Rwanda's Genocide and the Leadership Crisis in the Rwandan Anglican Church

Abstract

The 1994 Rwandan genocide transformed the leadership of the Anglican Church in a way that mirrored the ethnic divides that had precipitated the genocide itself. This transition was effected through a church conflict that unfolded in the midst of a cataclysmic civil war. Understanding the nature of the conflict and leadership transition illuminates the way in which African church identity is constructed as a result of an interplay between local, regional and global actors. The post-genocide conflict in the diocese of Kigali is studied at particular length to indicate the ways in which these actors each sought position and influence.

Throughout the 1990s, the Great Lakes Region of east/central Africa was consumed by conflict centred on Rwanda. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel movement based in Uganda and led by Tutsis, invaded Rwanda, seeking to topple the country's predominantly Hutu leadership. The RPF succeeded in forcing the Hutu government from power in 1994 but not before a cataclysmic genocide that is thought to have resulted in the deaths of up to 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu. After the genocide, the conflict continued. In 1997, in pursuit of Hutus living in exile in eastern Zaire, the RPF government launched an invasion of its much larger neighbour that succeeded in toppling its government.

Against this backdrop of violence and civil war, the Rwandan Anglican Church was likewise consumed by conflict that mirrored the divisions besetting the country. The conflict in the Church was centred on the ethnic identity of church leaders. It extended well beyond the borders of Rwanda and involved Rwandans living in neighbouring countries. The significance of the conflict is made clear in the wholesale transformation of church leadership that took place in this period. In 1990, the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in Rwanda was, like the government, dominated by Hutus.¹ By 1997, after a bitter and protracted conflict among Anglican leaders, it was, again like the government, dominated by Tutsis. Like the government, the new House of Bishops, including its archbishop, was comprised of several members whose families had fled Rwanda as far back as 1959 and returned after the 1994 genocide.

Christianity in Rwanda has been the subject of several significant monographs that demonstrate the close interplay between Churches, ethnic identity and political leadership.² Most recently, Philip Cantrell's work has offered an extended survey of the political history of Anglicanism in Rwanda and highlighted the way in which the legacy of Christian mission left ‘an indigenous church leadership too closely aligned with power’ and, as a result, a ‘church hierarchy that was unable, unwilling, and ill-equipped to confront political extremism and oppression’.³ Yet there is more to be said: Cantrell barely discusses the years immediately after the genocide in which this wholesale transition in church leadership took place.

The Church in western Europe was formed in a crucible of brutal conflict. We should not expect anything different in sub-Saharan Africa. But conflict among indigenous African church leaders is rarely documented or studied in western literature. In this paper, I draw on previously unused archival sources to offer a close reading of this critical, post-genocide moment in the history of Rwandan Anglicanism to illustrate important aspects of the African Church in the late twentieth century. First, it is a Church that is deeply aware of and responsive to political power and government leaders. Scholars of African Christianity are increasingly cognisant of the way political realities shape ecclesial realities.⁴ By providing a close study of a relatively recent church conflict, the analysis in this paper illustrates and advances that claim. Second, the Rwandan Anglican Church understands its reach as being broader than a country's national boundaries and inclusive of all those who claim some attachment to the country. Boundaries drawn during the colonial era do not contain African expressions of Christianity. To understand Rwanda's Church, it is necessary to understand the actions and motivations of people across the east African region. Finally, the Rwandan Church is one in which non-African actors can play a significant role, even if it is not the one they intend. A wealth of scholarship highlights the international links that have developed in recent decades between, for instance, conservative American Christians and some African church leaders.⁵ But international connections run deeper than this. Leaders of the Anglican Communion involved themselves in the Rwandan church conflict, both at their own instigation and in response to appeals from church leaders. These non-Rwandan Anglican leaders, including the archbishop of Canterbury and his representatives, were accorded apparent authority and respect even as they often proceeded in ignorance of the local and regional realities that were shaping the situation in which they intervened. The dynamics of the Rwandan conflict are explicable through reference not only to domestic but also international links.

The archival sources for this paper come from the Anglican Communion Office in London and a separate collection of papers held by the diocese of Kigali. Both collections have been almost entirely unused in scholarship on Anglicanism in Rwanda. Each provides a wealth of firsthand reports from both Rwandan and non-Rwandan Anglicans in the critical years before, during and after the 1994 genocide. Using these sources in concert with existing scholarship, this paper is able to trace the contours of an ecclesial conflict that played out simultaneously on diocesan, national, regional and international levels. The paper begins by briefly summarising the role of the Church within Rwandan politics in the decades prior to the genocide, highlighting in particular the pattern of ethnic division and church conflict that was endemic in those years. It also points to the dismal and, indeed, criminal role played by some members of the Anglican Church's leadership during the genocide. It then turns to the post-genocide years of 1994 to 1997 to demonstrate how, through sometimes violent means, Hutu bishops were replaced by Tutsi bishops. The paper focuses particularly on the 1995 visit of George Carey, archbishop of Canterbury, to Rwanda; the 1995 calling of a provincial synod, and the key role played by international actors in legitimising that gathering; and the tension that took place over several years in the diocese of Kigali, resulting in the resignation of a Hutu bishop and his replacement by a Tutsi. The conclusion offers a brief illustration of how the conflict laid the groundwork for Rwandan church leaders’ role in inter-Anglican conflict from the late 1990s onwards.

