August 2009 (N'Djamena): What is Peace?

The children of the Bethesda Center added their stone to the road to peace in Chad. In “Pieces for Peace,” a project initiated by CITYArts, children from around the world answer the question “What does Peace look like to you?” by drawing what Peace represents to them.

It is difficult to imagine what peace looks like when all you’ve grown up with is war. In Chad, the family is still the primary source of support in times of crisis. Most problems are resolved in family councils led by elders. Inter-family conflicts are resolved by the neighborhood chief. However, changing times have placed traditional conflict resolution mechanisms in competition with a legal system that still struggles to provide equal justice for all its citizens.

But what happens when conflict takes on national proportions and the international community is unwilling to establish a process that looks at the root causes of Chad’s chronic instability? Chadians have taken it upon themselves to resolve their own problems. Despite severe opposition, local efforts continue and, just as for these children, hope remains that a calmer and more prosperous Chad will one day be a reality.

August 2008: Update from the Field

It's the rainy season in Chad for another month and a half and every one is trying to manage the torrential downpours. The Bethesda Centre is flooded, as is most of the city. N'Djamena is built like a bowl, with few water evacuation routes, and every year rain tends to collect in pockets throughout the city. The kids are helping with water removal and everyone is pitching-in. As you know, the sewage "system" is not underground in the city but travels in ditches along-side people's houses. These ditches overflow each rainy season making it a real sanitary mess for everyone living there.

The Bethesda Center held an Open House at the Evangelical Church of Chad this past July. The kids sang in the choir and sold pots, jams and T-shirts they printed. Mr. Daniel, the Center’s coordinator spoke about the work being accomplished and sensitized the congregation about the needs of the children. He encouraged mothers to spend some time at the Bethesda Center to encourage the kids. The event received quite a bit of media attention and was selected by the government as one of two psycho-social rehabilitation centers to receive support from a multi-disciplinary government Team on Drug Prevention (composed of the Ministers of Health, Social Action, Education and the Interior). This team visited the Center last week and donated supplies.

Due to the educational sponsorship of Ms. Anne, Julien will be enrolled in Private School (Ecole Evangelique Shama) starting in September where he will also be learning to speak English. He's hoping to be able to write her back in English in the near future :)

The Center was able to purchase sports uniforms with the funds we sent and is waiting for the new school year to begin before it purchases the required school books and supplies for the kids.
 

February 2008 (CAMEROUN): A legacy of fear

There dwells a permanent fear in our hearts. We are re-living the times of Habre; where man feared even to speak to his wife in his conjugal bed. To be safe, we crossed the river and went into neighboring Cameroon. There also, Intelligence Agents (ANS) roam voraciously causing damages. They’ve disguised themselves as drivers and even humanitarian organization staff to get to Kousserie pretending to help those in exile from the violence and chaos in N’Djamena. But in reality, they’ve come to kidnap people deemed opponents or sympathizer (real or perceived) of the rebels.

They put them in bags and bring them back to N’djamena. Once in the capital city, those captured are executed and thrown into the Chari or Logon River.

Most of the time, the ANS places these people into bags tied up with a stone so that the corpses remain under the water as long as possible. If we only had access to underwater equipment to explore the bottom of these rivers, the entire world would know the truth about the regime.

Yesterday, Cameroonian fishermen fished 15 beheaded corpses.

Local authorities prevented us from taking photographs. Everything occurs as if the Cameroonian police was a willing accomplice of the situation. Freedom of speech is gagged; daring to criticize the situation is a reprehensible action.

Young Ahmed Abdelaziz suspected of complicity with the rebellion was arrested in Kousserie by an Intelligence Agent. He was put into a bag before being loaded into a car. Knowing that the end was near for him, he pleaded with his executioners who demanded the sum of 5,000,000 F CFA (approximately $10,000) to spare his life. He mobilized his parents who went to the bank in order to withdraw the sum demanded. The young man was released. He was asked to change all his phone numbers and avoid communications with the rebels.

All these abuses of power are being perpetrated in front of the French Military. They are the ones who train the Chadians. It hurts. What sin have we committed to deserve such disregard from the French authorities? Why, in the name of what is right and just, do they close their eyes on the atrocities perpetrated by the regime - Anonymous

June 2006 (N'Djamena): "A Mother’s Prayer"

Have you ever heard of Black September 1984? It was a month of real ethnic cleansing in Southern Chad. It was under the rule of Hissene Habre, when Idriss Deby (our current president) was the commander in Chief of the Army.

My younger brother got shot dead under my watch at the farm of Deli, 30km from Moundou on September 17, 1984. My dad's colleagues, who were at the Agronomic research facility of Deli, were all murdered by soldiers. Under my father's bed, the soldiers killed our cook and my dad's secretary. They tried to rape my mom but stopped because one of their commanders came and ask them to leave the farm.

I was just 11 years old but I will never forget all that. More than a 100 people got slaughtered during the massacre of Deli, that gloomy day of September 17, 1984.

I stopped being a child that day and my rebellion started after that. If it was not for my mother's strong Faith, I would have become a child soldier. I was so bitter and I had a lot of hatred in my heart. I wanted to join the different rebel groups operating in the South at the time. I wanted to take revenge.

Today, I'm very grateful for my mom because she saved life. Everyday, she was praying with me, telling me to forgive and let God take revenge for us. She ended up convincing me and I decided on Dec 2, 1984 to convert to Christianity at age 11. If it was not for my mother, I won't probably be sitting here typing this email because I would have probably been dead as all the kids who joined the rebellion. I never really recovered from the horrors I saw on that day. Your life becomes changed, no matter what.

What saddens me is that more than two decades after what I have been through, there are other kids, other women, other men who are still experiencing the same horrors in Africa, be it in Chad, Eastern Congo or Liberia, or Sierra Leone or Darfur. It hurts. Maybe some of us are just born to suffer and die - Ramadji D.

“No, in all these things we are more then conquerors through Him that loved us”

Roman 9:37