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To him, genocide is more than an awful concept

An American who shielded Rwandans from a 1994 massacre will share his experience at the Holocaust museum.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published June 22, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - The killing spanned three months. In the end, at least 800,000 Rwandan men, women and children were slaughtered.

Carl Wilkens, believed to have been the only American in Rwanda's capital at the time, will speak about his experience Thursday at the Florida Holocaust Museum.

Then a relief worker for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Wilkens refused to abandon Rwanda and its people. His was a momentous decision that saved more than 400 orphans and many others from becoming victims of the three-month reign of terror in the former Belgian colony.

His story is not unlike that of Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager whose heroism was documented in the movie Hotel Rwanda, but Wilkens is uncomfortable being called a hero.

"We all have the capacity to do what I did," he said, adding that the decision that he should remain in the Central African country was made with his wife, Teresa.

Wilkens, 47, had been director of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency in Rwanda for four years when the killings began in 1994. That year, decades of contention between the country's Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups erupted into what the world would come to know as the Rwandan genocide.

The slaughter began on April 6, when a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot out of the skies. It is believed that Habyarimana had been ready to share power with the Tutsis, a decision that extremist Hutus opposed. They blamed the downing of the plane on the Tutsi guerrilla army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and orchestrated the massacre of Tutsis and anyone who supported them.

The U.S. Embassy warned Americans to stay indoors, Wilkens said.

"U.S. intelligence was telling us this thing could only last for four days, at the most," he said. "Friday, they recognized this is not going to end. From Wednesday evening, Thursday and Friday, my wife and I would periodically go to the bedroom to talk and pray."

When a cease-fire was negotiated to allow foreigners to evacuate, Wilkens' wife, their children, Mindy, 10, Lisa, 7, and Shaun, 5, and his parents, who were visiting at the time, left for neighboring Burundi.

His church, parents and American officials urged Wilkens to leave. Diplomat Laura Lane, a family friend, used "all her powers of persuasion," he said.

"She said, "No, Carl. Nobody is staying. You have no choice,' " he recalled.

In a telephone interview from his Oregon home, Wilkens explained the philosophy that guided his decision.

"Nobody can take away your power to choose. They can reduce our options greatly, but we always have a choice," he said, drawing on the words of Viktor Frankl, noted Holocaust survivor, author and psychiatrist.

Rwanda was not "just another assignment" for him and his wife, he said.

"It was our home and the people we were working with, we had developed really close bonds. We had a Tutsi house girl and a night watchman. We knew that if I left, those two people would be butchered," he said.

"It was three weeks before I could leave my house because of the killing and curfew," added Wilkens, now chaplain of Milo Adventist Academy, a Christian boarding school, in Days Creek, Ore.

Besides his family's two Tutsi employees, Wilkens sheltered a Hutu pastor and his wife who had evacuated their home. Wilkens said the couple was the "first line of defense" when soldiers came to his gate. The pastor's wife also bought food for the household from looters over the fence, he said.

Wilkens, who lost 20 pounds, faced the full horror of the anarchy when he was allowed to leave his home. He was shocked at what he found when he went to his office.

"There was a body of a man lying in the parking lot with his foot missing that the watchdog had been living off," he said.

His warehouse and those of other relief organizations had been looted and his office stripped even of the sinks in the bathroom, he said. Fortunately, Wilkens said, he had money to buy replacement relief supplies. He headed to three orphanages he had learned needed help.

At the Gisimba Orphanage, he saw fresh graves being dug for victims of dysentery. The overcrowded facility, where frightened Rwandans had sought shelter with the orphans, had no medicine or water and little food, Wilkens said.

He spent his days "making deals with the looters" to buy supplies for the three orphanages. One of his most frightening experiences occurred at the Gisimba Orphanage when members of the Hutu militia surrounded the facility. He radioed for help, but only seven police officers responded. Desperate, Wilkens said he decided to leave the compound to get help, though he was afraid that the minute he left, the orphanage's director and its occupants would be killed.

Help came from an unexpected source, the country's self-appointed prime minister in the extremist regime.

"I told him that a massacre was either in progress or about to happen and we need help," Wilkens said.

The orphanage was saved. The government leader was later convicted of crimes against humanity.

The massacres ended on July 4, 1994, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front took control.

[Last modified June 22, 2005, 01:08:17]