The Rwandan Anglican Church: endemic conflict

From the moment it acquired indigenous leadership, Anglican Christianity in Rwanda has been shaped by the Hutu-Tutsi divide in the country, a divide that both pre-dates and was deepened by colonial rule.⁶ The fraught election for the first indigenous bishop of the diocese of Kigali, then the only diocese in the country, in 1965, reflects this tension. In 1959 and the years afterwards, pogroms led many Tutsis to flee the country. The first president of an independent Rwanda, Grégoire Kayibanda, was a Hutu who emphasised Hutu identity and Hutu solidarity. In the election in the diocese of Kigali, the winning candidate, Adonia Sebununguri, a Hutu, claimed his opponent could not be elected because he was Tutsi.⁷ In 1975 the new diocese of Butare was created and a Hutu, Justin Ndandali (sometimes also rendered as Ndandari) was elected bishop. In time, Ndandali became archbishop of the Anglican Communion province that included Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda.

By the late 1980s, Rwanda was on a path to becoming a separate province of the Anglican Communion. This required the creation of a fourth diocese and the election of an archbishop for Rwanda. The transition shook the Church. Ndandali and Sebununguri, the Church's two senior leaders, were divided over where the new diocese should be created and who should be the new archbishop. Ndandali unilaterally created three additional dioceses out of his diocese of Butare and named new bishops for each. Sebununguri, meanwhile, refused to recognise these new dioceses and appointed a new bishop of Butare, seeking to deprive Ndandali of his see. In June 1992, the two sides compromised. All the bishops were recognised, eight dioceses were acknowledged, and Augustin Nshamihigo, bishop of the northern diocese of Shyira, was elected archbishop of the new province of Rwanda.⁸ Of the resulting bishops, all save one were Hutu. Though the new province had an archbishop, it lacked a clear form of government. The 1979 constitution of the province that included Zaire and Burundi was thought to continue to apply while a new constitution was drafted.

The reconciliation did not last long. Having collaborated in the creation of the province the new archbishop, Nshamihigo, and the first bishop, Sebununguri, fell out. The proximate cause of their dispute was Sebununguri's plan to subdivide the diocese of Kigali into two dioceses. Two candidates were nominated for the new see: Augustine Mvunabandi, a Hutu, and Alphonse Karuhije, a Tutsi, who was related by marriage to Sebununguri. In the absence of a constitution, there was no agreement on how to move forward. Did the parent diocese get to choose the new bishop or did the provincial House of Bishops have a say? Both happened. The diocese of Kigali met and elected Karuhije, Sebununguri's relative. The House of Bishops, led by Nshamihigo and with Sebununguri absent, met and elected Mvunabandi. Ethnic considerations were paramount: Sebununguri wrote to the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, Samuel Van Culin, arguing that the House of Bishops had rejected Karuhije ‘because of his tribal background’.⁹ Sebununguri accused Nshamihigo of seeking to take over the diocese of Kigali because he was tired of his relatively small and remote diocese.¹⁰ Nshamihigo blamed the controversy on Sebununguri, telling Van Culin, ‘About the reconciliation we had in June last year, for me I thought and was convinced that it was sincere. But now I have just understood that the reconciliation depends on the person alone.’¹¹ In 1993, Nshamihigo, supported by many other bishops, went forward and consecrated the Hutu candidate, Mvunabandi. A synod meeting a few weeks later affirmed that Mvunabandi was, in fact, the bishop of Kibungo and that Sebununguri would remain the bishop of Kigali. Karuhije, the defeated candidate, would be killed in St Étienne's Cathedral in Kigali during the 1994 genocide. At a moment of church conflict, the ethnicity of the competing candidates was a crucial factor in determining who prevailed.

Anglican church leaders maintained close personal links with the Hutu-led government, as was true for the Roman Catholic church leadership as well.¹² Sebununguri, the first bishop, was close to President Juvenal Habyarimana. Nshamihigo, the archbishop, was a former military chaplain and retained close ties to the army. The state, at times, became part of the conflict as different church actors sought to leverage their connections to their own ends. In the 1991 conflict between Ndandali and Sebununguri, the Minister of Justice issued a decree, likely at the prompting of Sebununguri, approving the deposition of Ndandali. This, in turn, led to an unprecedented protest of clergy from Butare in front of the Ministry of Justice in Kigali in support of Ndandali.¹³ The conflict in the Church took place against the backdrop of political violence and civil war in the country. The Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Tutsis who were descendants of those who had fled in 1959, had invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, seeking to topple the Hutu-led government of Juvenal Habyarimana. Negotiations led to a fragile peace accord in 1993 but the situation remained on edge. As Ken Barham, an English missionary who became a Rwandan bishop, wrote to George Carey prior to Carey's 1995 visit to Rwanda: ‘At the time when the genocide was being planned, the church leaders were fighting their own war in the full glare of the whole country and the Government.’¹⁴

