The Casement Report 26

The Casement Report 26

Q._ “You say you were killed for not bringing in rubber. Were you ever

mutilated as proof that the soldiers had killed you?”

 

_A._ “When we were killed the white man was there himself. No proof was

needed. Men and women were put in a line with a palm tree and were

shot.”

 

Here he took three of the four men sitting down and put them one in line

behind the other, and said: “The white men used to put us like that and

shoot all with one cartridge. That was often done, and worse things.”

 

_Q._ “But how, if you now have to work so hard, are you yourselves able

to come here to M* to see your friends?”

 

_A._ “We came away without the sentries or soldiers knowing, but when we

get home we may have trouble.”

 

_Q._ “Do you know the L* who are now at N*?” (Here I gave the names of N

N, O O, and P P.)

 

_A._ “Yes; many L* fled to that country. N N we know ran away on account

of the things done to them by the Government white men. The K* and L*

have always been friends. That is why the L* fled to them for refuge.”

 

_Q._ “Are there sentries or soldiers in your villages now?”

 

_A._ “In the chief villages there are always four soldiers with rifles.

When natives go out into the forest to collect rubber they would leave

one of their number behind to stay and protect the women. Sometimes the

soldiers finding him thus refused to believe what he said, and killed

him for shirking his work. This often happens.”

 

Asked how far it was from M* to their country they say three days’

journey, and then about two days more on to I* by water, or three if by

land. They begged us to go to their country, they said: “We will show

you the road, we will take you there, and you will see how things are,

and that our country has been spoiled, and we are speaking the truth.”

 

Left them here and returned to the river bank.

 

* * * * *

 

The foregoing entries made at the time in my note-book seemed to me, if

not false, greatly exaggerated, although the statements were made with

every air of conviction and sincerity. I did not again meet with any

more L* refugees, for on my return to G* I stayed only a few hours. A

few days afterwards, while I was at Stanley Pool, I received further

evidence in a letter of which the following is an extract:--

 

* * * * *

 

“I was sorry not to see you as you passed down, and so missed the

opportunity of conveying to you personally a lot of evidence as to the

terrible maladministration practised in the past in the district. I saw

the official at the post of E E*. He is the successor of the infamous

wretch D E, of whom you heard so much yourself from the refugees at N*.

This D E was in this district in ..., ..., and ..., and he it was that

depopulated the country. His successor, M N, is very vehement in his

denunciations of him, and declares that he will leave nothing undone

that he can do to bring him to justice. He is now stationed at G G*,

near our station at H H*. Of M N I have nothing to say but praise. In a

very difficult position he has done wonderfully. The people are

beginning to show themselves and gathering about the many posts under

his charge. M N told me that when he took over the station at E E* from

D E he visited the prison, and almost fainted, so horrible was the

condition of the place and the poor wretches in it. He told me of many

things he had heard of from the soldiers. Of D E shooting with his own

hand man after man who had come with an insufficient quantity of rubber.

Of his putting several one behind the other and shooting them all with

one cartridge. Those who accompanied me, also heard from the soldiers

many frightful stories and abundant confirmation of what was told us at

N* about the taking to D E of the organs of the men slain by the

sentries of the various posts. I saw a letter from the present officer

at F F* to M N, in which he upbraids him for not using more vigorous

means, telling him to talk less and shoot more, and reprimanding him for

not killing more than one in a district under his care where there was a

little trouble. M N is due in Belgium in about three months, and says he

will land one day and begin denouncing his predecessor the next. I

received many favours from him, and should be sorry to injure him in any

way.... He has already accepted a position in one of the Companies,

being unable to continue longer in the service of the State. I have

never seen in all the different parts of the State which I have visited

a neater station, or a district more under control than that over which

this M N presides. He is the M N the people of N* told us of, who they

said was kind.

 

“If I can give you any more information, or if there are any questions

you would like to put to me, I shall be glad to serve you, and through

you these persecuted people.”

 

From a separate communication, I extract the following paragraphs:--

 

“...I heard of some half-dozen L* who were anxious to visit their old

home, and would be willing to go with me; so, after procuring some

necessary articles in the shape of provisions and barter, I started from

our post at N*. It was the end of the dry season, and many of the

water-courses were quite dry, and during some days we even found the

lack of water somewhat trying. The first two days’ travelling was

through alternating forest and grass plain, our guides, as far as

possible, avoiding the villages.... Getting fresh guides from a little

village, we got into a region almost entirely forested, and later

descended into a gloomy valley still dripping from the rain. According

to our guides we should soon be through this, but it was not until the

afternoon of the second day after entering that we once more emerged

from the gloom. Several times we lost the track, and I had little

inclination to blame the guides, for several times the undergrowth and a

species of thorn palm were trodden down in all directions by the

elephants. It would seem to be a favourite hunting ground of theirs, and

once we got very close to a large herd who went off at a furious pace,

smashing down the small trees, trumpeting, and making altogether a most

terrifying noise. The second night in this forest we came across, when

looking for the track, a little village of runaways from the rubber

district. When assured of our friendliness they took us in and gave us

what shelter they could. During the night another tornado swept the

country and blew down a rotten tree, some branches of which fell in

amongst my tent and the little huts in which some of the boys were

sleeping. It was another most narrow escape.

