officer of the Church, and the Presiding Officer of the Council. The Council shall appoint a Deputy Chair, a chancellor, a secretary, a treasurer, a registrar, and such other officers of the Church as it deems necessary. The Council shall define the duties of each officer of the Church.

Archbishop Beach appointed seven people to six roles; they are:

• Bishop Ray Sutton as Dean of College Affairs and Dean of Ecumenical Affairs.
• Bishop Terrell Glenn as Dean of College Affairs.
• Bishop John Guernsey as Dean of Provincial Affairs
• Bishop Bill Atwood as Dean of International Affairs
• Bishop Don Harvey as Senior College Chaplain, assisted by Bishops Bena and Ackerman.

As noted in this post, Bishop Sutton came close to a victory in the Conclave before he voluntarily stepped aside. Bishop Guernsey was also thought to be a frontrunner for the job of Archbishop heading into the Conclave.With that in mind, these appointments look a bit like consolation prizes for these men. I am not asserting that they are, but it is a very status quo set of appointments.

The affiliation of these men and their position on women’s ordination are:

Bishop	Affiliation	Position on WO
Ackerman	ACNA, FiFNA	Against
Sutton	REC	Against
Glenn	ACNA	Against
Guernsey	ACNA	For
Atwood	ACNA	For
Harvey	ANiC	For
Bena	CANA	For

This group also skews Anglo-Catholic or charismatic, with only one Bishop being notably Augustinian in conviction (as far as I know). I don’t know how much to invest in these observations, but the convictions of these men may show up in policy in the years ahead. It also signals that as much as we thought the election of Archbishop Beach signaled the arrival of a new generation of leadership, there are a lot of holdovers from the last two decades still in power. This is neither good nor bad of necessity, but is simply the reality.

The widow of Patrick Karegeya is Leah Karegeya. She just gave an interview where she exhibits the grace of the Gospel in how she treats her husband’s executioner, Paul Kagame, and his henchmen in Rwanda. The interview is located here. She calls out Rwandan Anglican Antoine Rutayisire for his friendship with a wicked tyrant:

JF: Tell me about Paul Kagame. How would you describe him today versus the man you knew years ago?

LK: I personally have no words to describe Kagame but I think he said it all himself when he told a journalist, “God made him in a strange way.”  How do you define someone who has stolen your property, revoked your citizenship, fabricated  lies and crimes about you and as if that is not enough, murders your husband? There is no human description I have for Kagame but this is what I know and believe; God did not create anyone to kill, to steal and or destroy his people. There is a scripture in the bible that gives me an idea of who he may be, but wise and Godly people should debate to know who he is exactly.

The scripture is John 10:10, which says, “The thief comes to lie, to kill, to steal and to destroy,” referring to the devil.  Kagame perfectly practices these three elements, which qualifies him to be either a devil or someone acting directly on his behalf. His wise friends Rick Warren and Antoineshould tell us better because clearly they should know the difference between good and bad.

Antoine Rutayisire and his Dictator

She also exhibits a great deal of mercy for the Anglicans who applauded the maniacal Kagame this January, when he boasted of killing her husband:

JF: President Kagame also made some vicious remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast regarding the death of Patrick. How would you respond to Kagame in regards to these remarks?

LK: The speech was awful, disgusting and embarrassing to those that still have human hearts. It has to be indeed a strange human being to murder another human being and at the same time be proud of it.  Moreover, standing on holy ground, where people are gathered to worship their creator and make such evil remarks.

How can one preach about killing in a place of worship? Kagame is not God; he does not get to go on determining who should live and who should die. To me, this is far from human sanity. Besides, it is one thing to sin but entirely a different thing to be proud of it and expose it yourself before the entire world!  It is human nature to hide one’s sins but it is sociopathic to boast about ones sins in a prayer breakfast. I believe, like the blood of Abel in the bible that haunted his murderous brother Cain, so is the blood of my husband to Kagame. This I believe is what triggered him into confession and surely, it still does considering what he has done since the death of my husband.

I simply sympathize with the listeners that day who were forced to clap their hands for such remarks and I wonder if he believes he received genuine praise or a mere wish to have another day to live.

Finally, she is asked about forgiving the murderer, Paul Kagame:

JF: You are a woman of faith and God commands those to forgive others as He has forgiven us. Do you think you will ever be able to forgive President Kagame?

