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Unsteady peace February 28, 2010
Voices of Hope Anniversary Pew Bulletin story from 1974
Canada
By 1974, no Vietnamese family was left untouched by the war; all had in some way been divided. When the World Council of Churches made the appeal for a post-war rehabilitation program, PWRDF joined in the effort to repair the battered country. During the early days of unsteady peace, governments committed massive amounts of aid for the reconstruction of the economy. The churches, on the other hand, were working steadily toward the reconciliation of the people.
In 1974, PWRDF supported post-war rehabilitation work in North and South Vietnam, including the 8,000,000 displaced persons and thousands of refugees in Cambodia and Laos. The churches helped resettle displaced persons and rural workers. They made medical workers available and supported vocational training for refugees and farmers. The churches also ran service projects for abandoned children, many of whom were fathered by U.S. servicemen or left by war widows.
PWRDF knows that peace is more than tranquility or the absence of war. Peace is a fabric of many threads spun from justice, reconciliation and human rights.
“Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed and where individuals and nations are free.” — The XIVth Dalai Lama
Unsteady peace PDF Version
