The Casement Report 42

The Casement Report 42

Ces conclusions sont les nôtres au sujet du Rapport de M. Casement.

 

_Bruxelles, le 12 Mars, 1904._

 

 

(Translation.)

 

During the sitting of the House of Commons of the 11th March, 1903, Lord

Cranborne observed:--

 

“We have no reason to think that slavery is recognized by the

authorities of the Congo Free State, but reports of acts of cruelty

and oppression have reached us. Such reports have been received

from our Consular Officers.”

 

The Government of the Congo State addressed a letter on the 14th March,

1903, to Sir C. Phipps, requesting him to be good enough to communicate

the facts which had formed the subject of any reports from British

Consuls.

 

No reply was received to this application.

 

Lord Lansdowne’s despatch of the 8th August, 1903, contained the

following passage:--

 

“Representations to this effect (alleged cases of ill-treatment of

natives and existence of trade monopolies) are to be found ... in

despatches from His Majesty’s Consuls.”

 

The impression was thus created that at that date His Majesty’s

Government were in possession of conclusive evidence furnished by their

Consuls: but none the less it seemed clearly necessary that Consul

Casement should undertake a journey in the Upper Congo. It would appear,

therefore, as if the conclusions contained in the note of the 8th August

were at least premature; it equally follows that, contrary to what was

said in that note, the British Consul was at liberty to undertake any

journey in the interior that he thought fit. In any case, it is to be

observed that, in spite of the repeated applications of the Congo State,

the White Paper (“Africa No. 1 (1904)”) recently presented to Parliament

does not contain any of these former Consular Reports, which

nevertheless would have been the more interesting as dating from a time

when the present campaign had not yet been initiated.

 

The present Report draws attention to the fact that in certain places

visited by the Consul the population is decreasing. Mr. Casement does

not give the facts on which he bases his comparative figures for 1887

and 1903. The question arises how, during the course of his rapid and

hasty visits, he was able to get his figures for this latter year. On

what facts, for instance, does he found his assertion that the riverain

population of Lake Mantumba _seems_ to have diminished from 60 to 70 per

cent. in the course of the last ten years. He states that at a certain

place designated as F* the population of all the villages together does

not at present amount to more than 500 souls; a few lines further on

these same villages are spoken of as only containing 240 inhabitants

altogether. These are only details, but they show at once what a lack of

precision there is in certain of the deductions made by the Consul. It

is, no doubt, unfortunately only too true that the population has

diminished; but the diminution is due to other causes than to the

exercise on the native population of a too exacting or oppressive

Administration. It is owing chiefly to the sleeping-sickness, which is

decimating the population throughout Equatorial Africa. The Report

itself observes that “a prominent place must be assigned to this

malady,”[83] and that this malady is “probably one of the principal

factors” in the diminution of the population.[84] It is only necessary

to read the Rev. John Whitehead’s letter, quoted by the Consul (Annex II

to the Report) to obtain an idea of the ravages of the malady, to which

this missionary attributes half of the deaths which take place in the

riverain parts of the district. In a recent interview Mgr. Van Ronslé,

Vicar Apostolic of the Belgian Congo, who speaks with the authority of

one who has had a large experience of African matters, and has resided

for long periods in many different localities in the Congo, explained

the development of this scourge and the inevitable decay of the

populations it attacks, whatever the conditions of their social

existence; mentioning among other cases the terrible loss of life caused

by this disease in Uganda. If to this principal cause of the

depopulation of the Congo are added small-pox epidemics, the inability

of the tribes at the present moment to keep up their numbers by the

purchase of slaves, and the ease with which the natives can migrate, it

can be explained how the Consul and the missionaries may have been

struck with the diminution of the number of inhabitants in certain

centres without that diminution necessarily being the result of a system

of oppression. Annex I contains the declarations on the subject made by

Mgr. Van Ronslé. His remarks as to the effect of the suppression of

slavery on the numbers of the population are printed elsewhere:--

 

“The people (slave) are for the most part originally prisoners of

war. Since the Decree of emancipation they have simply returned to

their own distant homes, knowing their owners have no power to

recapture them. This is one reason why some think the population is

decreasing, and another reason is the vast exodus up and down

river.”[85]

 

“So long as the Slave Trade flourished the Bobangi flourished, but

with its abolition they are tending to disappear, for their towns

were replenished by slaves.”[86]

 

The Consul mentions cases, the causes of which, however, are unknown to

him, of an exodus of natives of the Congo to the French bank. It is not

quite clear on what grounds he attaches blame to the State on their

account, to judge at least from the motives by which some of them have

been determined--for instance, the examples of such emigration which are

given and explained by the Rev. W. H. Bentley, an English missionary.

