The Casement Report 17

The Casement Report 17

A man named H stated that while the town was occupied by the soldiers, a

woman who belonged to his household, named I, had been shot dead by one

of the soldiers. Her husband, a man named K, stepped forward and

confirmed the statement. They both declared that the woman had quitted

her husband’s house to obey a call of Nature, and that one of the

soldiers, thinking she was going to run away, had shot her through the

head. The soldier was put under arrest by the officer, and they said

they saw him taken away a prisoner when the force was withdrawn from

their town, but they knew nothing more than this. They did not know if

he had been tried or punished. No one of them had ever been summoned to

appear, no question had been addressed to them, and neither had the

husband nor the head of I’s household received any compensation for her

death. Another woman named L, the wife of a man named M, had been taken

away by the native sergeant who was with the soldiers. He had admired

her, and so took her back with him to Coquilhatville. Her husband heard

she had died there of small-pox, but he did not know anything certain of

her circumstances after she had been taken away from W*. A man named N

said he had sold his wife O to a man in Y* for 900 rods to meet his

share of the fine.

 

It was impossible for me to verify these statements, or to do much

beyond noting down, as carefully as possible, the various declarations

made. I found, however, on returning to Y*, that the statements made

with regard to the little boy F and the girl G were true. These children

were both in the neighbourhood, and owing to my intervention F was

restored to his parents. The girl G, I was told, had again changed

hands, and was promised in sale to a town on the north bank of the

Congo, named Iberi, whose people are said to be still open cannibals.

Through the hands of the local missionary this transfer was prevented,

and I paid the 1,000 rods to her original purchaser, and left G to be

restored to her mother from the Mission. I saw her there on the 9th

September, after she had been recovered through this missionary’s

efforts, while about to be sent to her parent.

 

With regard to the quantity of food supplies levied upon W*, I did not

obtain the total amount required of the entire community, but only that

which the upper end of the town furnished. The day of my visit happened

to be just that when the kwanga, due at the local wood-post, was being

prepared for delivery on the morrow. I saw many of the people getting

their shares ready. Each share of kwanga, for which a payment of 1 rod

is made by the Government, consisted of five rolls of this food tied

together. One of these bundles of five rolls I sought to buy, offering

the man carrying it 10 rods--or ten times what he was about to receive

for it from the local Government post. He refused my offer, saying that,

although he would like the 10 rods, he dare not be a bundle of his

ration short. One of these bundles was weighed and found to weigh over

15 lb. This may have been an extraordinarily large bundle, although I

saw many others which appeared to be of the same size. I think it would

be safe to assume that the average of each ration of kwanga required

from this town was not less than 12 lb. weight of cooked and carefully

prepared food--a not ungenerous offering for 1/2_d._ By this computation

the portion of W* I visited sends in weekly 1,200 lb. weight of food at

a remuneration of some 5 fr. Cooked bread-stuffs supplied at 9 or 10 fr.

per ton represent, it must be admitted, a phenomenally cheap loaf. At

the same time with this kwanga, being prepared for the Government use, I

saw others being made up for general public consumption. I bought some

of these, which were going to the local market, at their current market

value, viz., 1 rod each. On weighing them I found they gave an average

of 1 lb. each. The weight of food-stuffs required by the Government from

this town would seem to have exceeded in weight twelve times that made

up for public consumption.

 

Whilst I was in Y* a fresh fine of 20,000 rods (1,000 fr.) was in course

of collection among the various households along the river bank. This

fine had been quite recently imposed by direction of ---- for a further

failure on the part of the Y* towns in the supply of food-stuffs from

that neighbourhood. I saw at several houses piles of brass rods being

collected to meet it, and in front of one of these houses I counted

2,700 rods which had been brought together by the various dependents of

that family; 6,000 rods of this further fine was, I was told, to be

paid by W*, which had not then recovered from its previous much larger

contribution. The W* men begged me to intervene, if I could at all help

them to escape this further imposition. One of them--a strong, indeed a

splendid-looking man--broke down and wept, saying that their lives were

useless to them, and that they knew of no means of escape from the

troubles which were gathering around them. I could only assure these

people that their obvious course to obtain relief was by appeal to their

own constituted authorities, and that if their circumstances were

clearly understood by those responsible for these fines, I trusted and

believed some satisfaction would be forthcoming.

 

These fines, it should be borne in mind, are illegally imposed: they are

not “fines of Court”; are not pronounced after any judicial hearing, or

for any proved offence against the law, but are quite arbitrarily levied

according to the whim or ill-will of the executive officers of the

district, and their collection, as well as their imposition, involves

continuous breaches of the Congolese laws. They do not, moreover, figure

in the account of public revenues in the Congo “Budgets;” they are not

paid into the public purse of the country, but are spent on the needs of

the station or military camp of the officer imposing them, just as seems

good to this official.

 

I can nowhere learn upon what legal basis, if any, the punishments

inflicted upon native communities or individuals for failure to comply

with the various forms of “prestations” rest.

 

These punishments are well-nigh universal and take many shapes, from

punitive expeditions carried out on a large scale to such simpler forms

of fine and imprisonment as that lately inflicted on U*.

 

I cannot find in the Penal Code of the Congo Statute Book that a failure

to meet or a non-compliance with any form of prestation or _impôt_ is

anywhere defined as a crime; and so far as I can see no legal sanction

could be cited for any one of the punishments so often inflicted upon

native communities for this failure.

