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Patterns of Prejudice
Why is the West always ready to believe the worst about the Catholic Church?

Just a few days before CWR went to press, a court in Rwanda issued the news that Bishop Augustin Misago had been found innocent of involvement in the genocidal killings that terrorized that African nation in 1994. (For more background on that trial, and the political situation that gave rise to the charges, see our cover story on page 30.) Although that verdict was welcome, the court’s decision should have been a foregone conclusion. In fact, now that the trial is over, we find ourselves wondering why the Western media never exposed the palpable absurdity of the prosecution’s case.

In anticipation of the court’s decision, the Fides news agency summarized the main lines of argument in defense of Bishop Misago. The points are worth repeating, because anyone who becomes familiar with the arguments should realize that, after lodging an irresponsible accusation against the bishop, the Rwandan government had tried to build a case out of thin air. Fides observed that:

1. The bishop had allegedly participated in last-minute planning before the massacres began in his diocese of Gikongoro. But when the killings began on April 7, 1994, the bishop was not even in that city. He was stranded in the capital city of Kigali, preparing with other Rwandan bishops for a trip to Rome. Since phone lines were cut off, he could not have conferred with the militia.



2. While accused of failure to provide shelter for refugees escaping the Hutu death squads, Bishop Misago had in fact organized careful plans for housing those refugees in diocesan properties.



3. The bishop was accused of helping to set up a refugee camp at Murambi, where thousands of refugees were slaughtered. But that camp was established on April 11, when local government officials ordered refugees taken there. At the time Bishop Misago was still not in Gikongoro; he was still stuck in Kigali.



4. The indictment also charged Bishop Misago with collaborating in a massacre of refugees at Kibeho on April 14. But the bishop had only returned to his diocese the previous evening; he did not even realize that refugees had gathered in Kibeho.



5. Another ugly accusation suggested that the bishop assisted in the massacre of 30 Tutsi students at a diocesan school. Actually, that school—where members of the nation’s two ethnic groups had lived and studied together amiably—was attacked at a time when the headmaster and the bishop together were pleading with authorities to protect the students.



6. Because the bishop brought 10 young men to a hospital in Kigeme, where they were killed, the prosecution said that he had planned their deaths. But witnesses reported that the bishop had brought the boys to Kigeme for medical treatment, and did his best to save them when the militia arrived. During the trial, one of the alleged victims appeared, alive and well, to say that the bishop’s assistance had saved his life!



7. An employee at that Kigeme hospital reported that she had received death threats after it became known that she would appear as a defense witness for Bishop Misago.



8. Prosecutors stressed that the diocese of Gikongoro had purchased several hundred machetes—the weapons used in many of the killings. But those machetes had been bought a year earlier, for use in land-clearing projects sponsored by the Caritas relief agency.



9. In closing arguments, the best evidence the prosecution could muster was a series of newspaper articles speculating about his guilt. The defense, by contrast, produced 18 different documents testifying that the bishop was constantly seeking to ease, rather than inflame, ethnic tensions.



10. Among the 24 prosecution witnesses, not a single one could tie Bishop Misago directly to any act of violence, or any conspiracy against the Tutsi victims. In fact, under questioning, 18 of the prosecution witnesses disclosed that they had no personal knowledge of any wrongdoing by the bishop.

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