The Casement Report 44
That it is confirmed by the clearly stated opinion of the English
missionary Armstrong, who considers the natives to be “capable of
any plot to escape work and especially the labour of collecting
rubber”;
That the innocence of Kelengo having been thoroughly established,
there is no reason for proceeding against him;
On the above-mentioned grounds, we, the Acting Public Prosecutor,
declare that there are no grounds for proceeding against Kelengo, a
forest guard in the service of the La Lulonga Company, for the
offences mentioned in Articles 2, 5, 11, and 19 of the Penal Code.
(Signed) BOSCO,
_Acting Public Prosecutor_.
_Mampoko, October 9, 1903._
We have dealt at length with the above case because it is considered by
the Consul himself as being one of the utmost importance, and because he
relies upon this single case for accepting as accurate all the other
declarations made to him by natives.
“In the one case I could alone personally investigate,” he
says,[92] “that of the boy I I, I found this accusation proved on
the spot without seemingly a shadow of doubt existing as to the
guilt of the accused sentry.”
And further on:--
“I had not time to do more than visit the one village of R**, and
in that village I had only time to investigate the charge brought
by I I.”[93]
And elsewhere:--
“It was obviously impossible that I should ... verify on the spot,
as in the case of the boy, the statements they made. In that one
case the truth of the charges preferred was amply
demonstrated.”[94]
It is also to this case that he alludes in his letter of the 12th
September, 1903, to the Governor-General, where he says:--
“When speaking to M. le Commandant Stevens at Colquilhatville on
the 10th instant, when the _mutilated boy Epondo stood before us as
evidence of the deplorable state of affairs_ I reprobated, I said,
‘I do not accuse an individual, I accuse a system.’”
It is only natural to conclude that if the rest of the evidence in the
Consul’s Report is of the same value as that furnished to him in this
particular case, it cannot possibly be regarded as conclusive. And it is
obvious that in those cases in which the Consul, as he himself admits,
did not attempt to verify the assertions of the natives, these
assertions are worth, if possible, still less.
It is doubtless true that the Consul deliberately incurred the certain
risk of being misled owing to the manner in which he interrogated the
natives, which he did, as a matter of fact, through two
interpreters--“through Vinda, speaking in Bobangi, and Bateko,
repeating his utterances ... in the local dialect;[95] so that the
Consul was at the mercy not only of the truthfulness of the native who
was being questioned, but depended also on the correctness of the
translations of two other natives, one of whom was a servant of his own,
and the other apparently the missionaries’ interpreter.[96] But any one
who has ever been in contact with the native knows how much he is given
to lying; the Rev. C. H. Harvey[97] states that--
“The natives of the Congo who surrounded us were contemptible,
perfidious and cruel, impudent liars, dishonest, and vile.”
It is also important, if one wishes to get a correct idea of the value
of this evidence, to note that while Mr. Casement was questioning the
natives, he was accompanied by two local Protestant English
missionaries, whose presence must alone have necessarily affected the
evidence.[98]
We should ourselves be going too far if from all this we were to
conclude that the whole of the native statements reported by the Consul
ought to be rejected. But it is clearly shown that his proofs are
insufficient as a basis for a deliberate judgment, and that the
particulars in question require to be carefully and impartially tested.
On examining the Consul’s voluminous Report for other cases which he
_has seen_, and which he sets down as cases of mutilation, it will be
observed that he mentions two as having occurred on Lake Mantumba[99]
“some years ago.”[100] He mentions several others, in regard to the
number of which the particulars given in the Report do not seem to
agree,[101] as having taken place in the neighbourhood of Bonginda,[102]
precisely in the country of the Epondo inquiry, where, as has been seen,
the general feeling was excited and prejudiced. It is these cases which,
he says, he had not time to inquire into fully,[103] and which,
according to the natives, were due to agents of the La Lulanga Company.