Meanwhile, outside of Rwanda, Tutsi Anglicans were also rising to church leadership positions. Refugees from earlier anti-Tutsi pogroms had made homes for themselves in Uganda, Zaire and elsewhere. Some had become Anglicans, sought education and ordination, and begun to work in Anglican dioceses in the region. One of the most prominent was Emmanuel Kolini, a Tutsi, who had been ordained a priest in Uganda and in time became bishop of Shaba in southern Zaire. Another was Kolini's friend, John Rucyahana, who was a senior priest in Uganda. Although they were not resident in Rwanda and had, like many other Tutsi refugees, created new lives for themselves outside the country, they continued to be related to and invested in Rwandan Anglicanism.

Genocide and its aftermath

The 1993 Arusha Accords that had brought a measure of peace to Rwanda collapsed in April 1994 when a plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down at Kigali airport. In the following months, the Hutu-led government perpetrated a genocide before fleeing before the advance of the RPF into Zaire and other neighbouring countries. The RPF's seizure of control in Kigali effectively ended the genocide and brought it to power in the country.

The close relationship between predominantly Hutu Anglican church leaders and the Hutu-led government meant that the Church's leaders did not condemn the genocide and in certain instances were alleged to have abetted it. A few examples demonstrate the broader point. Jonathan Ruhumuliza, the coadjutor bishop of Kigali, wrote a letter to the secretary-general of the All Africa Council of Churches on 12 May 1994, blaming the genocide on the RPF.¹⁵ The following day, Catholic and Protestant leaders, including many Anglicans, issued a public statement that was noteworthy for ‘its conspicuous failure to call evil by its name, the deliberate confusion of war and genocide, and the reluctance to confront those who were propagating crimes against humanity’.¹⁶ By June, Ruhumuliza and Nshamihigo had fled the country for Nairobi. There, they held a press conference that downplayed the violence and refused to attribute blame. Nshamihigo said, ‘I don't want to condemn one group without condemning the other one.’¹⁷ The bishop of Shyogwe, Samuel Musabyimana, was later indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for his actions during the genocide. The tribunal's indictment alleged that he stayed in contact with high-level government officials in order to ‘arm the civilian Hutu population and to encourage them to adopt the Interim Government policy of targeting, and killing, Tutsi civilians’.¹⁸ Musabyimana died before he was tried. As the RPF advanced in the country and Hutu leaders fled, Anglican church leaders fled as well. Nshamihigo ended up in eastern Zaire where he maintained his close connections with the military and wrote a series of letters to international Anglican leaders criticising the RPF and drawing attention to Rwandan refugees.¹⁹ Other bishops ended up in Tanzania and Kenya, where they sought safety for themselves and ministered to the large number of refugees, and, it was alleged, sought to avoid accountability for their actions during the genocide. Only a single bishop, Onesphore Rwaje, endured the entire genocide without leaving Rwanda. By July 1994, the country was devastated and so was the Church. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed. Huge numbers of people, many of them Hutus including those who had been involved in the genocide, found themselves in refugee camps in Zaire, Tanzania and elsewhere. The RPF government took control of the country even as it also suppressed dissent and continued its fight against former members of the regime now in neighbouring countries. Tutsi exiles, sensing new opportunity, began to return to the country that they and their forebears had fled. A massive rebuilding effort lay before the country.

In this context, the Anglican Church, weakened by its pre-genocide conflict, was now weakened further by the absence of much of its senior leadership. There were also other differences to account for: ‘Many of the Tutsi returnees are Anglican’, wrote David Birney, the archbishop of Canterbury's envoy. ‘Upon their return, they found a Hutu dominated church, all of whose bishops are Hutu, save one Tutsi [and] one Englishman. The Archbishop and several of the other Bishops were/are under strong suspicion of having collaborated with the former Hutu government in planning and executing the genocide.’²⁰ Tutsis were establishing control over the government. Given that the Church had been a site of political contestation in the past, it stood to reason that Tutsis would seek to establish control over the Church as well.

Anglican Tutsi returnees began to make trips to Rwanda in the immediate aftermath of the genocide. Emmanuel Kolini, the bishop of Shaba in Zaire, made his first visit in the summer of 1994, along with John Rucyahana. They described their trip as a visit to see what support they could offer. Rucyahana later wrote: ‘I wasn't sure what I could do, but I knew I had to do something … I felt we needed to see for ourselves what they were calling a genocide.’²¹ There is no reason to doubt this motivation. But it is also possible to see these visits in the broader context of the time. Tutsis who had long lived in exile were returning to assume positions of authority and leadership. It is not unreasonable to think that this is what Kolini and Rucyahana sought to do as well.

