This monk from Navarra, a missionary of The Sacred Heart (in Spanish:
los Sagrados Corazones), is an exceptional witness of the recent and
continuing tragedies in Central Africa. His long experience in the
conflict zone give him a wide and non common perspective.
- Father Santos, how long were you in Africa?
Thirty years. Twentyeight in various places in Rwanda (Kiziguro and
Rukara) and two years in a refugees camp in Tanzania, but also with my
parishioners.
- Do you think we are well informed?
- No. The tragedy is still alive, still continues. They won the war, but
not peace, and if we really want peace, there is no other way than
justice -and justice needs the truth. Things have been manipulated, the
ethnic Hutu population satanized and this is the seed for new conflicts.
- How did normal life look like in your church?
- When I came to Rwanda in 1967, there lived this idea that the Hutus
were inferior, not able to do slightly complicated tasks. Because of
this idea they hardly had access to education. Nevetheless, the numbers
of pupils in primary schools shot up in those years (from 600 to
14.000), which proves, that also many Hutus (80% of the population) went
to school. The results were important, because they were loosing the
slave-mentality. But now it has gone backwards.
- Why?
- The first fase of the conflicts was a real war of races, a fight for
power. Once obtained, there was respect for the population. In the
second fase everything got complicated. People were forced to flee, to
desert the land, and it even came to active massacres and massacres by
omission. With as result more than a million displaced people.
- The photos of what happened in your church were shown all around
the world.....
- Yes, but the dead were Hutus. Many things were silenced or distorted.
Once they massacred the refugees who were in the church, I had to leave
the country. When I found out that many of my parishioners were in
Tanzania, I wanted to join them. I do not need to give details about
their miserable conditions. Worst of all, they were not safe there
either and they were forced to return back, to a certain death.
- Were they not protected by the UNO?
- That is the real tragedy. The Commission for Refugees of the UN. acted
totally against their principles. Everybody obeyed mysterious orders
from very high up of those who desired to settle or liquidate ( the
Spanish word -liquidar- has both meanings) quickly the problem of the
refugees and of course without any concern for their wellbeing.. My
people decided to rather undertake the long route back of more than 1000
km., thinking that at least the young ones would survive. I wondered
about this situation and asked explications and.........
- And than your problems started.
- Yes, that is true. The officials of the UNO. and the Government
excused themselves and their obedience, pointing at verry powerfull
reasons. One of them, a moslim, asked me to pray and to write to the
pope, because a catastrophe was happening. After an interview with the
Governor I was arrested and thrown out of the country with the stamp
dangerous in my passport. Now from here, I want to tell the truth and
help the oppressed to come to their status according to their education
and culture.
- What is that truth?
- The war of Zaire is programmed. Kabilla´s men are professional
soldiers, no guerrillas. The mining and Anglophile interests (USA and
South Africa) have overpowered and surpassed the old protection of the
Francophones. It is sad that in this war of white people, again the
black people are being killed.