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[PCUSANEWS] SYMBOL OF WAR, SYMBOL OF PEACE


From PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>
Date Thu, 25 Mar 2004 11:23:47 -0600

Note #8180 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Symbol of war, symbol of peace
04153
March 25, 2004

SYMBOL OF WAR, SYMBOL OF PEACE

Crosses made from spent shells represent Liberia's 'transformation'

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - George Tokpah took the call on his cell phone in his front yard
in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, a city ransacked and all but destroyed
last year when rebel forces pushed then-President Charles Taylor into exile.

He wants to talk about the millions of empty shell casings left in the city
by the army, rebel groups and private militias. He and some of his friends,
ex-combatants who have given up on war, now devote their ample spare time to
making little crosses out of spent cartridges.

He wants to explain why.

"We're talking to our Christian brothers," he says, nearly shouting into his
cell phone to overcome the background noise. "War is not the answer. These
crosses are made out of empty shells used to kill our people. ... War is not
good."

That's the gist of his message.

Unrest and violence have crippled Liberia's infrastructure. Phone service is
so-so. The banks are open only intermittently. Most North Americans seldom
think about Liberia and its thousands of raped women, its cholera patients
and starving refugees, its looting sprees and property damage. The country's
nightmare hasn't ended with daylight.

"We are saying this not just for Liberia," says Tokpah, once a member of one
of the rebel groups. "We want the whole world to see, to know, the impact
that war has. It is not good. So we are trying to transform an instrument of
war into an instrument of peace."

It takes more time than you might think.

To shape a bullet into a cross, you have to hold it firmly in a vise while
splitting it open with a hacksaw. Then, with a pair of pliers, you spread the
shell open and pound it with a hammer into the shape of a cross. Then you
even up the edges with a file and smooth them with sandpaper.

Tokpah and his brother-in-law, George Kollie, started the project while
hanging around the Lutheran World Federation/World Service compound in
Monrovia, looking for jobs. A worker there, Reinhard Tietze, first put them
to work planting coconut palms on the grounds, then thought up the
crosses-from-shells idea and bought the first few for use as gifts for
visitors.

When the World Council of Churches learned of the project, it quickly made
the peace crosses part of its Decade to Overcome Violence. But sales slowed
dramatically when Tietze left Liberia, and hasn't recovered.

That's one reason the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Peacemaking Program is
making the crosses available in the United States. The first batch went to
participants in last summer's peacemaking conferences. Early next month,
Presbyterian Distribution Services (PDS) will be selling the crosses in
batches of five for $10 - if all goes well in shipping and they arrive on
time. The order number is 70270-03028; the (toll-free) phone number is (800)
524-2612.

Sara Lisherness, the coordinator of the Peacemaking Program, says she decided
to promote the crosses for two reasons: To lift up the Decade to Overcome
Violence and to remind PCUSA members that Liberia has fallen apart.

"We've had tons of requests for more crosses. But it has been very difficult
(to obtain them) because of the unstable situation," says Lisherness, who was
moved by the stories of the men who've turned their lives from war to peace.
"The crosses represent for me ... the not-yet. We're in that in-between time.
People are making these out of shells. ... They know that God does not want
them killing each other.

"But what we need to be working for is a time when they won't be making
bullets, either."

Albarstine Donkpoie, one of the cross-makers, thinks that way, too. He has
seen plenty of violence, including one incident so horrific that it changed
him forever. He saw a young man kill his own mother when she objected to his
decision to take up arms.

Since then, he says, he has been preaching peace and denouncing violence.

The crosses, for Donkpoie, are a way of asking for God's protection in a
world gone crazy. The little bits of metal represent for him what he calls
the "transformation from evil to good," like the change Saul experienced on
the Damascus Road, when he became Paul and shifted gears from vengeance to
reconciliation.

Donkpoie, like many thousands of other Liberians, is marooned in Monrovia,
far from his home village. Many thousands more now live in Sierra Leone,
Guinea or the Ivory Coast.

In response to the question, "Has your life changed because of the war?" he
answers, "Yes - after transformation." But this time, he is talking about a
shift in his interior geography, not exterior.

Tokpah tells a similar story. No job. A ruined house. Sleeping in the yard.
Like all of his neighbors. "Everyone was looted," he says. "This is why we're
praying to God. And why we are asking for Christian friends to come to our
aid. To build back our life."

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