LK: Yes, I can because the scripture demands me to do it and clearly If I do not I will keep myself in captivity.  Another reason is that when I think deeply I realize that Kagame did not know what he was doing, as Jesus said.  Kagame believed that killing my husband would deliver some peace and consolidation of his power, he lied to himself.  What I know is that my husband is at peace where he is while Kagame is more at war with himself and many others as never before. I guess it is worse to fight with the dead considering what he is doing today to those who are so called “loyal” to him. That makes me consider again leaving the matter to the Lord.

Having said that, I cannot lie to you and say that it is easy, more especially because the death of my husband remains fresh in us as if it happened yesterday and Kagame is a constant reminder which keeps it fresh in our minds.  The bible states clearly that what is impossible to man is possible with God, this includes forgiveness. It will take time and it will be a long process but where there is a will there is always away and i know that it is in the will of God that I forgive.

This year, as in years past, Rwandans are disappearing inside the country. They simply vanish, never to be seen again. As I mentioned in this post, people are forced into cars and then are gone. Imagine the anguish of their families, who can say nothing in the Police State.¹

Recently, body bags started turning up on a lake that borders Rwanda and Burundi, see here. Now, we have confirmation that the body bags originated in Rwanda. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine that they contain the disappeared from Rwanda, whose families will never be able to investigate this heinous evil because to do so would mean the end of their lives as well. A crude Google translation of this story shows the palpable fear on the Rwandan side of the border:

Rwandan fishermen were more reserved: they recognized that it is the Kagera who was carrying the body but when asked where is this river and many answers become a little elusive. They stammer unclear answers and do not hide that they are afraid.

The fears of farmers and fishermen Rwandan side

RFI went up the Kagera River and several canoes approached the Rwandan side. We headed to a dozen straw huts planted among fields of beans and sweet potatoes.

Suddenly we see people rushing into their huts and others running away. The guide is amazed and says these Rwandans are usually very welcoming. He then shows us two men who are likely to speak to us.

After ten minutes spent persuade them, they end up admitting that the Rwandan authorities have passed the previous day, ie Friday. They would have forbidden to speak to Burundian journalists. We promise not to disclose their names. So they begin to explain what they saw.

“I saw and spend twenty bags”

The youngest, aged 20-25 years, says that he saw the first bodies down the course of Kagera in mid-July. ”  Initially, we saw many bags packed, we did not dare touch it , he said. Someone here has said that this could be a product that would sell. This catch one. When he opened the bag, it was the horror, there was a corpse inside. We closed the bag and discarded the body in the stream. O n did not want trouble with the authorities ” , he assures, explaining as he saw and spend twenty bag alone. 

The second man said that it showed that it was the work of a specialist. These bodies were, he said, a hood over his head. They legs folded, attached so that the thighs touched bust. The arms were also tied behind the back and the same rope was wrapped around her neck.

Finally the other inhabitants of this locality Rwanda joined us. Scared, they recognized that these bodies came from off the inside of Rwanda. But ”  we do not know what is happening  “, they all assured.

Will PEAR USA say anything about this? Will Anglicans in Rwanda dare to question what is going on?

David Bergamini writes:

The dream of the ancestors to rule theocratically and keep Japan sacred for the sun goddess remained unfulfilled. Hirohito had reservations about the dream. It was too insular, too mystical and unscientific. Because of his training in geography and economics, Hirohito could not think of Japan in isolation but only as a part – the leading part – of Asia. Because of his scientific training he could not accept the legend of the sun goddess at face value. He was a devout Shinto priest and believed in the ghosts of his ancestors, but not in a simple superstitious way like most of his countrymen. He would eventually rationalize his creed by grafting onto it the semi-scientific spiritualism of such Western thinkers as the astrophysicist Sir James Jeans and the physiologist J.S. Haldane. Hirohito believed that the spirits were always present and even available for consultation, but only as psychic wave forms permeating the ether. He doubted that they could provide physical assistance to men in battle, as many Japanese believed.

The Kagame regime began this year by assassinating Patrick Karegeya in South Africa. It moved on to “disappearing” citizens all over the nation, and then there were strange fires that burned down prisons. Now there are arrests of leading regime generals and other figures as the totalitarian regime eats its own, and there are also bodies turning up on a lake in Burundi. This story, translated from French, says:

In recent days corpses wrapped in plastic bags are found floating on the lake Rweru on the border between Burundi and Rwanda in the province Muyinga.

