Canada urged to bring killers of priest to justice

Missionaries slain during 1990s Rwandan genocide

By Catholic News Service
Quebec City

The brother of a Canadian priest murdered after the 1990s Rwandan genocide said he hoped the Canadian government would take action to bring to justice his brother's assassins.

Father Guy Pinard, a member of the Missionaries of Africa, was murdered in Kampanga as he celebrated Mass Feb. 2, 1997.

Gilles Pinard, the late priest's brother, said he hoped that the Canadian government would follow Spain's example and take action to bring to justice his brother's assassins.

The murder has been classified as an international crime.

"My brother was killed because he witnessed the murders of three Spanish workers from Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World)," Pinard said.

"He had also discovered a mass grave of 80 bodies in the playground of the village school where he worked. The army wanted to silence him," he said.

In early February, Spanish Judge Fernando Andreu issued 40 arrest warrants, including one to Rwandan Lt. Col. Karake Karenzi, then head of Rwandan military intelligence.

During a late-March trip to Sudan, Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier met with Karenzi, who is serving on a UN peacekeeping mission.

"It is possible that this individual was among the senior UN military officers that I met with in Sudan," Bernier told Canadian media March 31. "I hope that the UN will now do its job regarding the international charges against this officer."

Referring to the meeting, Pinard said, "I very much doubt that Maxime Bernier had the name of Guy Pinard on his mind at the time."

Canadian Holy Cross Father Claude Simard was murdered in October 1994 in the Rwandan village of Ruyenzi.

Simard had just returned from a trip to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where he had denounced a series of assassinations.

The priests and other victims were killed after the April-June 1994 Hutu genocide against Tutsis and progressive Hutus and after the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

Jordi Palou-Loverdos, the Spanish lawyer who represents several families of those assassinated, said the murder of the two Quebec priests took place in the context of a vast operation by the Rwandan Patriotic Front led by President Paul Kagame.

Kagame wanted to eliminate international witnesses of atrocities carried out by the government army after the genocide and after it had supposedly established order, Palou-Loverdos said.

Canada's Department of Justice was not immediately available to answer Catholic News Service's questions.

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