Were these instances of victims of the practice of native customs which
the natives would have been careful not to admit? Were the injuries
which the Consul saw due to some conflict between neighbouring villages
or tribes? Or were they really due to the black subordinates of the
Company? This cannot be determined by a perusal of the Report, as the
natives in this instance, as in every other, were the sole source of the
Consul’s information, and he, for his part, confined himself to taking
rapid notes of their numerous statements for a few hours in the morning
of the 5th September, being pressed for time, in order to reach K*
(Bossunguma) at a reasonable hour.[104]
Notwithstanding the weight which he attaches to the “air of frankness”
and the “air of conviction and sincerity”[105] on the part of the
natives, his own experience shows clearly the necessity for caution, and
renders rash his assertion “that it was clear that these men were
stating either what they had actually seen with their eyes or firmly
believed in their hearts.”[106]
Now, however, that the Consul has drawn attention to these few
cases--whether cases of cruelty or not, and they are all that, as a
matter of fact, he has inquired into personally, and even so without
being able to prove sufficiently their real cause--the authorities will
of course look into the matter and cause inquiries to be made. It is to
be regretted that, this being so, all mention of date, place, and name
has been systematically omitted in the copy of the Report communicated
to the Government of the Independent State of the Congo. It is
impossible not to see that these suppressions will place great
difficulties in the way of the Magistrates who will have to inquire into
the facts, and the Government of the Congo trust that, in the interests
of truth, they may be placed in possession of the complete text of the
Consul’s Report.
It is not to be wondered at if the Government of the Congo State take
this opportunity of protesting against the proceedings of their
detractors, who have thought fit to submit to the public reproductions
of photographs of mutilated natives, and have started the odious story
of hands being cut off with the knowledge and even at the instigation of
Belgians in Africa. The photograph of Epondo, for instance, mutilated
in the manner known, and who has “twice been photographed,” is probably
one of those which the English pamphlets are circulating as proof of the
execrable administration of the Belgians in Africa. One English review
reproduced the photograph of a “cannibal surrounded with the skulls of
his victims,” and underneath was written: “In the original photograph
the cannibal was naked. The artist has made him decent by ... covering
his breast with the star of the Congo State. It is now a suggestive
emblem of the Christian-veneered cannibalism on the Congo.”[107] At this
rate it would suffice to throw discredit on the Uganda Administration if
the plates were published illustrating the mutilations which, in a
letter dated Uganda, 16th December, 1902, Dr. Castellani says he saw in
the neighbourhood of Entebbe itself: “It is not difficult to find there
natives without noses or ears, &c.”[108]
The truth is, that in Uganda, as in the Congo, the natives still give
way to their savage instincts. This objection has been anticipated by
Mr. Casement, who remarks:--
“It was not a native custom prior to the coming of the white man;
it was not the outcome of the primitive instincts of savages in
their fights between village and village; it was the deliberate act
of the soldiers of a European Administration, and these men
themselves never made any concealment that in committing these acts
they were but obeying the positive orders of their superiors.”[109]
That Mr. Casement should formulate so serious a charge without at the
same time supporting it by absolute proof would seem to justify those
who consider that his previous employment has not altogether been such
as to qualify him for the duties of a Consul. Mr. Casement remained
seventeen days on Lake Mantumba, a lake said to be 25 to 30 miles long
and 12 to 15 broad, surrounded by dense forest.[110] He scarcely left
its shores at all. In these circumstances it is difficult to see how he
could have made any useful researches into the former habits and customs
of the inhabitants. On the contrary, from the fact that the tribes in
question are still very savage, and addicted to cannibalism,[111] it
would seem that they have not abandoned the practice of those cruelties
which throughout Africa were the usual accompaniments of barbarous
habits and anthropophagy. In one portion of the districts which the
Consul visited, the evidence of the English missionaries on this point
is most instructive. The Rev. McKittrick, in describing the sanguinary
contests between the natives, mentions the efforts to pacify the country
which he formerly made through the Chiefs:--“.... We told them that for
the future we should not let any man carrying spears or knives pass
through our station. Our God was a God of peace, and we, His children,
could not bear to see our black brothers cutting and stabbing each
other.”[112] “While I was going up and down the river,” says another
missionary, “they pointed out to me the King’s beaches, whence they used
to dispatch their fighting men to capture canoes and men. It was
heartrending to hear them describe the awful massacres that used to take
place at a great Chief’s death. A deep hole was dug in the ground, into
which scores of slaves were thrown after having their heads cut off; and
upon that horrible pile they laid the Chief’s dead body to crown the
indescribable human carnage.”[113] And the missionaries speak of the
facility with which even nowadays the natives return to their old
customs. It would seem, too, that the statement made in the Report,[114]
that the natives now fly on the approach of a steamer as they never used
to do, is hardly in accordance with the reports of travellers and explorers.
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