wfn.org | "Witness to Genocide ..." provides healing and hope for Rwanda

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Note #6113 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

11-July-2000
00250

	"Witness to Genocide ..." provides healing and hope for Rwanda

	Book released by Friendship Press

	by Carol Fouke
	National Council of Churches News Service

NEW YORK – Standing over a young boy, a man grasps a nail-spiked wooden
club, ready to strike a deadly blow to his skull.  "I promise never to be
Tutsi again!," cries the boy, apparently in hopes that his life will be
spared.

	This devastatingly vivid image originated in the memories of a child, a
survivor of the Rwandan genocide in which nearly one million Rwandans were
killed.  Similar images of the brutality they witnessed pervade the thoughts
of a multitude of other Rwandan children.

	"Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda" is a collection of artwork by
child survivors of the 1994 genocide.

	"Their drawings may be unsettling, but they are the images emblazoned on
the minds of innocent children who witnessed the brutal slayings of their
parents, siblings, and neighbors," writes Richard A. Salem, editor of the
book and president of Conflict Management Initiatives, a not-for-profit
organization that supports the use of mediation and other collaborative
processes to manage community conflicts.

	From drawings of men with clubs to chaotic images of  families being
murdered, the book "Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda" serves a
purpose: trauma relief.  As First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton notes in the
book's foreword, the children's drawings serve as a vehicle to end their
distress.

	"I realized that these drawings are not just depictions of brutal violence
but are acts of recovery, healing, and hope,"  she writes.  "The very acts
of talking, writing, and drawing are helping these children confront their
past experiences and express their feelings about them."

	Rwandan Ambassador to the United States Dr. Richard Sezibera also suggests
that "Witness to Genocide…" is a book of healing ... both for the children
of Rwanda and the memories of the dead.

	In the book's final chapter Sezibera says the stories of the Rwandan
genocide "must be told again and again and again, not out of a morbid desire
for gruesome tales but out of concern that the innocent dead should
continuously sear the memories of the living ... not only does collective
memory contribute to the healing that comes with shared pain, but it also
gives hope that the world will remember and avoid the pitfalls of
yesteryear."

	Richard Salem suggests that not only are the drawings a vehicle for trauma
relief, but they are a warning of how corruptive power can be.  "For the
children, these are the images that wake them in the middle of the night ...
 For the rest of us, these drawings are a reminder of what inevitably
happens when the international community permits power-crazed leaders to
foment genocidal violence," he writes.  "It is important that adults
everywhere pay attention to the children's stories, as horrifying as they
may be."

	The book notes the transformation of Rwanda from a country where discussing
trauma from genocide was once unspeakable to a place where thousands of
children  now learn how to cope with their grief.

	As the book progresses, so does the artwork.  The once dismal and forlorn
drawings develop into pictures of Hutus and Tutsi children holding hands and
working together, with captions like this: "I love peace all over Rwanda."

	A percentage of royalties from the book will be donated to trauma treatment
organizations in Rwanda.  Contributors to the book include the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation, Church World Service, Friendship Press, Conflict Management
Initiatives, and members of the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, who
contributed through their 1999 St. Patrick's Day Walk/Run for Charity.  The
48-page "Witness to Genocide:  The Children of Rwanda" is available for
$19.95 by calling Friendship Press at 1-800-889-5733.  Or buy online at
www.cmi-salem.org.

	Each Rwandan child has a tale, and each tale has some sorrow.  "Witness to
Genocide: The Children of Rwanda" takes that sorrow and provides hope for
the future.  As Hillary Rodham Clinton writes "...no nation can move ahead
when its children are left behind."

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