But Tutsi Anglicans were not the only people returning to Rwanda. Jonathan Ruhumuliza, named coadjutor bishop of Kigali shortly before the genocide, was one of the first Anglican bishops to return to the country. In spite of his actions just a few months earlier in which he seemed to defend the genocidal government, the RPF government granted him a passport and permitted him to work. His diocese had been heavily damaged. As he wrote to supporters in November 1994, ‘We lost quite a big number of our pastors, some as a whole family or as a part of it, others leaving behind orphans and widows. Kigali Diocese had 26 pastors, 10 have been killed, 9 are outside the country with the hope that they will come back soon, and 7 survive and are at work in their parishes.’²²

In the immediate aftermath of the genocide, therefore, there were three distinct groups of Rwandan Anglicans spread across East Africa and vying for leadership of the Church. There was a small presence in the country of primarily Hutu official church leaders, notably Ruhumuliza, who were at the very least compromised by their involvement in the fractious church environment of the pre-genocide years and who now found themselves in a country led by a Tutsi-dominated government. There was a much larger presence of official church leaders outside of the country, such as Nshamihigo in Zaire, who were compromised by their close relationships with a genocidal regime. There was, finally, a growing number of Tutsis in Uganda, Zaire and elsewhere who were aware of the change in leadership in the country and can reasonably be thought to have been looking to replicate it in the Church. The proper scope for the study of the Church at this time, therefore, is regional: what mattered to Rwandan Anglicanism was not simply what happened inside the country but what people in neighbouring countries, including some who had not been in Rwanda since childhood, did as well. The ethnic component of these divisions is inescapable: the official church leaders, inside and outside of the country, were largely Hutu; the returnees were almost entirely Tutsi. The Church itself lacked the machinery to make decisions for itself. Its archbishop was absent. It lacked a constitution. It was in this environment that a Church spread across an African region began to internationalise its conflict by appealing to representatives of the Anglican Communion, almost all based in London. These representatives sought to respond to the tragic headlines they had seen and the urgent appeals they were receiving and contribute to the rebuilding of the country and Church.

George Carey's visit and the provincial synod

The most high-profile of these initial interventions was the visit of George Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury, to the country in May 1995. Carey's visit, he said, was to offer ‘prayerful support and compassion’.²³ He toured the country and met church and political leaders. At the time, only four (of eight) diocesan bishops were in the country. Of the rest, one was in Tanzania ministering in a refugee camp, one was in Zaire and the rest were in Nairobi.²⁴ Carey received several letters urging him to postpone his trip from Rwandan Anglicans outside the country. One came from Mugunga refugee camp in Zaire and told him:

You are well aware of the divisions that are present in the church and of the ‘illegal actions’ undertaken by the returnees (refugees of the 1950s and 1960s). Given that no Archbishop of Canterbury ever visited Rwanda, your visit will mean nothing other than your total support to the returnees and their wishes on one hand and your total rejection of a million of Anglican faithfuls [sic] in a refugee situation on the other hand.²⁵

The Anglican Communion was based on the belief that geographic boundaries mattered for church provinces. In Rwanda, that meant that the geographic boundaries of Rwanda and the boundaries of the Rwandan Church were coterminous. Refugees in Zaire, by contrast, in spite of their location, still saw themselves as part of the Rwandan Church and as still having a claim on it. A visit to the Rwandan Church should, of necessity, include them. But Carey's visit and his refusal to visit refugee camps was an argument for the opposite: to have a place in the future of the Rwandan Church, a church leader had to be inside Rwanda, a country now ruled by the Tutsi-dominated RPF.

A key result of Carey's visit was for the Rwandan Church to hold a provincial synod in early July 1995. The synod was crucial to establishing the legitimacy of the Church and its leadership in the eyes of both the government and the larger Anglican Communion. The synod was also a clear indication that the Church was planning to move forward with those Anglicans who were in Rwanda and not wait any longer for the return of its leadership from abroad. Carey had returned to London but the Anglican Communion was represented by John Peterson, the relatively new secretary-general, and Martin Cavender, a lawyer who worked for Carey. Peterson explained to the synod that by his presence he was there to ‘legitimise what was done during … the Provincial Synod’.²⁶ Cavender added that it was essential for the Church to have functioning provincial structures. Only then could ‘the flow of development funds to the Province [begin] through the right channels directly to the Church … The Communion cannot respond until [the structures are in place]’.²⁷ These claims were significant. The Hutu diocesan bishops who had fled the country and not returned criticised holding the synod without their presence. As Archbishop Nshamihigo wrote to Carey shortly before the synod:

About a proposed Provincial Synod … we do not know really how our church is becoming! The church should have the preoccupation of its unity and constitutional legitimacy of its leadership and membership. Now the situation is very otherwise … The Provincial Synod will be never for the reconstruction of the church by its unity and reconciliation but rather to topple its leadership.²⁸

