BOB ABERNETHY: In Africa, President Clinton this week tried to ease the pain that still lingers there, by expressing his regrets to the descendents of those taken to America to be slaves. He stopped just short of an outright apology.During another African stop, a brief airport visit to Rwanda, the president acknowledged that the United States, and indeed the rest of the world, failed to respond adequately to the 1994 genocide, when possibly as many as a million people were killed in tribal blood-letting.
Since 1994, efforts to reconcile Rwanda's warring Tutsis and Hutus have been led by several religious groups. But, as correspondent Paul Miller reports, churches there face a particular problem in their reconciliation efforts. A note of caution, some of the pictures in this report are disturbing.
PAUL MILLER: This was not an isolated incident. In Rwanda in 1994, there were many attacks on churches where Tutsis sought refuge from marauding Hutus. Shockingly, some massacres were led by members of the clergy. One minister accused of genocide wound up in jail in Laredo, Texas. Elizaphan Ntakirutimana is a 74-year-old Seventh-Day Adventist who ran the Adventist church and hospital compound in Mugonero in Kibuye Prefecture. The United Nations International Tribunal for Rwanda wants to try Ntakirutimana, who is a Hutu, for the deaths of thousands of Tutsis who fled to his church.KENNETH ROTH (Human Rights Watch): He did, according to the eyewitnesses Human Rights Watch interviewed, lead the assailants to their prey, and in that sense directly contributed to a key part in the genocide.
ELIEL NTAKIRUTIMANA (Doctor): I think it's more political than anything else.
MILLER: Eliel Ntakirutimana says his father is an innocent scapegoat. In 1994, he took his father from Africa to Laredo, where Eliel is a prominent doctor. In 1996, the pastor, who was living with his son, was arrested at the request of the tribunal. He spent 15 months in the county jail in Laredo, until a federal magistrate dismissed the charges against him. He was rearrested in February when the tribunal filed another request for his surrender. A federal judge will rule on that. As the case has dragged on, people have taken sides for or against the pastor.
DAVID PETERS (Seventh-Day Adventist General Conference): When this environment took over of hysteria, it seemed like faces changed -- the visage of a person changed, and there was a demonic influence.
Mr. PETERS: Yes, there is cause for hope. It is not going to be easy. It is very complex. There are well-meaning people in all areas working to try to bring about a change.
ABERNETHY: Religious workers are among those caught in the renewed violence. On Monday, seven Catholic nuns, including two from Spain, were kidnapped by Hutu rebels, and eight people were killed on March 12, during an attack on a refugee resettlement site run by the Lutheran World Federation.