 

“Early the next day we were conducted by one of the men of this village

to the right road, and very soon found ourselves travelling along a

track which had evidently been, at only a recent date, opened up by a

number of natives. ‘What was it?’ ‘Oh! it is the road along which we

used to carry rubber to the white men.’ ‘But why used to?’ ‘Oh, all the

people have either run away, or have been killed or died of starvation,

and so there is no one to get rubber any longer.’

 

“That day we made a very long march, being nearly nine and a-half hours

walking, and passing through several other large depopulated districts.

On all sides were signs of a very recent large population, but all was

as quiet as death, and buffaloes roamed at will amongst the still

growing manioc and bananas. It was a sad day, and when, as the sun was

setting, we came upon a large State post we were plunged into still

greater grief. True, there was a comfortable house at our service, and

houses for all the party; but we had not been long there before we found

that we had reached the centre of what was once a very thickly populated

region, known as C C*, from which many refugees in the neighbourhood of

G* had come. It was here a white man, known by the name of D E,

lived.... He came to the district, and, after seven months of diabolical

work, left it a waste. Some of the stories current about him are not fit

to record here, but the native evidence is so consistent and so

universal that it is difficult to disbelieve that murder and rapine on a

large scale were carried on here. His successor, a man of a different

nature, and much liked by the people, after more than two and a-half

years has succeeded in winning back to the side of the State post a few

natives, and there I saw them in their wretched little huts, hardly able

to call their lives their own in the presence of the new white man

(myself), whose coming among them had set them all a-wondering. From

this there was no fear of losing the track. For many miles it was a

broad road, from 6 to 10 feet in width, and wherever there was a

possibility of water settling logs were laid down. Some of these

viaducts were miles in length, and must have entailed immense labour;

whilst rejoicing in the great facility with which we could continue our

journey, we could not help picturing the many cruel scenes which, in all

probability, were a constant accompaniment to the laying of these huge

logs. I wish to emphasize as much as possible the desolation and

emptiness of the country we passed through. That it was only very

recently a well-populated country, and, as things go out here, rather

more densely than usual, was very evident. After a few hours we came to

a State rubber post. In nearly every instance these posts are most

imposing, some of them giving rise to the supposition that several white

men were residing in them. But in only one did we find a white man--the

successor of D E. At one place I saw lying about in the grass

surrounding the post, which is built on the site of several very large

towns, human bones, skulls, and, in some places, complete skeletons. On

inquiring the reason for this unusual sight: ‘Oh!’ said my informant,

‘When the bambote (soldiers) were sent to make us cut rubber there were

so many killed we got tired of burying, and sometimes when we wanted to

bury we were not allowed to.’

 

“‘But why did they kill you so?’

 

“‘Oh! sometimes we were ordered to go, and the sentry would find us

preparing food to eat while in the forest, and he would shoot two or

three to hurry us along. Sometimes we would try and do a little work on

our plantations, so that when the harvest time came we should have

something to eat, and the sentry would shoot some of us to teach us that

our business was not to plant but to get rubber. Sometimes we were

driven off to live for a fortnight in the forest without any food and

without anything to make a fire with, and many died of cold and hunger.

Sometimes the quantity brought was not sufficient, and then several

would be killed to frighten us to bring more. Some tried to run away,

and died of hunger and privation in the forest in trying to avoid the

State posts.’

 

“‘But,’ said I, ‘if the sentries killed you like that, what was the use?

You could not bring more rubber when there were fewer people.’

 

“‘Oh! as to that, we do not understand it. These are the facts.’

 

“And looking around on the scene of desolation, on the untended farms

and neglected palms, one could not but believe that in the main the

story was true. From State sentries came confirmation and particulars

even more horrifying, and the evidence of a white man as to the state of

the country--the unspeakable condition of the prisons at the State

posts--all combined to convince me over and over again that, during the

last seven years, this ‘domaine privé’ of King Leopold has been a

veritable ‘hell on earth.’

 

“The present régime seems to be more tolerable. A small payment is made

for the rubber now brought in. A little salt--say a pennyworth--for 2

kilogrammes of rubber, worth in Europe from 6 to 8 fr. The collection is

still compulsory, but, compared with what has gone before, the natives

consider themselves fairly treated. There is a coming together of

families and communities and the re-establishment of villages; but oh!

in what sadly diminished numbers, and with what terrible gaps in the

families.... Near a large State post we saw the only large and

apparently normal village we came across in all the three weeks we spent

in the district. One was able to form here some estimate of what the

population was before the advent of the white man and the search for rubber....”