The new Archbishop of the Kigali Catholic Archdiocese Antoine Kambanda on Monday warned that although genocide ideology has been tremendously reduced, there is an urgent need to protect youth against these negative values.
“Fighting genocide ideology should not only happen in schools because, parents, too, have a role to play in teaching their children about values,” Bishop Kambanda told a gathering during a genocide commemoration event at Kabare, a secondary school located in Eastern Rwanda.
According to the Catholic Bishop, everyone should take a role in educating the youth about fighting against genocide ideology, as a move to have a future with positive minds.
The Rwandan Bishop’s declaration comes after the Catholic church in Rwanda has apologised recently for the church’s role in the 1994 genocide, saying it regretted the actions of those who participated in the massacres.
The statement issued by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in 2016 acknowledged that church members planned, aided and carried out the genocide, in which more than one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists.
Many of the victims died at the hands of priests, clergymen and nuns, according to some accounts by survivors, and the Rwandan government said many died in the churches where they sought refuge, it said.
Reports indicate that at least 100 of the Catholic clergy were directly involved in the massacres while some have been indicted like Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka who lives in France, but only 30 have been convicted as of 2019.
CU/as/APA