The twin evils of hatred and indifference ...

From the Rwandan Genocide to a Rwandan Peace - keeping Unit in North Darfur, Sudan.

A thoughtful Rwandan Army Lieutenant ponders his firsthand experience of the twin evils of indifference and hatred in both places and the healing role in Rwanda today of Marian mysticism.


Snippets from an informal interview given by him to a former U.S. contractor "with the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur."

Mr. M.P. Summers' fabulous article is titled A Continent of Contradictions. In the January - February issue of The New Oxford Review.

"When I first came to Sudan, I saw a dead woman in the market square in Shangil Tobaya -- not the first one I'd seen and I suspect not the last.

"She had been stoned to death -- for adultery most likely.

"They buried her up to her waist and had the market children do the stoning.

"I drove by with three Nigerian officers.

"The laughed as we passed and made comments about her looks.

"These men were not even fazed by the evil that had occurred in front of their faces.

"That poor wretched woman died at the hands of evil, an evil that I recognized.

"That upset me greatly.

"And those poor wretched kids who did the killing were manipulated by evil.

"That upset m even more ...."

Rwandan Genocide

"I'll tell you a little - known fact about Rwanda.

"Thirteen years before the genocide, the Blessed Mother of God appeared before three school children in the village of Kibeho.

"She gave them a message of hope and a foretelling of violence.

"The visions of death they saw were were horrible and incomprehensible at the time.

"Thirteen years later the last of the violence took place on the very spot where Blessed Mary appeared.

"One of [those] schoolchildren was among the victims hacked apart on that spot.

"She was martyred through indifference.

"Indifference blinded men to ignore the Mother of God in order to murder their fellow man.

"What has happened to my country since the killing ended?

"When we regained control, did we avenge ourselves against our neighbors?

"No, love enveloped the country.

"A love and forgiveness that, I like to think, only a heavenly mother could instill in her children...

"Our horror started through hatred and indifference.

"It has ended with love and forgiveness ..

"Men asked for forgiveness face - to - face.

"W. deal with our countrymen who committed the atrocities on a village level.

"If a man killed his neighbor, he goes to the family and asks for forgiveness ..."

A fascinating account, huh??!!

You bet! :)


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