Beginning of the story

I now want to describe an experience which happened to me and my colleague Richard and remains for us a peculiar experience in the field of faith. On the 2nd February 1991 went for Candle feast to the Angels sisters in Kampaga. Two of them are called Mary and we drove to them with Fr. pallotin Marian Sobczyk.

As usual rebels attacking coming down form the volcanoes towards the city of Nkumba. I told brother Richard: “we shall cut down the price of fuel if we go with Marian” and we went to take the car Suzuki at the market crossroads at Gahunga and drove to Kampaga which amounts to 25 kms by road: Ruhengeri the Prefet tow, the town Kinigi at the bottom of the volcanoes Muhabura, Sabyinyo, Bisoke. We could hear shots all the time.

We said mass at the sisters in the calm. We shared the solemn dinner. Marian said we’d better stay at the sisters until the complete end of the fight. I was keen on going home. So we went to our respective homes in Kinoni and Gahunga. Not far away from the town Kinigi, soldiers stopped us saying it was dangerous to go towards the city, and we should go further away from the place of fight with rebels coming from Ouganda: a mixture of Tutsi and Hutus, who occupied the neighbouring town Nkumba.

In Busogo

We drove to Busogo to spend the night with rwandi priests. One of them John Baptist often said that there would be no peace unlessl rebels and their accomplices were all killed. I didn’t want to discuss with him in this time of drama and excitement. In their Parish home courtyard were a lot of people flying from fighting places. The priest John Baptist showed me photos of the present time members of the Government, some of them were Tutsi.

I could only notice that he was ill content and angry. I knew he suffered a lot in his youth. At a time he was forced to emigrate and finished his Seminary in Ouganda, he came back from there with two priest who worked afterwards in our Ruhengeri dioceses, to help the local church. We shared supper and spent a quiet night. Over 20 thousand people came round the parish church and found help from the Busogo priests.

Return

On the following day, 3rd February 1991, after a phone call to our Bishop Mgr Fokas Nikwigize, we decided to go home. When we went through Ruhengeri we went to the Bishopric and our Bishop told us we would find problems on our way and that we were quite well with him. Which gave in ikinyarwanda: Murakaza neza.

We thanked him and left towards Gahunga through Knumba city. When we reached the crossroads I saw soldiers digging a hole by the road. I learnt that they had killed a rebel and were burying him. I felt ill at ease, but I decided to speak with the commando commander. I talked to him in ikinyarwanda, but he preferred to talk in French.

He explained that if we wanted to go home by ourselves, he couldn’t warrant that we would reach it safely because rebels were hiding in the banana fields. We shall clean up the area, he said. If you want you can come with us and you will be safe. I said I’d rather they cleaned the field first and then we would go home. “Cleaning up” meant riding a big lorry and shooting through the banana fields with a machine gun and in the houses were the rebels were hiding. Some time passed.

Meanwhile boys, circling round the road brought cartridges and bombs they found on the ground and gave them to the commandos. I suggested to brother Richard to go to our neighbours community, the white fathers and wait until everything went back to normal. Afterwards we would drive home quietly. My brother didn’t react so we waited at the Nkumba crossroads

The Abarashi clan

Before I asked leave to the soldiers to go in the city hall room to look at the corpses of two of our policemen who were killed by the rebels while defending the city. I knew one of them well Ignace because he used to be godfather for the baptisms of our young catechumens. Not long ago he got married and he baptised his children and children from the primary school asked him to be their godfather.

Ignace belonged to the Abarashi clan; shooting clan, famous for their extreme courage and tenacity. They didn’t even give up in front of the king’s exigencies (the king who reigned up to 1930) In his clan the chief Rukara which means “the one who gets angry” had a quarrel with a missionary The white father Loupias a Frenchman it cost him his life. Father Loupias got the nickname of Rugigan: which means one who loves to quarrel.

After the death of the white father Germans who were governing at the time made peace by burning down Rukara and his servants houses. The chief died on a scaffold after having been betrayed by one of his neighbours. Before being hanged he took a knife and killed one of the soldiers of his escort. Often I heard the ballad on the radio, exalting Rukara’s courage who killed a good for nothing white man Rugigana. The text played on my nerves.

I won’t give more details on this event which happened in 1910. I will only add that Rukara’s servant Manuka, who after Father Loupia's death fled to Ouganda, like the old man aged 90 was baptised by a national priest in the parish of Rwaza. I heard this tale from his own mouth.

The incident

I shall come back on this event which happened on the 3rd February 1991? And remains in my mind. Father Richard agreed we should go towards the White Fathers house, they live 6 kilometres away from us and 6 from the electric central erected in Ntaruka between the two lakes Bulera and Ruhondo (100 m difference between the twlo). We drove only 60 kilometres. A police car came up to us.

I tried to greet them by saying Muraho and holding my hand in a characteristic gesture of greeting. The chief gets out of the car and starts giving orders: sit down, hands on your head, sit down on the earth. I made pretence I didn’t understand English and I knelt, brother Richard did the same. I take my papers out of my pocket so that he can check, but the chief has been through a hard period and developed a psychosis.

I give him ibya ngomba the papers issued by the Nkumba city to prove our innocence, but he doesn’t want to look at them, he thinks we are mercenaries and tells the others not to speak with us. In his mind we are soldiers paid to destroy the electric central. I try to speak with the other policemen but all to no avail.

