The loneliness of Bikela

(ES)

"A spokeswoman for the agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said about 170 women had been raped in the villages of Nakiele and Abala in South Kivu Province on June 11."

What makes men capable of committing such acts of violence against those poor women?
Is the power they wield weapons?
Is the hatred?
Is the impunity?
Is the recognition of his military commanders because of the control of natural resources, or fear of disobeying an order from their superiors?
Is to have lived with violence since ever?
Is to understand the looting and rape as the sole means of livelihood?
Or is the path with no return of who use violence to survive in an equally violent society?

Without wishing to debate about the immorality or amorality of the following statement, taking into account the time it was done, the answer to all these questions was summarized by a soldier of the Force Publique of the State of Congo to which Mr. Casement, author of the report that bears his name, asked why he had been so many years in the army. His answer was that due to problems with the rubber tax, he could not live in his native village, and laughing, confessed that he preferred to be among the hunters rather than among the hunted. This statement is included in Roger Casement's report dated 1903 that presented to the Marquis of Lansdowne, at that time Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the British government.

The language of the media, despite the mix of horror, anger and sadness that produces us this kind of news, insulates us from the real suffering of the Congolese people.

It is not only one more terrible story of many that come from this country in particular and from the African continent in general. It is the story of a life or a death. And that of millions of men, women and children who have been and are victims of violence.

And my question is: Can we be witnesses to such crimes and do nothing to avoid them?

Surely a considered response to this question leads us to even more questions, to explore alternatives until a combinatorial explosion, to build a world of illusory limitations. But sometimes the answers are not in reason, and it is solely an election. As the soldier would rather be among the hunters than among the hunted, I prefer to be among those who act that among those who mourn. And I'm not going to question the morality of those who act differently than mine.

It is not one more story, is the story of a life, like Bikela's life, whose testimony is contained in the statement to Mr. Casement in Ikoko, in the Free State of Congo, August 12, 1903. Here is a summary of their statements:

"My mother, my grandmother, my sister Nzaibiaka and I had fled to the jungle. The soldiers followed us and ran to where we were hiding. They took my grandmother, my mother, Nzaibiaka and another girl younger than us. Soldiers were discussing by my mother, for they all wanted her as a wife, and finally they decided it was better to kill her. She was shot in the stomach, and she fell to ground. She was pregnant and she had little time to give birth. Also killed my grandmother and they took my sister with them. I saw it all, I wept much, because they had killed my mother and my grandmother and I was alone."

Perhaps my contribution is miniscule in more than a century of violence, but if I have someone else to join me in this cause, my efforts and those of many other will not have been useless, and the loneliness of Bikela will find relief.


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The rubber quota

(ES)

Women raped in the DRC face several problems to access justice. The 43 year old woman raped in Kamina, in Katanga province says: "I cherish the clothes I wore when I was raped and used it to prove rape in front of the court. I've been asked to pay Fc 7000, 3000 Fc for typing and another 50 sheets of paper for printing. I also had to carry the costs of all medical expenses and still forced to live in Kamina. The rapists are now free, and I was asked to pay $ 20 for the complaint and withdraw the decision to appeal. I lost hope.
© Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/IRIN

Cries and suffers in silence. No one should know.
It hurts, but can not complain.
It's unfair, but it is useless to denounce.
Cries out but no way. Nobody listens.
Why? They ask.
Feels anger.
Feels guilty.
It is useless, feels helpless.
Be scared.
Feel shame.
What can they do? Nobody helps them.
Feel they die.
Why are they doing this?

THE HERITAGE: After the Berlin conference of 1884, the European powers divided the African continent. The Congo Free State became the private property of King Leopold II of Belgium, which gave trade concessions for the exploitation of rubber and ivory to companies like Anglo-Belgian India Rubber and Exploration Company (A.B.I.R.) or Societe du Commerce Anversoise au Congo from which Leopold himself was a shareholder. The binomial formed by the State and the concessionary companies of rubber farms became the Congo Free State in something like a huge concentration camp dedicated to the exhaustive exploitation of natural resources.

Each village had to meet weekly or biweekly provision of rubber and food to different stations of the state concessionary companies in return for ridiculous compensation compared to the benefits that these companies obtained from the rubber industry. In turn, the natives had to work for the State to build roads or maintenance of telegraph installation. Slave labor that forced many natives to leave their villages and seek refuge in neighboring villages in the French Congo.

