Rwandan Genocide Witness Brings Message To Tyl

In 1994, Carl Wilkens, a missionary with the Seventh Day Adventist Church, was living in the Rwandan capital of Kigali with his wife and three children.

The country is now famous as the site of one of the worst slaughters since the Holocaust. Throughout the killings and rape, inflicted by the Hutu against the Tutsi, Wilkens remained in the city, bringing supplies to countless orphans and even getting the Rwandan president to give him his word that he would spare an orphanage.

At one point a group of soldiers showed up at Wilkens’s home, with plans to kill him and the Tutsi servants. Some Hutu women from next door stopped the soldiers by telling them stories, and talking about the good work of the family within until, eventually, the soldiers went away.

The stories, Wilkens told the audience inside the auditorium at Tyl Middle School Wednesday, rehumanized his family to a group that had been trained to think of him simply as the enemy.

An essential part of the genocide, he explained, was one side dehumanizing the other—in large part through hate-filled radio broadcasts, which later encouraged the Hutu to rise up against their neighbors.

This is the second year that Wilkens has spoken at Tyl. Joel Farrior, a teacher at the school, met him through a friend who was “teacher of the year” in Avon and knew Wilkens personally. This summer, Farrior and other teachers will accompany Wilkens to Rawanda to see memorials and schools. Farrior had prepared students with a lecture about the genocide and a screening of “Ghosts of Rwanda.”

In his morning, afternoon and evening talks, Wilkens covered everything from his own experiences in Rawanda to contemporary bloodshed in Sudan and in the Congo; which he had on a later trip to Africa. His presentation was rich with examples of individuals who were at their best when many others, acting together, were at their worst.

One of the servants in his house, Anetha, for example, was able to use her matronly attitude to face down Hutu aggressors. “She pulled the ‘mom card’ on them," Wilkens said.

He said the fact that in many cases, people intent on carrying out killings could be persuaded to desist as evidence that evil actions do not have to be the product of people that are pure evil.

“‘I’m really trying to get rid of the idea that there were groups of bad people and good people,” Wilkens said.

Some examples of people who risked themselves to help others included a Hutu healer who used her reputation as a magic woman to keep soldiers away from Tutsis that she kept in her house.

He also talked about Jordan, a young man from the United States who has visited South Sudan and helped raise money for schools and for mosquito netting.

“When you want to do more, you can,” he told the his listeners. “The only thing that stops you is you.”

He saw strength in the many genocide survivors who, despite living through hideous trauma, managed to rebuild and express joy. Wilkens showed a video he had shot at a hospital for women that had faced rape and torture during the genocide—they were singing songs praising their doctor.

As Rwanda recovers, however, the neighboring region to the west within the Democratic Republic of The Congo has become mired in deadly war. The Hutu armies that had been expelled from Rwanda continue to play a part in the violence over mineral resources.

“The Congo is the worst place in the whole world to be born,” Wilkens said, saying that it had the highest death rate per square mile of any country. He felt the need to visit the region during one of his trips to Rwanda, in order to witness the devastation firsthand.

As it happens, the minerals that spur the conflict are also an essential component of modern electronics like cellphones, computers and iPads.

“They leave a bunch of pain, devastation and death,” Wilkens said.

He encouraged the audience members research the companies they buy electronics from to avoid supporting violence and the slave labor practices in mines.

Wilkens’ appearance was a part of his “World Outside My Shoes” speaking tour. He also had brought copies of his book “I’m not leaving,” which was based in a large part on cassette recordings he had made for his family after they had left and he remained in Rwanda.

“It’s a book about choices people made,” Wilkens said.

To read more about Wilkens and his journey, you can click here to go to his website.