More than 40 bodies floating in the lake town Rweru Giteranyi were seen and counted from the month of July by the fishermen, as confirmed by the local administration and police. This week, these fishermen accompanied by a unit of the Navy, saw two bodies on the mouth of the Kagera. It was a woman without clothes and a man wrapped in a bag. One of the dead was identified by Rwandan fishermen, they immediately rushed to repatriate the dead body.

The report goes on to says that Burundi had not reported any disappeared, and that Burundians:

…indicate that such carcasses are thrown into the river Akagara the Rwandan side, that comes pouring into the lake Rweru: “In the neighborhood, we deplore any loss, unless they are brought from other regions and thrown in the lake, “they say.

The lake in question borders Rwanda and Burundi, as you can see from this map:

An updated report says:

The case made headlines Burundian newspapers for two days: the fishermen said they saw dozens of bodies floating on the Rweru Lake in northeastern Burundi, on the border with Rwanda. They are bodies of men, women and youth, some tied up.

Fishermen Lake Rweru say they would have seen since early July between six and forty bodies floating in the waters of the lake, located in the northeastern Burundi. Several private radio stations in Bujumbura, the alarm was given it a week ago.

Contacted by RFI yesterday, Sunday, the representative of the fishermen of the town Giteranyi shoreline of the lake, said he went near the mouth of the Kagera River with soldiers from the Burundian Navy. They then discovered there two bodies, one still wrapped in a big burlap bag. ” We unfortunately could not bring them back to the mainland because the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition , “said the representative of the fishermen. They then drifted the body along with the current like other fishermen did with the body they discovered earlier.

… Fishermen are, claim that these bodies would be carried by the Kagera River which originates in neighboring Rwanda. Prudente, the Burundian government would not confirm or deny.

There have been widespread disappearances, such as this:

Rwandan opposition politician Damascene Munyeshyaka, who went missing on June 27, is just one in a growing list of people who have not been heard of over the past few months and who rights activists believe have been forcibly disappeared.

Munyeshyaka, the organisational secretary of the Democratic Green Party, was at a meeting in the eastern district of Bugesera, when he received a phone call.

The caller said he had an urgent message to deliver, according to the party. Munyeshyaka didn’t know the caller but left to meet him. He has not been seen since.

And there are mass arrests of high ranking regime members, in moves reminiscent of purges after the French Revolution. See here, here, here, and here.

Finally, look at this appalling picture from inside a Rwandan prison:

This article, whose truth I cannot verify,¹ says:

To understand how furious and systematic Hutus extermination is, Tutsis RPF regime has nowadays chosen a plan to blaze prisons and more than thirty thousand (30,000) Hutus perished in this process of prisons blaze where they were abducting prisoners to massacre in name of transfers to other prisons so that other fellow prisoners cannot question what happening and try to claim. The recent prisons set on fire are two prisons of Muhanga central prison in Gitarama and Nyakiriba prison in Rubavu (Gisenyi) respectively on 5 June 2014 and 7 July 2014, i e within one month. This happened following 1 or 2 months more than sixteen thousand (16,000) Hutus massacred in Northern West province in Nyabihu district and the RPF regime said they don’t know their whereabouts, and simply said that they disappeared.

The above picture is Muhanga prison in Gitarama set on fire on 5 June 2014 and this happen alongside the slow systematic massacres of these Hutus prisoners where they are daily beaten, killed abducted, starved and poisoned. More than 80% of Hutus who terminated their sentence when they come out for normal life, consequently they cannot pass 1 or 2 years alive, they die.²

Conditions in the open-air prison that is Rwanda are horrible,  and yet we continue to only see the sanitized, mission-trip version of reality in PEAR USA publications. Speaking of another appalling situation, that of Christians in Iraq, PEAR Bishop Breedlove says:

The silence of the US and Canadian media and government is unconscionable, and we need to call them to account and ask for a change of behavior. “Never Silent” is part of our story. We need to bring that legacy to this critical issue happening right now. We must never be silent while Christians are slaughtered for nothing more than being Christians.