 

By a Royal Decree of the 11th August, 1886, provision was made for the

punishments to be inflicted for infractions of the law not punishable by

special penalties.

 

Since no special penalty in law would seem to have been provided for

cases of failure or refusal to comply with the demands of the

tax-gatherer, it would seem to be in the terms of this Decree that the

necessary legal sanctions could alone lie.

 

But this Decree provides for all otherwise unspecified offences far

other punishments, and far other modes of inflicting them than so many

of those which came to my notice during my brief journey.

 

Article 1 of this Decree provides that:--

 

“Les contraventions aux décrets, ordonnances, arrêtes, règlements

d’administration intérieure et de police, à l’égard desquelles la

loi ne détermine pas de peines particulières, seront punies d’un à

sept jours de servitude pénale et d’une amende n’excédant pas 200

fr., ou d’une de ces peines seulement.”

 

Article 2 requires that:--

 

“Ces peines seront appliquées par les Tribunaux de l’État

conformément aux lois en vigueur.”

 

It would be manifestly impossible to say that either in form or mode of

procedure this law had been applied to the failure of the community at

W* to meet the demands made upon them.

 

Neither the summary arrest and taking away from their homes of the men

whose names were given to me nor the imposition of the very heavy fine

of brass rods find any warrant in this page of the Congo Statute Book.

 

If a legal warrant exists for the action of the authorities in this

case--as in the numerous other cases brought to my notice--that action

would still call for much adverse comment.

 

The amount of the fine levied on W* was not only out of all proportion

to the gravity of the offence committed, but was of so crushing a

character as to preclude the possibility of its being acquitted by any

reasonable or legitimate means that community disposed of.

 

Among the earliest enactments of civilized administrations, recognition

has invariably been given to the pronouncement that no fine or

imposition, or exaction, shall exceed the powers of the person on whom

it is imposed to meet it.

 

But if, as I venture to presume, no Congolese law or judicial

pronouncement exists, or could exist, for the levying, in this manner,

of these fines, very explicit Regulations for the treatment of the

natives on general lines and their right to judicial protection do

exist.

 

In the “texte coordonné des diverses instructions relatives aux rapports

des Agents de l’État avec les indigènes,” which are to be found in the

“Bulletin Officiel” of 1896 (p. 255), these Regulations are published at

length and would seem, textually, to leave little room for criticism.

 

Were their application enforced it is abundantly clear that a situation

such as that I found in existence at W* could not arise, and much of the

general unhappiness and distress of the natives I witnessed on all sides

would disappear along with the fines and much also of the “prestations,”

within the first month of the translation into action of these

Regulations.

 

One paragraph only need here be cited to emphasize the bearing and

import of these remarks:--

 

“Les agents doivent se souvenir que les peines disciplinaires

prévues par le règlement de discipline militaire ne sont

applicables qu’aux recrutés militaires, uniquement pour des

infractions contre la discipline, et dans les conditions

spécialement prévues par le dit règlement.

 

“Elles ne sont applicables, sous aucune prétexte, aux serviteurs de

l’État non militaire ni aux indigènes, que ceux-ci soient ou non en

rébellion vis-à-vis de l’Etat.

 

“Ceux d’entre eux qui sont prévenus de délits ou crimes doivent

être déférés aux Tribunaux compétents et jugés conformément aux

lois.”

 

At neither W* nor Y* is any rubber worked. With my arrival in the

Lulongo River, I was entering one of the most productive rubber

districts of the Congo State, where the industry is said to be in a very

flourishing condition. The Lulongo is formed by two great feeders--the

Lopori and Maringa Rivers--which, after each a course of some 350 miles

through a rich, forested country, well peopled by a tribe named Mongos,

unite at Bassankusu, some 120 miles above where the Lulongo enters the

Congo. The basins of these two rivers form the Concession known as the

A.B.I.R., which has numerous stations, and a staff of fifty-eight

Europeans engaged in exploiting the india-rubber industry, with

head-quarters at Bassankusu. Two steamers belonging to the A.B.I.R.

Company navigate the waterways of the Concession, taking up European

goods and bringing down to Bassankusu the india-rubber, which is there

transhipped on board a Government steamer which plies for this purpose

between Coquilhatville and Bassankusu, a distance of probably 160 miles.

The transport of all goods and agents of the A. B. I. R. Company,

immediately these quit the Concession, is carried on exclusively by the

steamers of the Congo Government, the freight and passage-money obtained

being reckoned as part of the public revenue. I have no actual figures

giving the annual output of india-rubber from the A.B.I.R. Concession,

but it is unquestionably large, and may, in the case of a prosperous

year, reach from 600 to 800 tons. The quality of the A.B.I.R. rubber is

excellent, and it commands generally a high price on the European

market, so that the value of its annual yield may probably be estimated

at not less than 150,000_l._ The merchandise used by the Company

consists of the usual class of Central African barter goods--cotton

cloths of different quality, Sheffield cutlery, matchets, beads, and

salt. The latter is keenly sought by the natives of all the interior of

Africa. There is also a considerable import by the A.B.I.R. Company, I

believe, of cap-guns, which are chiefly used in arming the

sentinels--termed “forest guards”--who, in considerable numbers, are

quartered on the native villages throughout the Concession to see that

the picked men of each town bring in, with regularity, the fixed

quantity of pure rubber required of them every fortnight. I have no

means of ascertaining the number of this class of armed men employed by the A.B.I.R.