One of the first questions the provincial synod confronted was whether it was quorate. As there was still no constitution for the Rwandan Anglican province, it was the 1979 constitution of the predecessor province of Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire that was used. This said that quorum required half of all diocesan bishops. On the first day of the synod, quorum was established when the four bishops in the country – Onesphore Rwaje of Byumba, Norman Kayumba of Kigeme, Venuste Mutiganda of Butare and Jonathan Ruhumuliza of Kigali – stood and it was agreed that there was quorum. The decision could have been challenged. Both Mutiganda and Ruhumuliza had been elected first as coadjutor bishops, an office that was not recognised in the 1979 constitution. Bishop Ndandali of Butare had died the previous December in Nairobi so there was no other claimant to Mutiganda's role. Bishop Sebununguri was still alive, albeit in Nairobi and unwilling to return to Rwanda, making Ruhumuliza's position more tenuous. None the less, the synod went forward and Peterson's presence there effectively ‘legitimised’ Ruhumuliza's position. Certainly, Peterson thought so. He later reflected in a letter to Mutiganda that

For me the turning point of the meeting was when the four Diocesan Bishops stood and a quorum was established. At that point, there was no question about the leadership of the Church and who was now responsible for leading the Church into the future. All of the tribalism and racism was broken down. At that moment everyone joined hands in the Body of Christ.²⁹

Peterson also wrote to Ruhumuliza to affirm him as well. As a result of his recognition at synod, ‘there is no-one who can question your consecration and the responsibility now given to you by the Church’.³⁰ These were hopeful words, but they would not be borne out by events or by Peterson's later actions.

The synod discussed a wide range of issues but a major task was structural and organisational. Four dioceses lacked resident bishops. At Cavender's suggestion, the synod agreed to write a letter to each absent bishop giving them three months to return.³¹ The other organisational task was drafting a constitution. In 1992, there had been a draft constitution for Rwanda to accompany its formation as a province separate from Zaire and Burundi but the war and church conflict meant that draft had never been approved. On the sidelines of the meeting, Cavender ‘drafted a new constitution for the Province, based upon the 1992 draft with bits from the 1979 Constitution … Copies were left with [Onesphore] Rwaje to aid the process for the Constitution Sub-Committee’.³² The synod also took steps to establish interim working arrangements. It elected a provincial standing committee and a provincial secretary, a key administrative role both internally and in relation to the Anglican Communion. Andrew Kayizari, a Tutsi, was overwhelmingly elected provincial secretary and greeted with delight by the synod.³³

On the surface, the synod seemed a success. Certainly the external participants thought so. Cavender faxed a brief note to Lambeth Palace in the midst of the meeting: ‘I am drafting like fury. John is being magisterial and affirming … The atmosphere is excellent, and the Bishops [are] at one. Hallelujah!’³⁴ Phillip Cantrell argues that international supporters of Rwandan Anglicanism have often been ignorant of the ethnic divisions within the Church, at a cost to their relationships and effectiveness as partners, and Cavender's comment reflects this.³⁵ For Rwandans at the synod, ethnic divisions had been paramount throughout. They centred on Alexis Bilindabagabo, the sole Tutsi bishop, who prior to the genocide had been named an assistant bishop in Kigeme. He was also the son-in-law of the recently elected provincial secretary, Kayizari. Since the genocide, Bilindabagabo had established a charity dedicated to the support of orphans. This allowed him to stay in Kigali, rather than his diocese, and gave him a steady stream of resources from overseas with which to fund his ministry. Just as the synod was ending, Bilindabagabo rose to ask its advice. He asserted that he felt excluded because he was not a diocesan bishop and implied it was because he was a Tutsi. The synod erupted in discussion and dissension. One person said ‘It is said in the country that we have eight Hutu Bishops and just one Tutsi Bishop – and he is without a diocese … Is this tribalism, when eight Dioceses are governed by one tribe?’ Another responded: ‘I'm hurt. We have been meeting together as Christians without any reference to tribes and I now hear people talking about Hutus and Tutsis. I am not interested in tribal differences, but only in being together as Christians.’³⁶ Cavender may have thought the bishops were ‘at one’ but the ethnic divisions in the country were present in the Church as well and obvious to the Rwandan participants.

Peterson and Cavender had performed an important role in Kigali, legitimising the synod and the leaders who were there and providing draft documents to reconstitute the Church. They trusted that the institutions they were creating would be sufficient. Yet at this point they failed to recognize sufficiently or account for the shaping role played by ethnic divisions in the Church. The new structures that the synod had worked to establish would quickly become a new site of contention and discord along ethnic lines in the Church. This was demonstrated mostly clearly in the contention over the see of Kigali and its legitimate occupant.

Conflict in the diocese of Kigali

Jonathan Ruhumuliza had been deeply involved in the conflict in the Church prior to the genocide. He was one of the leaders of the protest outside the Ministry of Justice in 1991 over the deposition of Justin Ndandali. When Ndandali did not make him one of his new bishops in the resulting split, Ruhumuliza transferred his allegiance to Sebununguri, who made him assistant bishop of Butare and provincial secretary. In 1993, Sebununguri appointed him coadjutor bishop of Kigali even though the office did not exist according to the Church's constitution.³⁷