One relates to the station at Lukolela:--

 

“The main difficulty has been the shifting of the population. It

appears that the population, when the station was founded in 1886,

was between 5,000 and 6,000 in the riverain Colonies. About two

years later the Chief Mpuki did not agree with his neighbours or

they with him. When the tension became acute, Mpuki crossed over

with his people to the opposite (French) side of the river. This

exodus took away a large number of people. In 1890 or 1891 a Chief

from one of the lower towns was compelled by the majority of his

people to leave the State side, and several went with him. About

1893 the rest of the people at the lower towns either went across

to the same place as the deposed Chief or took up their residence

inland. Towards the end of 1894 a soldier, who had been sent to cut

firewood for the State steamers on an island off the towns, left

his work to make an evil request in one of the towns. He shot the

man who refused him. The rascal of a soldier was properly dealt

with by the State officer in charge; but this outrage combined with

other smaller difficulties to produce a panic, and nearly all the

people left for the French side, or hid away inland. So the fine

township has broken up.”[87]

 

The other refers to the station at Bolobo:--

 

“It is rare indeed for Bolobo, with its 30,000 or 40,000 people,

divided into some dozen clans, to be at peace for any length of

time together. The loss of life from these petty wars, the number

of those killed for witchcraft, and of those who are buried alive

with the dead, involve, even within our narrow limits here at

Bolobo, an almost daily drain upon the vitality of the country, and

an incalculable amount of sorrow and suffering.... The Government

was not indifferent to these murderous ways.... In 1890, the

District Commissioner called the people together, and warned them

against the burying of slaves alive in the graves of free people,

and the reckless killing of slaves which then obtained. The natives

did not like the rising power of the State.... Our own settlement

among them was not unattended with difficulty.... There was a

feeling against white men generally, and especially so against the

State. The people became insolent and haughty.... Just at this time

... as a force of soldiers steamed past the Moye towns, the

steamers were fired upon. The soldiers landed and burnt and looted

the towns. The natives ran away into the grass, and great numbers

crossed to the French side of the river. They awoke to the fact

that Bula Matadi, the State, was not the helpless thing they had so

long thought. This happened early in 1891.”[88]

 

It will be seen that these examples do not attribute the emigration of

the natives to any such causes as:--

 

“The methods employed to obtain labour from them by local officials

and the exactions levied on them.”[89]

 

The Report dwells at length on the existence of native taxes. It shows

how the natives are subject to forced labour of various kinds, in one

district having to furnish the Government posts with “chikwangues,” or

fresh provisions, in another being obliged to assist in works of public

utility, such as the construction of a jetty at Bololo, or the up-keep

of the telegraph line at F*; elsewhere being obliged to collect the

produce of the domain lands. We maintain that such imposts on the

natives are legitimate, in agreement on this point with His Majesty’s

Government, who, in the Memorandum of the 11th February last, declare

that the industry and development of the British Colonies and

Protectorates in Africa show that His Majesty’s Government have always

admitted the necessity of making the natives contribute to the public

charges and of inducing them to work. We also agree with His Majesty’s

Government that, if abuses occur in this connection--and undoubtedly

some have occurred in all Colonies--such abuses call for reform, and

that it is the duty of the authorities to put an end to them, and to

reconcile as far as may be the requirements of the Government with the

real interests of the natives.

 

But in this matter the Congo State intends to exercise freely its rights

of sovereignty--as, for instance, His Majesty’s Government explain in

their last Memorandum that they themselves did at Sierra Leone--without

regard to external pressure or foreign interference, which would be an

encroachment upon its essential rights.

 

The Consul, in his Report, obviously endeavours to create the impression

that taxes in the Congo are collected in a violent, inhuman, and cruel

manner, and we are anxious before all to rebut the accusation which has

so often been brought against the State that such collection gives rise

to odious acts of mutilation. On this point a superficial perusal of the

Report is calculated to impress by its easy accumulation not of facts,

simple, precise, and verified, but of the declarations and affirmations

of natives.

 

There is a preliminary remark to be made in regard to the conditions in

which the Consul made his journey.

 

Whether such was his intention or not, the British Consul appeared to

the inhabitants as the redresser of the wrongs, real or imaginary, of

the natives, and his presence at La Lulonga, coinciding with the

campaign which was being directed against the Congo State, in a region

where the influence of the Protestant missionaries has long been

exercised, necessarily had for the natives a significance which did not

escape them. The Consul made his investigations quite independently of

the Government officials, quite independently of any action and of any

co-operation on the part of the regular authorities; he was assisted in

his proceedings by English Protestant missionaries; he made his

inspection on a steamer belonging to a Protestant Mission; he was

entertained for the most part in the Protestant Missions; and, in these

circumstances, it was inevitable that he should be considered by the

native as the antagonist of the established authorities.

 

Other proof is not required than the characteristic fact that while the

Consul was at Bonginda, the natives crowded down to the bank, as some

agents of the La Lulonga Company were going by in a canoe, and cried

out: “Your violence is over, it is passing away; only the English

remain; may you others die!” There is also this significant admission on

the part of a Protestant missionary, who, in alluding to this incident,

remarked:--

 

“The Consul was here at the time, and the people were much excited

and evidently thought themselves on top.... The people have got

this idea (that the rubber work was finished) into their heads of

themselves, consequent, I suppose, upon the Consul’s visit.”