PART ONE: April, 1994 

On the afternoon of 6 April, 1994 I was walking through the parking lot of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in downtown Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  A young Tanzanian boy ran by me shouting, “They’re coming, they’re coming.  Quick.  Go to the front of the church.”  So in true African community style, without knowing what was going on, I started running to Sokoine Drive, the highway named after the former Vice President Edward Sokoine, immediately in front of the cathedral and bordering the harbor.  “Dar es Salaam,” by the way, is Swahili for “Haven of Peace” because the waterfront area is a natural harbor of the Indian Ocean – the name being one of the many ironies connected to this story.

And yes, they were coming!  The presidents of different East and Central African countries had just finished an important summit meeting hosted by Tanzania to discuss peace and stability in the region. The motorcades of the presidents flashed by on their way to Dar es Salaam International Airport where the respective leaders would board their presidential jets to return to their home countries.  Of course, we cheered and waved as they sped by hoping to get a glimpse of who was hidden behind those tinted glass windows.  It was all over in a minute and then we returned to our normal activities.  I headed back to the Maryknoll Society House in the Oyster Bay area of Dar es Salaam not far from the residence of former President Julius Nyerere.

Early the next morning, 7 April, 1994, I innocently drove to the campus of Dar es Salaam University to meet John Sivalon, a Maryknoll priest who taught sociology.  We planned to visit several professors on the campus.  John warned me ahead of time that the parking lot near his office building would be crowded, but that I would "probably" find an empty space.  As it turned out, the parking lot was totally empty!  Suddenly I had an eerie feeling. “Strange,” I thought.  I walked to John’s office with hardly a person around. John himself was surprised that there were so few people on campus.  He quickly inquired from a friend down the hall. We both were shocked to learn that Tanzanian President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, had declared a “National Day of Mourning in Tanzania.”  When the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi had flown together from Dar es Salaam back to Rwanda, their plane had been shot down approaching the capital Kigali and both leaders killed instantly.  So, no classes at the university.

And the rest is history.  That fateful day, 7 April, 1994 began 100 days of brutal and unrestrained genocide and violence.  Hutu extremists butchered 800,000 Tutsis, Hutu moderates, and people with mixed ethnic blood.

Again and again and again I have reflected on the many associations to this particular month of April, 1994.  The British poet T.S. Eliot called April “the cruelest month” because it is popularly known as the month that Jesus Christ died.  During this very month African bishops of the Catholic Church were meeting in the historic 1994 First African Synod in Rome to discuss topics such as the “Church as Family” in Africa.  At the end of April, 1994 Nelson Mandela was preparing in 10 days time to be sworn in as the first black president of South Africa.  How could so many momentous events happen in Africa at the very same time?  Ironies abound.

PART TWO: October, 1994 

In October, 1994 I joined another Maryknoll priest to travel to Rulenge Diocese in Western Tanzania to study ways that Maryknoll Missionaries could help in the refugee camps.  We called our trip a “Journey into the Heart of God’s Suffering People.”  Solemnly I stood on Rusumo Bridge that connects Rwanda and Tanzania.  After the Tutsi-dominated army took over Rwanda, 300,000 desperate Hutu refugees fled the persecution and crossed this bridge into Tanzania in a single day.  Visiting the nearby Benaco Refugee Camp I wrote the following prose poem called:

They Came Walking, Walking

They came walking, walking.

They came walking, walking up the long, steep hill.

They came trudging, trudging.

They came trudging, trudging up the long, steep hill.

Loaded down with bundles of firewood on their heads

They came walking, walking.

Women, plenty of women, men, girls, boys

A long line of bewildered children.

An endless stream of weary humanity.

5   10   20   40   80   160   320…

And still they came.

They came walking, walking.

Then the pouring rain came.

In torrents, in sheets — a cold, biting rain.

Still they came walking up the long, steep hill.

Balancing bundles of branches and heavy logs on their heads

Occasionally being blown across the wind-swept road.

They came walking, walking.

We watched warm and dry

Inside our Toyota pick-up truck.

Peering out of rain-splashed windows.

Whipped by the wind, Hutu refugees slowly staggered by with tired and pained faces.

Wet bits of clothing clinging to frail bodies

They came walking, walking.

We drove slowly for three kilometers down the long, steep hill.

During the biggest downpour

Forced to pull off the road and park.

After the heavy rain stopped

We drove slowly back up the long, steep hill.

They came walking, walking.

Some sat exhausted with their firewood by the side of the road.

Drenched and shivering.

Large tree limbs and logs left abandoned.

Others trudged ahead in a wet daze.

Still others reeled from fatigue.

They came walking, walking.

It was the road by the Benaco Refugee Camp.

Northwestern Tanzania.

Late October, 1994.

Overnight the second largest city in Tanzania.

Now 400,000 wet, shivering Hutu refugees from Rwanda.

GENOCIDAL WAR IS HELL!

PART THREE: April, 2004 

Let us move ahead 10 years in time. 7 April, 2004 and once again by a strange coincidence I am on the compound of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in downtown Dar es Salaam.  Suddenly the church bells peal the 12 Noon Prayer.  Stunned for a moment, I suddenly remember and turn to my Tanzanian companion and say, “Let’s observe one minute of silence.” Then we prayed together for Rwanda.  The United Nations had designated 7April, 2004 as ”International Day of Reflection” for Rwanda, and the African country had asked other nations to hold memorial silences to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the terrible genocide. But apart from official ceremonies at United Nations offices, in major U.N. centres such as Nairobi and Geneva and at Rwandan embassies worldwide, there was no sign that the gesture was widely observed.  How many people really observed one minute of silence on that day?  Did you?

PART FOUR: April, 2007

Let us move ahead three years in time until today, Sunday, 15 April, 2007, here in Nairobi. Yes, April again. As William Shakespeare wrote: "The wheel has come full circle." But April doesn’t have to be the cruelest month. It can be the kindest, gentlest month.  It depends on us – you and me.  Peace and justice and forgiveness and mercy and reconciliation can flow like a river throughout Rwanda, East Africa, the Horn of Africa, the continent of Africa, the whole world. We just have to imitate the Rwandan woman in the following true story that I collected after the genocide called:

The Merciful Rwandan Wife

In a particular section of Kigali, Rwanda, where people from the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups lived together, genocidal war broke out with a bloody vengeance. Neighbors attacked neighbors. In one area, a Hutu man murdered his Tutsi neighbor. Some time later, after the Rwandan Patriotic Front had won the war and taken over the government, local investigations of the atrocities started. The wife of the dead Tutsi man was asked to identify her husband’s murderer. She refused, knowing that the Hutu man would be arrested, imprisoned, and probably killed. The woman preferred to remain silent to save another life.

“This is enough”, she said. "The killing has to stop somewhere. One murder does not justify another killing. We have to break this cycle of violence and end this genocide.”

So she chose to forgive.