He is right for once, and yet the hypocrisy is more than a little thick given the outrages in Rwanda that have been happening for two decades now, with the increasing complicity of Westerners, who choose to see no evil and hear no evil.

1. See this story for confirmation. ↩
2. The 30,000 number comes from stories like this:Kigali — Some 30.000 Rwandans sentenced to community service for their role in the 1994 genocide have disappeared, according to the Rwandan prison authorities. Community service was introduced under a Rwandan law as an alternative to prison for certain categories of genocide perpetrator who confessed. One of the goals was to reduce overcrowding in the country’s jails.The semi-traditional village courts or gacaca (pronounced gatchatcha) that tried most genocide suspects had, by the time they closed in June 2012, sentenced 84,896 people to community service, according to the authorities.A report by the Rwandan prison service says only 53,366 of these turned up in the camps where they were to serve their alternative sentence. The prison service says it does not know where they are. “This is a matter of great concern for us,” prison service director Paul Rwarakabije told Hirondelle.“It is extremely worrying for the survivors,” says Naphtal Ahishakiye, secretary general of the main survivors’organization Ibuka.According to the same report, out of the 53,366 who presented themselves for community service, 46,270 have served their sentence, 1,996 escaped during community service and 340 have died natural deaths.During community service, convicts help with public works such as building roads, bridges, public schools, orphanages and houses for the elderly. ↩

When I wrote the last post about Pastor Rick Warren and Rwanda, I naively hoped that he was unaware of the criticism of the Kagame regime. That was not the case, as he proved in an interview with Rwandan propaganda website The New Times. In this interview, Warren is asked about international criticism. To boil his argument down for you, you are not allowed to criticize Rwanda if you are:

1. Hutu (he refers to ‘genocidaires’, but how does he distinguish between innocent Hutu and those who actually killed?)
2. French
3. From certain countries like France
4. The United Nations
5. Someone who at some point worked in the Kagame government

If you are not in one of these categories, feel free to criticize the Rwandan Government, and I am sure Rick Warren will pay heed to you.

His response is so shockingly ignorant that I almost wonder if he uttered it or if it was placed into his mouth by New Times Goebbels-type hacks? If he did say this, then he is totally in lockstep with an Ahab/Herod figure, and should have no credibility anymore. Warren is committing the most basic ad hominem fallacy in his ‘reasoning’. Everything he says may be ignored because it does not deal with even one fact related to the heinous rule of Paul Kagame. The entirety of his answer follows:

Often times Rwanda receives the flacks from various international bodies and individuals, what do you make of such critics?

The criticisms against Rwanda are coming from four sources. They are all biased sources. The first group of critics is the genocidaires who are still alive, the Interahawe. They are in various places around the world and will do anything they can to depose the government. It is expected that they will criticise and speak ill of the country.

The second group is of certain countries like France that supported and protected the wrong group during the Genocide. They allowed the genocidaires to escape through and into DR Congo.

There was a break down in relations with France as Rwanda chose a path of its own that some people in France were not very happy with and hence the criticism.

The third group is the United Nations; they have blood on their hands, they did nothing when they could have stopped the Genocide. The UN has a guilty conscience. There is conflict on why is the nation least dependent on the United Nations is among the most successful. So their reports may be biased.

The last group is people who served in this government in the past and got caught in corruption and other vices. They were friends of Rwanda, but when they lost their jobs, they became bitter and go around writing articles full of criticisms.

All these four groups are biased and are in no position to provide balanced opinion about the country.

Pastor Rick Warren has continued his foolish association with Rwanda’s dictator, Paul Kagame this week.

Rick Warren and Paul Kagame

Think of this New York Times story when you see Kagame:

David Himbara, another former Kagame confidant who also fled to Johannesburg in 2010, told me a story about Kagame’s rage. In 2009, Himbara said, Kagame ordered two subordinates — a finance director and an army captain — into his presidential office, slammed the door and started shouting at them about where they had purchased office curtains. Kagame then picked up the phone, and two guards came in with sticks, Himbara said. Kagame ordered the men to lie face down, and he thrashed them. After five minutes, Kagame seemed to tire, and the bodyguards took over beating the men, as if they had done this before. Himbara said he was sick to his stomach witnessing the scene.