Ruhumuliza's actions in Rwanda during the genocide are disputed, though his defence of the genocidal government internationally is well documented. Still, Ruhumuliza was the first bishop to return to Rwanda after the genocide and quickly began to establish himself in Kigali as bishop. When a representative of a Canadian Anglican aid agency visited Rwanda in August 1994, he met Ruhumuliza and reported that the bishop was hiring a new diocesan staff from among the long-term refugees who were returning to the country and that the staff of the diocese were supportive of Ruhumuliza and ‘his efforts to meet the needs of the survivors of the genocide’.³⁸ In letters Ruhumuliza wrote in late 1994 and early 1995, he seems in control of the diocese: ‘We can see life is getting better. On the side of the church I would like to inform you that parishes are functioning.’³⁹ Crucially for Rwanda, where the government had a long established role in approving church leadership, the new RPF government permitted Ruhumuliza to function and did not take away his passport. Had it solid evidence of involvement in the genocide, it likely would have acted differently.⁴⁰

But in the aftermath of the provincial synod the situation in the diocese of Kigali began to deteriorate rapidly – and it did so along lines that mirrored the ethnic division in the country and the changeover in leadership in the government. Beginning late in 1995, Ruhumuliza began to face a steady stream of opposition within his diocese, largely led by Bilindabagabo, who had access to substantial resources thanks to his charity for orphans. The opposition took several forms. First, Ruhumuliza was accused of having taken part in the genocide. His opponents could point to his letters and public statements during the genocide. Unproven accusations were also made that implicated him in killings during the genocide.⁴¹

This opposition was not just rhetorical. From late 1995 through 1996 and into 1997, the diocese of Kigali became the site of violent resistance to Ruhumuliza's leadership. The opposition prevented a service of ordination from taking place.⁴² They were accused of ‘preventing people to come to Church services in the Cathedral, beating the Diocese staff, closing gates, being involved in closing Diocesan accounts in banks and they tried to attack the Bishop's residence’.⁴³ They questioned Ruhumuliza's role, referring to him as the ‘assistant bishop of Kigali’, questioning what had been recognised at the provincial synod.⁴⁴ By 1997, the violence prevented the diocese of Kigali from holding a synod and Ruhumuliza ceased to visit his cathedral, visiting outlying parishes only.⁴⁵

Demonstrating the overriding importance of political realities to the Church, Ruhumuliza required governmental recognition to function as bishop of Kigali. Ruhumuliza had applied to the Ministry of Justice to be recognised as the legal representative of the diocese of Kigali in August 1995 but the accusations about his actions during the genocide imperiled these efforts.⁴⁶ In spite of recognition by the provincial synod, the approval was delayed. This gave the opposition further grounds for objecting to Ruhumuliza's leadership. By early 1996, Ruhumuliza was writing vigorous letters to government officials seeking approval. He also began to hint at the true reason for the delay: ‘those handling our document[s] [in the ministry] are in support of the said [opposition] group’.⁴⁷ He noted how he had worked with government officials to organise Carey's visit the previous year and how he had met various officials since he had returned after the genocide. But now, he wrote, instead of ‘resolving the problem by directing those who invade the Diocese [to] the proper channels to follow, they are encouraged [by government officials] to continue destabilizing the Diocese’.⁴⁸ In September 1996, Ruhumuliza received a letter from the Ministry of Justice refusing him identification as the legal representative of the diocese of Kigali.⁴⁹ He appealed to the president, arguing that he had been rejected because of his role in the genocide but that he had never had an opportunity to defend himself: ‘what I do not understand is how the office of the Ministry of Justice and also how the Cabinet meeting sat and passed judgement on a person … Does this mean that the Court of Law has been replaced? In my case I have not been called to answer the accusations’.⁵⁰

The available sources for this period are almost entirely from Ruhumuliza himself or external observers. There is little written documentation from the opposition. On the basis of the available evidence, the opposition group seems to have been relatively small but politically powerful and dominated by Tutsis. When Martin Cavender returned to Rwanda in February 1996, he met Anglicans on both sides of the conflict in Kigali and assessed the situation in a note to George Carey:

The most important [current problem] is the dissident Kayitaba Group, based in Kigali, and with its knife into +Jonathan. Backed, financed and transported by +Alexis’ Orphanage Foundation, this group disrupts everything from services to clergy meetings, an ordination, a baptism, the Provincial Standing Committee and other happenings. It had a stab at the Provincial Synod in July [1995], but failed. It now has greater momentum. Its motive is power, underscored with a solid racial discrimination (the whole group is Tutsi). It comprises some 30 members (?), apparently including Army Officers, though no Government member has been named to us. It is not representative, and mostly comes from outside Kigali.⁵¹

Similarly, the retired American bishop, David Birney, who had been appointed as Carey's special representative to Rwanda, reported that

We witnessed a number of cases of disruption of meetings and services by a group of pastors and lay people from various parts of Rwanda, most/many of them returnees from other countries. It is believed that most or all of this group are members of the Tutsi tribe … It is not believed that this group exceeds 25–30 in number. None of its members is believed to be a member of the congregation at Kigali Cathedral: and none is an elected member of any of the bodies or meetings we attended.⁵²

