The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience
Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, Copenhagen, 1996

Recognizing the magnitude, complexity and chaos of the Rwanda emergency, 36 donor countries, the UN, international aid agencies and NGOs launched an unprecedented joint evaluation on the premise that it would be possible to identify lessons to be learned by the international community applicable to future complex emergencies and to the continuing attempt to help Rwanda rebuild its society.

The report consists of five volumes covering subjects ranging from the historical perspective to rebuilding post-war Rwanda.

Available in English from Overseas Development Institute, Portland House, Stag Place, London SW1E 5DP, UK. £30-33 full set.

Starting from Zero
The Promotion and Protection of Children’s Rights in Post-Genocide Rwanda July 1994-December 1996
By Nigel Cantwell, UNICEF, 1997

Nigel Cantwell reviews the international response to the plight of children in post-genocide Rwanda in view of the spirit and contents of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The primary purpose of the study is to contribute to the development of a feasible long-term policy on child-related issues as an integral part of the reconstruction and reconciliation process under way in Rwanda, by using the Convention as an inspiration for action and guidance in pursuing programmes.

Available in English from UNICEF International Child Development Centre, 12 Piazza SS Annunziata, 50122 Florence, Italy.

History of a Genocide
The Rwanda Crisis 1959-1994
By Gérard Prunier, C. Hurst & Co. Ltd., London, 1995

Gérard Prunier, a French historian, places the Rwandan catastrophe in the context of such supreme genocidal acts as the Nazi Holocaust, where he argues it rightly belongs. This book, which he wrote in English, analyses the remote and immediate causes, the course and outcome of the genocidal conflicts that took place in Rwanda during 1994.

Available in English from C. Hurst & Co. Ltd., 38 King Street, London WC2E 8JZ, UK.

Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance
African Rights, London, 1995

This revised, expanded version of the African Rights’ 1994 book builds up a comprehensive picture of the 1994 genocide, at a personal, communal and national level. The reality behind the genocide and mass murder is recounted by the survivors themselves — the terror and pain, the cruelty, misery and degradation and the betrayal of friends and neighbours, but also the courage, compassion and resilience of so many ordinary Rwandans.

Available in English from African Rights, 11 Marshalsea Road, London SE1 1EP, UK.

From gun to stretcher:
towards a new heroism
The building of the humanitarian image
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, Geneva, 1997

On the occasion of its temporary exhibition of the same name, which will run from November 1997 to August 1998, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum has published a catalogue of the exhibits, with explanatory texts. The exhibition features some 60 engravings taken from the greatest illustrated newspapers of the end of the 19th century and depicting the aid dispensed to wounded soldiers, mostly by the Red Cross.

Available from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum, 17 avenue de la Paix, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland. Sfr 25 plus postal costs.

Development and Patronage
Series Editor: Deborah Eade, Oxfam (UK and Ireland), 1997

Far from being a liberating process for all, much of what has been done in the name of development serves to reinforce the intellectual, financial and material dependence of those on the receiving end. This latest in the series of the international journal Development in Practice Readers explores this issue through signed articles written from a number of different perspectives and offers some suggestions as to how more equal and robust North-South partnerships can be fostered.

Available in English from Oxfam c/o BEBC, PO Box 1496, Parkstone, Dorset BH12 3YD. UK£8.95 or from Oxfam c/o Humanities Press, 165 First Avenue, Atlantic Highlands, NJ07716-1289. US$15.

Woza Africa!
Music goes to War

Jonathan Ball Publishers, Johannesburg, 1997
This is the book designed to accompany the campaign by six African musicians to promote ethnic tolerance in Africa (see p. 25). It documents the journey undertaken by the musicians to visit those areas of Africa worst affected by conflict and violence: Liberia, the Sudan-Kenya border, Angola and KwaZulu-Natal. The text, with a foreword by Nelson Mandela, was written by noted Nigerian author Kole Omotoso and describes how war in Africa disrupts every aspect of life. The whole is illustrated by beautiful if sometimes harrowing photos by renowned photographers.

Available in English and French. English version from Jonathan Ball Publishers, PO Box 33977, Jeppestown 2043, South Africa. Sfr 22.

Arabian Epics
ICRC, Cairo, 1997

This beautifully illustrated full-colour brochure is based on the 1997 calendar produced by the ICRC’s delegation in Cairo. The theme is the epic poetry and oral legends of Arabic literature which reflect the noble and heroic gestures that are the origin and source of humanitarian law. The publication is the third in a series which shows the link between humanitarian values and Arab history and culture.

Available in English, French and Arabic from the ICRC.

Music goes to war
Co-produced by Media Natura (London) and the ICRC in association with Channel 4, 52 minutes

This documentary, directed by Cameroonian film director Bassek ba Khobio, gives an account of the musicians’ epic journey through some of Africa’s toughest war zones. It includes a live rendition of the song So Why? performed by the musicians at Paris’s Parc de la Villette in April 1997.

Available in English, French and Portuguese from the ICRC. Sfr 30.

Cambodia: Moonwalking
Eric Vander Borght, ICRC and PNU, Azimuts, 7 minutes 40 seconds

Chris Moon has first-hand knowledge of the landmine problem: he was a deminer until one day in 1995, in Mozambique, a mine explosion deprived him of his right hand and right leg. Equipped with artificial limbs, Chris Moon went on to run marathons, including the world’s most gruelling race across the Sahara, to raise awareness of the fate of landmine victims. In this video, Chris is in Cambodia, where he has gone to examine the quality of artificial limbs in the ICRC’s prosthetic centres.

Available in English, French and Spanish. Sfr 30.

Deadly Legacy
ICRC, Handicap International, Morgane Production, La Cinquième, 1997, 51 minutes 32 seconds

Iraqi Kurdistan, May 1993. Abdelkader, a shepherd and father of a large family, has stepped on a landmine. An ambulance is taking him to hospital. There is no time to be wasted: in two hours he will die if his mangled limb is not surgically amputated.

Afghanistan, November 1997. Some men are marking out a mined area. In many places today, a red flag with skull and crossbones means that danger still lurks.

The 50 minutes of film between these two sequences enable the viewer to understand why more than one hundred countries met in December 1997 in Ottawa, Canada, to try to put an end to the scourge of landmines for once and for all.

Available in French with English subtitles from the ICRC.

The Documentation Network is the result of an initiative of a group of university researchers working on the Great Lakes region. It aims is to disseminate as widely as possible a large amount of so-called “grey literature”, i.e. unpublished or scarcely distributed written products of all sorts. It does not contain books or newspaper or magazine articles.

Available in English and French from Great Lakes Network, PO Box 136, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland,
e-mail charrier@uni2a.unige.ch.

So Why?
Paris, 1997

This 8-track CD features six leading African musicians (see p.25) and includes three mixes of the title song So Why?, composed and produced by Wally Badarou and which has been hailed by the African press as the “African We Are the World”.

Distributed by SONODISC and its affiliates.