Just about every former colleague of Kagame’s I spoke to shared some sort of beating story. Noble Marara, a former driver for Kagame, told me that Kagame whipped him twice, once for driving the wrong truck and another time after someone else backed into a pole. “He really needs help,” said Marara, now in exile in England. “If I was to diagnose him, I’d say he has a personality disorder.”

Antoine Rutayisire at Kagame’s Table

Again, from the New York Times:

When I asked Kagame about the beatings, he leaned toward me in his seat. We were about three feet apart, then two. I could see the individual gray hairs in his goatee. He didn’t interrupt as I detailed my evidence, with names and dates. He didn’t deny physically abusing his staff, as I thought he might, though he gave me a watered-down version of the 2009 event that Himbara described, saying that he hadn’t swatted anyone with a stick but shoved one of the men so hard that he fell to the floor.

“It’s my nature,” Kagame said. “I can be very tough, I can make mistakes like that.” But when I pressed him on other violent outbursts, he responded irritably, “Do we really need to go into every name, every incident?” He said that hitting people is not “sustainable,” which struck me as a strange word to use, as if the only issue with beating your underlings was whether such behavior was effective over the long term.

Joining Warren and Kagame was Anglican Antoine Rutayisire, who left some testy comments on my blog a few months ago. Rutayisire is frequently in Kagame’s company:

A Quote from Rutayisire

This association with Kagame did not stop my former parish, Church of the Resurrection in Washington D.C., from hosting Rutayisire this year, something they should be ashamed of.

Sitting at the Table of the Tyrant

I guess Rick Warren doesn’t put much stock in reports like this from Rwanda:

And really, why should he? There seem to be no consequences for embracing evil, at least in the short term.

What will we think of this picture in 20 years?

Fortunately, the short term doesn’t last forever. The truth wins out, even if it takes a long time.

Lord, please open Rick Warren’s eyes. Amen.

Bishops Breedlove and Rwaje, Archbishop Rwaje and Paul Kagame

In a message about the election of Archbishop Beach and PEAR USA‘s relationship with Rwanda, Bishop Steve Breedlove re-emphasized the close relationship with Rwanda as one of the main reasons for PEAR USA’s existence. He writes:

Many ACNA jurisdictions and leaders have been shaped by global partners, from whom we all learn. But no one else has the sustained, personal “life together” that God has given us with the Church of Rwanda.¹ As missionary networks of Rwanda, deeply joined in Gospel partnership with parishes and dioceses in Rwanda, we understand what it means to be shaped by the global Christian community.

Note the claims to being “shaped” by the Rwandan Church, a Church that says nothing in the face of the evil of a one Party State, a State that sanctions things such as this {Warning: graphic}! When you are celebrating Eucharist with Archbishop Rwaje, who is in turn appearing with a tyrant all in smiles, there is an issue.

Breedlove was the mentor to my former parish priest, who is now a Presbyterian, and was called in to resolve relational conflicts between the RenewDC pastors. His own son interviewed for the job of assistant pastor at our parish, and Bishop Breedlove worked with my pastor, his mentee, to use church discipline against me after I refused to take down this post, which pointed out the factual United Nations evidence about the nefarious activity of John Rucyahana, and suggested that ACNA think about appearing with Rucyahana in public.

This effort at censorship occurred when, “On one or more occasion, a few ACNA bishops casually brought up the fact of the blogs you were writing to [Breedlove] orally.”  At the time I was unaware of the mentor relationship that he sustained with my pastor, but in retrospect, it makes the entire process even more flawed, because there can be no expectation of impartiality when my pastor’s mentor, who initiated action against me, was also to be the party I appealed to! “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” Indeed.

Breedlove has a close relationship with Rwandan clergy, and as I have pointed out before, in a meeting with me and his mentee, my pastor, he essentially blew off all evidence of torture, killing and totalitarianism in Rwanda, saying that he was comfortable moving forward with Rwanda. At that time I asked the Bishop if the Rwandans showed any degree of self critique or criticism for their government and he could not come up with an example or answer of self criticism.

Back when I was getting excited about the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), PEAR USA’s precursor, we were told to be “never silent.” Times have changed. As Ephraim Radner said, “Concerns about the character of our various churches’ attachments to players in the eastern Congo tragedy are generally suppressed through a desire to maintain ecclesial alliances;  or, conversely, when such concerns are raised, they are dismissed and assigned to the motives of ecclesial politics.”