In addition to Bilindabagabo, Ruhumuliza also indicated that Emmanuel Kolini, the Tutsi bishop of Shaba in Zaire, was ‘using some pastors and some laity of Kigali Diocese to overthrow the Bishop of Kigali in order to get his seat’.⁵³ There was an uncertain relationship between the dissident group and the government. At times, rumours circulated that the government was seeking to get rid of Hutu bishops and priests. Others objected to this view. But the dissident group may have had support from some sectors of the military or government even if it was not government policy per se.⁵⁴

The international support Ruhumuliza had received at the 1995 provincial synod began to shift. Following a visit in February 1996, Cavender drafted a written apology that Ruhumuliza could make for his actions during the genocide.⁵⁵ Ruhumuliza released the apology on 30 May 1996, pointing to his failure to fulfill his ‘pastoral duties and moral obligations’, citing in particular his letter to the general secretary of the All Africa Council of Churches and his press conference in Nairobi in June 1994.⁵⁶ But the apology did not stop the opposition. In February 1997, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs wrote to the Prime Minister recommending that Ruhumuliza be suspended from any action concerning representation of the diocese of Kigali, that all church belongings controlled by Ruhumuliza be handed over to the Provincial Secretary, and that the prime minister ‘ask Christians and pastors of [the diocese of Kigali] to urgently appoint acceptable and legal representation according to their Constitution’.⁵⁷ Not long afterwards Ruhumuliza received a letter from the Provincial Council telling him to resign.⁵⁸ Projects in the diocese of Kigali had been at a standstill since the previous September. He could no longer function as bishop. In mid-April 1997, he resigned. Michael Peers, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, worked with the High Commissioner in Uganda to expedite a Canadian visa for Ruhumuliza.⁵⁹ On 11 May 1997, Ruhumuliza arrived in Canada and, that fall, began studying for a master's degree at the Montreal Diocesan Theological College. From Montreal, he continued to protest about what had taken place. He received little support. In a letter, John Peterson, who less than two years earlier had acclaimed him as bishop of Kigali, wrote, ‘Regardless of the situation surrounding your resignation, you have resigned … Letters pointing blame and your own personal hurt will never let the Church in Kigali do the business of Our Lord.’⁶⁰ The about-face of Cavender and Peterson is noteworthy. A few years earlier, they had been eager to legitimise the actions of the provincial synod and establish a foundation for the Rwandan Church's post-genocide ministry. As the impact on the Church of the country's ethnic differences became clear in the following years, they did little to defend the actions of the synod they had once legitimised by their presence, deferring instead to the political realities on the ground in Kigali.

On 25 April 1997, the diocese of Kigali held an extraordinary synod and resolved to ‘beseech/implore’ Emmanuel Kolini of the diocese of Shaba to become bishop of Kigali. In May, the College of Bishops of the Church approved of the decision.⁶¹ It was unclear on what grounds the synod had been called. Ruhumuliza decried the lack of church order, noting that the members of the synod were chosen from among his opponents, that duly elected members from the diocese's districts had been set aside, and that those who tried to nominate someone besides Kolini ‘were shut up’.⁶² Cavender, the author of a draft constitution for Rwanda, wrote in a memo from London: ‘I doubt there is now a Provincial Council following Bishop Jonathan's “resignation” of Kigali, exacerbating an already very difficult constitutional position … It seems this process has attained a life of its own. In legal terms, it looks to me as if they are building on sand.’⁶³

Given the later importance of the diocese of Kigali both to the Anglican Church in Rwanda but also the broader Anglican Communion, it is striking that this history of conflict in the diocese has never been documented. Cantrell summarises these years in a few sentences.⁶⁴ More tellingly, Kolini's semi-official biography makes no mention of the turmoil. Instead, it describes the prelude to his return to Kigali in these terms: ‘Even the bishop of Kigali chose not to return. The synod then decided to write to Kolini, asking if he would be willing to come to the province and serve as bishop of Kigali.’⁶⁵ Strictly speaking, this was true: Sebununguri chose not to return from Nairobi. But Kigali had had a recognised bishop, Ruhumuliza, functioning as diocesan for three years before Kolini's arrival. In August 1997, Kolini was enthroned as diocesan bishop, and shortly afterwards elected archbishop, the first Tutsi to hold either role. The enthronement service was attended by the RPF's leader, Paul Kagame, and many other representatives of the government. Writing at that time, David Birney reflected, ‘Pray God that Kolini's “election” was according to whatever constitution they used … The “dissident group” and the government were not going to rest until there was a Tutsi bishop in Kigali untainted by the hands of Sebununguri and Co. The goal – understandable; their methods –?? Their idea about “working for the good of the church” obviously was not ours.’⁶⁶

Given the centrality of the diocese of Kigali to the Church, the conflict there had the highest profile in the Church and country. But similar tensions were at work in the other vacant sees, though the documentary evidence for these is weaker. Suffice to say that in early April 1997, the electoral college of the Church of Rwanda elected bishops for the four vacant dioceses. Three were Tutsis, including John Rucyahana, and one was English. In addition the new diocese of Umutara was created and Alexis Bilindabagabo was appointed bishop. Prior to the genocide, there had been a single Tutsi and eight Hutu bishops. Now, in 1997, six of the bishops were Tutsis. It was a transition that mirrored what had taken place in the leadership of the country.

