
Rwanda Stories
Former ѿý Religious Affairs Correspondent Mike Wooldridge leads today's Sunday Worship marking the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide and examining its spiritual legacy.
Former ѿý Religious and World Affairs Correspondent Mike Wooldridge leads today's Sunday Worship marking the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide and examining its spiritual legacy. The scale and brutality of the genocide, which began on this day thirty years ago, caused shock worldwide, but no country intervened to forcefully stop the killings. Up to one million perished across one hundred days. Mike reported from Rwanda as the response of churches in the highly Christianised country came under increasing scrutiny. In some cases they either stood aside or were even complicit. We hear the harrowing experiences of those who suffered in the genocide or witnessed the brutality. How could this have happened? It remains a profound question today, and one we hear reflected in our worship and in prayers offered in remembrance and in repentance. Producer: Philip Billson.
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Programme script outline
The script below is an indication of what the broadcast but is not checked for accuracy. It may contain spelling and grammatical errors, and the link descriptions are sometimes summaries of what was said, sometimes longer versions of what was heard in the programme.
Mike Wooldridge: I’m Mike Wooldridge. Thirty years ago today, the fastest recorded genocide in human history erupted in Rwanda, urged on by local radio stations. In the following 100 days, it was estimated that between 800,000 and one million people were killed.
(over historic actuality of Rwandan radio station - Excerpts from RTLM broadcasts during the genocide in 1994: . Source: International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda archives)
Insert David Williams
“I grew up on the border with Rwanda….joyous, vibrant faith…against that you stare into the abyss that was the Rwanda genocide.”
MW: David Williams, today the bishop of Basingstoke and co-ordinator of a diocesan link with Rwanda. As the Hutu population heard their minority Tutsi neighbours being dehumanised and threatened, Tutsi families feared only one outcome.
Insert Chantal on brother: “My brother said we are finished, we are done…I don’t think we are going to survive this.”
MW: In today’s Sunday Worship, we reflect on what it was like to be in Rwanda during that terrible time. We hear the experiences of two survivors of what was often intimate extreme violence, neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend, frequently using machetes and clubs. Wee seek to understand how it could have happened in one of Africa’s most Christianised countries….why churches responded as they did and the impact it had on the faith of their followers. And we will hear from the former Archbishop of Canterbury who went to Rwanda soon after the genocide, the first public visit by a church dignitary. On the day before April 7th 1994, as two presidents flew home from a mission to shore up peace and power sharing in Rwanda, the firing of a surface-to-air missile set everything in motion for violence on a scale the country had never seen before.
Ibuka by Nyiranyamibwa Suzanne (Kwibuka Genocide yakorewe Abatutsi mu Rwanda) –
FROM: One in a million_ѿý World Service Masterpiece, 2004 Prod Ruth Evans ACT “The presidents of the central African countries of Rwanda and Burundi have been killed in a plane crash in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. There has been shooting in the streets of Kigali….”
ACT: “This morning they attacked the parish of Nyamirambo and killed several persons….”
ACT: “The evacuation of foreigners is set to continue with the arrival of the Belgians. Rwanda will be left to face a brutal civil war.”
Agnus Dei no 1
niyonzima oreste
ACT: Prayer from David Williams. IN:“In the introduction to John’s Gospel…..
OUT: “In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”
Reading from Genesis 4 (Cain and Abel) Read in Kinyarwandan and English by felin Gakwaya with music: Remember / זכור / Ibuka - Philip Miller -
Ese mbaze nde ? (+lyrics) - Rwanda 1994
MW: How should I be, what should I do? Who should I ask, that the person I asked is no longer there”. A Rwandan commemoration song about the Genocide. (pause) As a ѿý correspondent, I reported on conflicts in Africa, in the Middle East and in Asia. It is the storytelling of individuals caught up in these conflicts that stays with me…in some cases many years later. I have just been to XXX to interview Beatha, who came to Britain from Rwanda just over 20 years ago, and to YYY to meet Marie, who came here shortly after the genocide. Both are Tutsis. Some of the events they describe you may find both graphic and shocking. Chantal was 16 at the time of the genocide.
ACT Chantal: Comments.
Psalm 22 vv 1-2. Read in Kinyarwandan and English by felin Gakwaya with music: Remember / זכור / Ibuka - Philip Miller -
MW: Beatha – 14 in 1994 – also talked about coming face-to-face with the Hutu militias, the Interahamwe, a week into the genocide.