The chief meant to shoot right away the city veterinary who had come with us, I pleaded for him, showing his house destroyed by the fights. I asked the boys to confirm my sayings in front of the chief. They said: dore abapadiri bacu- voici ce sont nos prêtres, but he is no longer listening and says we should get into the car Toyota, and we went away towards Ruhengeri.

We drove only for two miles and the order comes: Stop, get out of the car, and get down 15 meters into the pit by the road. The shooting squad gets formed in front of us, 10 policemen who will shoot us. The thought crosses my mind, that our ugly corpses should not remain by the road.

Meanwhile Brother Richard kneels down and asks me to absolve him, and I say the dying prayer three times: eternal rest, give them O Lord… Then I said the formula to absolve. The word “absolution” pronounced by the brother gave something to think over to the policemen for one of them tried to speak to the chief.

Salvation time

Nothing else remained in my mind than saying: “In thy hands I lay down my spirit, O Lord. I looked a last time at the volcanoes, at the blue sky with the wonderful white clouds. I felt a great peace in my heart. It was like Elias praying in the grotto. I thought in parallel with Dostojewskif who was about to be shot, but the change of order came just in time before the order “shoot”.

He said these words that beauty will change the world. For me Beauty that saves the world is the Immaculate heart of Mary filled with peace and the hearts of Christians who have dedicated their lives to the Immaculate. They bring divine peace, source of abandonment and of trust in Jesus of Mercy.

God answered my prayer, that I addressed him while we were still at the crossroads of Nkumba before all this happened. After I looked at the chief straight in the eyes. He had a wry smile on his lips and the order shoot wasn’t given.

In the police station and at the bishop in Ruhengeri

He told us to get back into the car and we drove towards the police station in Runengeri. There all the soldiers circled round us, but they were ordered not to talk to us. They had been told that two mercenaries had been arrested who had paid rebels to blow up the Nkatura electrical central. I wanted to speak to them, but they had to go far away from us. Brother Richard was holding in his hand the casket with the tools to measure the ground.

The city veterinary was sitting and I could see my fingers handling the rosary beads at an extraordinary speed. After two hours, since this morning quite a number of hours went by, one of the policemen we had already met at father pallotin Henryk Cabala asked us: “do you know father Kabala?” I answered of course, but his name should be pronounced otherwise.

Then we went to Mgr Fokas Nikwigize and he recognized us explaining to the policemen: Dore umukono wanjye: here is my signature! Showing on our mass book his signatureDore abapadiri bacu, here are our fathers, our missionaries. The chief was explaining that in such circumstances it was very easy to get mixed up between friends and enemies and missionaries and mercenaries.

… When my name was pronounced, Ilwicki, he heard Whisky but the bishop answered that we won’t drink whisky there. We stayed at the bishopric and the vet went to live with his family members. In the end, the chief asked me: “why we had wandered in the very midst of danger, in the fire of fight?

-- Didn’t you know it was dangerous? I only answered that we were Christians and didn’t look to see if there was danger or not. In Ikinyarwanda it’s a play on words” We are from Gahunga, but we don’t run away= Turi bo mu Gahunga ariko ntiduhunga. The word Gahunga means: a small run away” and the verb “guhunga” to run away.

Back home

We spent the night at the bishopric and on the following day escorted by two military cars, and accompanied by two white fathers, we went home in Gahunga. One of them, Robert liked to joke and he was travelling with another brother André who is very deaf. When bombs and shells started to burst, André thought it was the door banging away. Robert answered it wasn’t the door but the fight between two conflicting parties and bombs bursting quite near.

The soldiers went on to chase the rebels in Ouganda in the areas of Runaba and Kinoni. Father Sylvestre and Father Barthélémy lived in our home under the falling bombs for three nights. After three days we met the vet who came to drink a beer. He said that he was the one who intervened for us in front of the shooting squad because he knew one of the policemen.

He was very proud of having had the opportunity to be shot between a father and a brother, both missionaries and know he wants to be consecrated to the Lord and become a religious. A Carmelite sister commented his wish: if there is danger, one turns towards the Lord, but if danger gets further way, we go away from Him as fast as possible. Some time after we learnt that he had intercourse with a girl and died of AIDS.

The end

Two years after this event, I had the opportunity to intervene in a violent demonstration at the city of Gitarama crossroad. While talking with the boys who were keeping us as hostages with an important group of travellers, after my words that North of the country there’s war: Do you want this misfortune to happen to you? I could hear their answer Yes, we do .

Another year went by and massacres spread over the whole of Rwanda and on its prefecture Gitarama. On the spot of the apparitions in Kibeho where I went to pray with the visionaries, 10 thousand Tutsi were killed then as a revenge the rebel army killed 136 thousand Hutu. No it’s easier to understand the actual situation in the centre of Africa which lost its French speaking charm in turning to the Anglo Saxon culture spread by Ugandans, Englishmen and Americans.

The previous Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda don’t have a stability based on human rights, but there prevails there up to these days violence, racial persecution and a lot of people die every day killed by racial hatred. At first it’s very difficult for us to think racial inspiration can so much corrupt minds and contaminate UNO’s attempt in Rwanda.

Now we are disillusioned. Who can rejoice, let him rejoice. I leave you to discover the problem through numberless witnesses, books and personal contacts with those who haven’t the right to speak truly on what is occurring in the world, if they only agree to tell you.

Father Julian Piotr Ilwicki, OCD

Gorzêdziej k/Tczewa
ul. Ks. Hundsdorffa 7
83-120 SUBKOWY
Poland