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February 9, 2012

Home > 2000 > July (Web-only)Christianity Today, July (Web-only), 2000
Healing Genocides at Home and Abroad
Commentary from Amsterdam 2000.

Among the thousands of evangelists at Amsterdam 2000, there are leaders from places where genocide and ethnic cleansing, killer diseases, and greedy politicians have laid waste their societies. These leaders have problems, but they are coping, spreading themselves thin, yet accomplishing more than one would think possible. And, remarkably, some of them set their sights high and aim at problems beyond their own borders.The Most Reverend Emmanuel Kolini, the Anglican archbishop of Rwanda and bishop of Kigali, is a case in point. He has problems.Until two years ago, he was a bishop in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). But after the horrors of Hutu-Tutsi slaughter, he became bishop of this so-called Christian country (95 percent claimed to be Christian) in which pastors and church leaders not only acquiesced to the tribal violence, but in some cases helped in the slaughter of those who sought refuge in their churches. One Roman Catholic bishop in the country, where church and state were highly integrated, claimed he should be blameless because he was just doing what government officials told him to do. Churches in the country have a serious credibility problem.Like other African countries, Rwanda faces the HIV pandemic. Unlike other African countries, it has about 130,000 prisoners awaiting trial for war crimes related to the genocide. Rwanda cannot afford to house and feed such a large number in its prisons. The burden would destroy what little is left of the economy. Furthermore, many of the prisoners were jailed without due process and so must be released. Church leaders like Bishop Kolini are expected to take the lead in reintegrating into society the perpetrators of the genocide as well as to initiate anti-HIV ...

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