Behind the Vatican's gates

By Samia Nkrumah

The official briefing delivered by Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls the day after the killings stated that "Vice-corporal Cedric Tornay, after firing two bullets from his regulation weapon at Commander Estermann and one bullet at the wife of the commander, committed suicide." Another Vatican spokesman added that Tornay committed the murders in a "fit of madness" after receiving an official reprimand for repeatedly breaking the midnight curfew enforced on the guards. The young guard had also recently been excluded from the list of guards receiving a medal for meritorious service.

The Italian newspaper Coriere della Sera was the first to publish an apparent suicide note that Tornay wrote to his family which ties in with the official explanation of the killings. Not since the 1981 assassination attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II has there been a more violent incident inside the walls of Vatican City. More surprisingly, it was committed by a member of the Pontiff's own guards, the very people entrusted with the job of protecting the Pope, the bishops and their premises.

The murders presented an opportunity to those pursuing many unanswered questions from the Vatican. Fueled by the city-state's usual economical style of dealing with events involving its officials, the Italian media not only speculated on alternative motives for the latest shooting but revived controversial claims of past Vatican cover-ups as well. Suspicions surrounding the death of the former Pope John Paul I, a month after he was elected in order to conceal financial misdemeanour involving Vatican officials, were aired, and doubts were raised over the identity of forces behind the present Pontiff's 1981 attacker, Mehmet Ali Agca.

In the Estermann case, earlier suggestions hinted that he was a homosexual, then reports charged that his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, was involved with Tornay, the young guard. The latest allegations which appeared in a German newspaper Berliner Kurier said that Estermann had been a spy for the former East German Stasi secret police operating under the code name of "Werder".

The Kurier subsequently acknowledged that the espionage story came from an anonymous caller. And last week, an ex-Stasi chief insisted in an interview with the Italian paper La Stampa that the Stasi mole in the Vatican was another man, not Estermann. Describing the espionage story as "inconceivable", the Vatican flatly denied the allegations.

Nevertheless, it took a full six months for the Pope to appoint Estermann as the new commander of the Swiss Guards after his predecessor retired. This is despite the fact that Estermann was a 15-year veteran of the Papal security force who helped shield the Pope with his own body during the 1981 assassination attempt. If these accusations hold water, then it explains the delay in appointing Estermann until investigations into the espionage allegations were concluded.

But Mario Biasetti, whose recently released film Soldiers of the Pope documents the contemporary historical role of the Swiss Guards, scoffs at such reports. Biasetti told Al-Ahram Weekly that he spent many months with the Swiss Guards and knew the three dead people very well. "Estermann was not a homosexual and Tornay was always late for the midnight curfew because he had a girlfriend, a fact subsequently acknowledged by some Italian papers," he said, adding that Tornay's punishment effectively deprived him of the chance of becoming an officer. The Papal Swiss Guards, numbering around 100, are not highly paid. A regular guard gets around $12,000 a year and they work from 12 to 14 hours a day in a closed society. On the plus side, to have served in the Papal Swiss Guards is a boost to the career of any young soldier. They are carefully selected from the Swiss army and must be practising Catholics. Selections are made after investigating candidates who are approved by Swiss bishops.

Can the Swiss Guards make a difference to the security of the Pope? "Not entirely," says Biasetti, because after all "the two Swiss Guards close to the Pope and who walk next to his jeep are in civilian clothes and one of them is usually the guards' commander. They only carry tear gas but no weapons in compliance with the Pope's wishes." Moreover, the Vatican, which had a $85 million budget deficit last year, needs to curb its expenses.

Pope John Paul II, the first-ever non-Italian Pontiff, is quite explicit on stating the Vatican's position on various political and moral issues. In many cases this has inspired strong feelings both for and against the Vatican. The Pontiff is unswerving in his belief in political freedom, but advocates strict opposition to birth control. His anti-communist stance has not always meant a pro-American position.

The Vatican's position on the status of Jerusalem has been consistent and in line with Security Council Resolution 478 of 1980. The Holy See has always insisted that the territorial question regarding Jerusalem "should be resolved quickly and by negotiation" and that the part of the city militarily occupied in 1967 and annexed and declared capital of Israel is occupied territory. This year saw Pope John Paul II visit countries shunned by the United States such as the much publicised visit to Cuba in January and his trip to Nigeria in April for the beatification of a bishop. This visit coincided with US President Bill Clinton's Africa tour where Nigeria was excluded from the agenda to show US disapproval of the Nigerian regime's human rights record.

The Vatican has certainly attempted to conduct its own damage-control campaign in the aftermath of killings. At the funeral service of Estermann, his wife and Tornay, the latter's mother shook hands with Estermann's parents as part of the exchange of the sign of peace ritual in Roman Catholic services. And while these handshakes have not put to rest the mystery surrounding the triple tragedy, the Pope took a significant step when he prayed over the coffin of Tornay despite the fact that he killed two people and shot himself. In 1983, religious funeral services for suicide victims were forbidden by the Catholic church. Since then, the option has been left to the priest's discretion. It is difficult to imagine priests declining to hold religious funeral services for suicide victims in the future after the Pope's latest gesture.