Subject to conditions of forced labor, forced to abandon farming from which they had been living prior to colonization, living in miserable conditions that favored the emergence of fatal diseases, the story of the horrors suffered is enough to understand that during the Belgian rule, million of indigenous inhabitants died. Not only were victims of work in conditions of slavery or of diseases. When a man or a village could not collect the amount of rubber or foods that were imposed, they suffered all kinds of corporal punishment by the soldiers of the concessionary companies, or were kept in prisons far from their homes until their village paid a totally arbitrary fine for release them. The murder with impunity of offenders was also common practice, and to demonstrate to administrators of the concessionary companies that the bullet had been used to kill a man, soldiers should give the mutilated hand, foot or the genitals of the victim. As was often the bullets were used for hunting, soldiers used to mutilate men and children alive as punishment for not having collected the quota of rubber. Another way to ensure the collection was taken hostage the village women that would not be released until the men of the village managed to collect the allocated quota. In filthy prisons, women and their children starved, since they didn't receive food from their captors. The story of the horrors after more than a quarter century of Belgian colonization can not leave unmoved today's society, although there was a premeditated attempt to hide them from public opinion.

The militias that control the natural resources of the current DR Congo, State corruption, impunity of crimes, mass rapes, forced recruitment of child soldiers, abduction of girls as sex slaves, the uprooting, corrupt Justice, commercial interests are, 137 years later, the legacy of colonialism. A greedy colonialism that imposed an oppressive system based on a wild soldiery, under the control of commercial companies, which controlled a vast territory in the absence or in connivance with corrupt State administration.

I also feel ashamed, like the Congolese women.
I am ashamed of the curse the white man meant for the African continent.
I am ashamed of their infinite greed.
I am ashamed of the lack of historical memory of European people.

And I cry with Congolese women that has seen the death of their sons and daughters. Who has been raped savagely. That suffers in silence so as not to be repudiated. That is taking care of their own. That will not be able to conceive more children. Living in solitude, the solitude of shame and injustice.
And I shout for her, and for children mutilated. For those killed, for the enslaved, for those who have been orphaned.
And I also feel anger. For millions of murders and rapes with impunity.
And I feel guilty. For so many years of looking the other way, for so many years of not hearing his desperate cries.

I do not feel helpless, but rather hopeful. Fearless and committed to the cause of Congolese women, strong and resilient, like most African women.

A young girl raped in Bamenda, in the Katanga province, says: "before getting raped, I was betrothed. But the marriage was of course canceled. Now my father has to repay the dowry. The family of the rapist has promised to pay for it, but since then, they did nothing. As I got pregnant, the most urgent thing to do was to free the rapist so that he could support me during the pregnancy. It was inconceivable that he goes to jail. It is better that he remains free to meet my needs and those of the baby. But it is also important for him to marry me now because nobody wants me anymore.
© Gwenn Dubourthoumieu/IRIN

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The hope of returning home

(ES)

The movement of 15-M was born in Spain under the slogan "REAL DEMOCRACY NOW. We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers" has now more than 400,000 followers in social networks. Derived from this movement, many outraged citizens took the squares of their cities and decided to camp there.

After several weeks, the campers themselves are deliberating about convenience of the eviction from the camps, seeking more efficient alternative to ensure continuity and credibility to the movement that was born on 15-M. The political and business pressures are increasing, citing insanitary problems in the camps, as well as economic losses from shops around the places where outraged people are encamped.

Since that date, May 15, the media make an exhaustive follow up of all that has to do with this movement, its present and future.

A settlement for IDP's in North Galkayo, Somalia

© Kate Holt/IRIN

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) the number of people displaced within their own country is about 26 million IDPs, of whom UNHCR assists about 15 million of them. To this figure must be added 10 million refugees, stateless 6 million, 1 million asylum seekers and 400 thousand people requiring assistance from UNHCR.

Almost 44 million people live in refugee camps worldwide. People fleeing violence and living in tents away from their homes, in conditions that UNHCR and many NGOs try to make it as dignified as possible. Refugee camps in which several generations have been born and grew up, always with the hope of returning home.

44 million human beings have "taken the secluded squares of a globalized world", not to claim, but to escape certain death. They more than anyone are goods in the hands of politicians and large corporations. However, the unhealthiness of their camps and evicting them does not seem to be a priority of our rulers, nor capture the attention of the media. And is that in the squares occupied by the refugees there are no residents or traders to be disturbed, and if those refugees try to take some of ours in Europe, borders are closed to them, or are detained until they can be returned to the fleeing countries.

So Europe's message is: "Dear refugees, stay in your camps in the middle of nowhere, do not cross our borders, that here we have already many outraged citizens to be evicted from our squares."

Only hope can change the world. The hope of the outraged people, the hope of displaced people, the hope of those who believe that a better world is possible.


IDP's: Internally Displaced People.