Under the leadership of Emmanuel Kolini, the new House of Bishops in Rwanda began to consolidate its authority. References to the conflict quickly turned into euphemisms. Kolini, in his own writing to supporters, said that ‘our cathedral is now calm after the turmoil of the last few years’.⁶⁷ In October 1997, the new leadership began fundraising for a retreat for themselves so that they could ‘meditate on the new challenging role of the Church leadership following the genocide which took place in our country in 1994’.⁶⁸ There is no mention in the proposal of the conflict that had engulfed the Church between 1994 and 1997. Instead, in a mirror of the rhetoric that the government was using and which would become a key part of the self-presentation of the Rwandan Church, the bishops state that their aim is ‘to build a completely pleasant holy family in which there is no Hutu, nor Tutsi, no white nor black but only children of the Most High’.⁶⁹ Their testimonies are compelling but they omit the brutal and ethnically-based church conflict that had brought them to their positions of authority.⁷⁰

From 1991 to 1997, broken only by a cataclysmic genocide, the Anglican Church of Rwanda was beset by a rolling series of crises over leadership, governance and authority. The dividing lines of the conflict varied but were rooted in the basic division of Rwandan society between Hutu and Tutsi. With the enthronement of Emmanuel Kolini as archbishop and the filling of other vacant sees, the visible conflict in the Rwandan Church largely came to an end. Cantrell's work has demonstrated how Kolini successfully positioned himself to lead the Church in that moment. He drew on a shared ethnic background to ally himself with the RPF government, including by parroting its misleading descriptions of a post-genocide Rwanda that would be without regard to ethnicity.⁷¹ Although at that point he himself had spent most of his life outside the country, he consolidated Rwandan Anglicanism within Rwanda and successfully cut off those Rwandan Anglicans who remained outside the country and in the aftermath of the genocide had been actively seeking to shape the Church. Finally, and most significantly, he created new networks of international support by drawing on the legacy of the East African Revival, guilt in western countries about their failure to prevent the genocide and broader Anglican debates about human sexuality.⁷² In 1998, Kolini was a key actor in the consecration of missionary bishops for the Americas and the formation of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA), a conservative group that was dissatisfied with the direction of the American Episcopal Church in relation to human sexuality. Cantrell demonstrates how AMiA representatives are not notably knowledgeable about Rwandan Anglicanism and have often parroted misleading narratives put forward by the RPF government.⁷³ None the less, their support, for a time, resulted in significant sums of money being directed towards the Church in Rwanda. With such resources, Kolini's position became impregnable and the post-genocide church conflict, which ran counter to the official narrative of a harmonious post-genocide country, could be forgotten.

The defeated, expelled or exiled bishops gradually faded away. After Montreal, Ruhumuliza served for a time as bishop of Cameroon and then relocated to England where he became a parish priest. The accusations of involvement in the genocide have always followed him but have never been proven.⁷⁴ The lack of accountability is characteristic of the situation in the Church. During the conflict in Kigali, Ruhumuliza continually said that he would allow himself to be held accountable for his actions during the genocide if they could be proved in court. But formal proceedings were never undertaken. Something similar is true for the Church as a whole. As a Canadian Anglican aid agency wrote in a report reflecting on its involvement in Rwanda:

There has never been a full hearing of the accusations against Ruhumuliza or any other leader of the ‘Protestant’ Churches in Rwanda, no opportunity to weigh their gravity against other alleged wrongdoing or to weigh them in the context of the crisis as it evolved. This is a major impediment to healing in Rwanda … Until the truth is heard and justice is established, there can be no reconciliation.⁷⁵

By studying one instance of conflict among church leaders in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper has sought to illuminate multiple aspects of the complexity within which African Churches exist. They are Churches in which political realities are constantly dictating ecclesial ones. When the government changed in Rwanda, the Church needed to change as well. Part of that struggle was over the effective boundaries of the Church. Rwandan Anglicanism was, for much of the period of this paper, a regional Church in which the geographic boundaries of the country and the boundaries of the Church were not coterminous. The conflict was also continually shaped by international links in which Rwandans have consistently been more knowledgeable and skillful than western Anglicans and have used these links to bolster their position. Further study of critical moments of conflict and transition in the history of the African-led African Church is vitally necessary, bolstered by archival sources that remain unused but full of scholarly potential.

To visit Rwanda today is to be aware of a certain fragility in the institutions of the country. The nation is a darling of many aid organisations, even as concerns about its governance and politics are quietly raised. Political opposition is quickly put down and opponents are arrested and assassinated.⁷⁶ The Church, meanwhile, is still dominated by Tutsis and is as close to the present Tutsi-dominated government as a previous generation of Hutu church leaders were to a Hutu-dominated government. Studying African church conflict is important for scholarly reasons but also to be supportive and critical friends of church leaders who play a significant role in the politics of their fragile countries.