ACT Beatha
Psalm 22 vv 6-7. Read in Kinyarwandan and English by felin Gakwaya with music: Remember / זכור / Ibuka - Philip Miller -
MW The Hutu extremists behind the killing, who attempted to whip up hatred towards the Tutsis and so multiply their killing power, failed not only in the case that Beatha describes with such personal gratitude. They also failed in the case of the person responsible for Chantal’s survival. It is a deeply touching story.
ACT Chantal
AGNUS DEI-GREGORIEN Covered by Chorale Christus Regnat
MW: Many of the killings of Tutsis – and of moderate Hutus – took place in churches where people had sought refuge…along with schools, hospitals, stadiums. There were accusations of priests helping the killers. I asked Beatha: everything you experienced and saw over those 100 days, what effect did it have on your own faith?
ACT Beatha
Senzeni Na _ Cape town Youth Choir
ACT: Beatha and Chantal prayers
AMENIWEKA HURU KWELI - PAPI CLEVER & DORCAS Ft MERCI PIANIST
MW: So why did Rwanda lose its way? And what are the lessons…not just for Rwanda…but potentially for every society? Antoine Rutayisire is a highly respected Rwandan Anglican priest who gave a landmark address at a Lausanne Movement Congress in Cape Town, describing himself as a “wounded healer”.
ACT: Rutayisire -
Wyclef Jean feat. African Children's Choir - Million Voices
MW: I went to Rwanda in May 1995 to report on the visit by George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury….I was at the time ѿý religion correspondent. It was hardly surprising that controversy over the role played by the Roman Catholic, Anglican and other churches continued after the genocide. Priests who had allegedly been complicit, bishops accused of deserting their flock at a time of greatest need. But when we visited a church at Ruhanga, I found a different – and remarkable – story to report:
ACT MW TV News report. IN words: “Where Dr Carey’s procession….
OUT words: “…..happened here months ago.”
MW: I went to see Dr Carey for this Sunday Worship.
ACT Carey
My feeling is not of judgement. I can understand the fear, The paralysing fear that you could lose your life….the way in which all values seemed to go out of the window…and the churh lost its authority during that time 3.40 Thank God there were outstanding people who stood up…people we know… bishops who safeguarded their own flock…and at Ruhanga particularly the way in which the Hutu and the Tutsis stood together and said we belong to Christ. There’s more to this than life itself…we are prepared to die and they did. One Roman Catholic said to me "the blood of tribalism is thicker than the waters of baptism." And that struck home to me…the way in which actually what you value in terms of your faith is something you put to one side as you become a Hutu or whatever and you go to the tribe for identification. Rwanda is a very good example that when churches get too close to political parties they are in danger of losing their soul.
Q All churches speak a lot about forgiveness. But what about Rwandan genocide survivors and the family members they lost forever in those terrible 100 days. BU told us for this programme how she still mourns her mother who like many other victims was killed and thrown into a river. Who is she to forgive, she says, her mother’s killer? It would be for her mother to do that and she is dead. What’s your answer to her question.
My answer would be one of understanding. I think it’s quite difficult to forgive in situations like that. What I would say is we don’t forgive…it’s God’s job to forgive. What we have to do is to be in a position where we say: Your Will Be Done.
NYAGASANI TUBABARIRE (Kyrie) By Aimable Ft Pacis & Regina Pacis choir KCN Studio
ACT: Carey prayer
MW: Some of Rwanda’s church buildings tell stories of courage in the face of the genocide…others stories of callous and cruel tragedy. That has left a legacy of distrust, says Jean Pierre Methode Rukundo, a Rwandan bishop I met when he visited Winchester diocese recently. It was evident when severe flooding hit his region last year.
ACT Jean Pierre In: Still the spirit of distrust and fear is also there….
OUT: “will take time and honestly I don’t know.”
MW: Some say that Rwanda as a nation needs to complete a journey of lamentation, the biblical prayer for coming out of pain. At the end of the genocide, Chantal Uwamahoro discovered that she had lost no fewer than fifty members of her family.
ACT: In: “Your mother, you didn’t know what had…..
OUT: “…still had a mother.”
Music - Missa Luba (Sanctus)
Broadcast
- Sun 7 Apr 2024 08:10ѿý Radio 4