Part 23
(_a._) Cut off the left hand of a certain Epondo;
(_b._) ...;
(_c._) ...;
Having regard to the inquiry instituted by Lieutenant Braeckman, which partly confirms the result of the inquiry instituted by His Britannic Majesty’s Consul, but also partly contradicts it, and to the charges already brought against Kelengo adds that of having killed a native of the name of Baluwa;
Having regard to the conclusions arrived at by the police employé in question, which tend to raise grave doubts as to the truth of all these charges;
In view of the fact that all the natives who brought these charges against Kelengo, whether before His Britannic Majesty’s Consul or Lieutenant Braeckman, on being summoned by us, the Acting Public Prosecutor, took to flight, and all efforts to find them have been fruitless; that this flight obviously throws doubt on the truth of their allegations;
That all the witnesses whom we have questioned during the course of our inquiry declare ... that Epondo lost his left hand from the bite of a wild boar;
That Epondo confirms these statements, and admits that he told a lie at the instigation of the natives of Bossunguma and Ikondja, who hoped to escape collecting rubber through the intervention of His Britannic Majesty’s Consul, whom they considered to be very powerful;
That the witnesses, almost all inhabitants of the accusing villages, admit that such was the object of their lie;
That this version, apart from the unanimous declarations of the witnesses and the injured parties, is also the most plausible, seeing that every one knows that the natives dislike work in general and having to collect rubber, and are, moreover, ready to lie and accuse people falsely;
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.
Be this how it may, it is to be observed that nowhere in the territory which is the scene of the operations of the A.B.I.R. Company did the Consul discover any evidence of acts of cruelty for which the commercial agents might have been considered responsible. The coincidence is remarkable, since it so happens that the A.B.I.R. Company is a concessionary Company, and that it is the system of concessions to which are constantly attributed the most disastrous consequences for the natives.
What it is important to discover from the immense number of questions touched on by the Consul, and the multiplicity of minor facts which he has collected, is whether the sort of picture he has drawn of the wretched existence led by the natives corresponds to the actual state of affairs. We will take, for instance, the district of the Lulanga and the Lopori, as the head-stations of the missions of the “Congo Balolo Mission” have been established there for years past. These missionaries are established in the most distant places in the interior, at Lulonga, Bonginda, Ikau, Bongandanga, and Baringa, all of which are situated in the scene of operations of the La Lulonga and A.B.I.R. Companies. They are in constant communication with the native populations, and a special monthly review, called “Regions Beyond,” regularly publishes their letters, notes, and reports. An examination of a set of these publications reveals no trace, at any time previous to April 1903--by that date, it is true, Mr. Herbert Samuel’s motion had been brought before Parliament--of anything either to point out or to reveal that the general situation of the native populations was such as ought to be denounced to the civilized world. The missionaries congratulate themselves on the active sympathy shown them by the various official and commercial agents,[115] on the progress of their work of evangelization,[116] on the facilities afforded them by the construction of roads,[117] on the manner in which the natives are becoming civilized, “owing to the mere presence of white men in their midst, both missionaries and traders,”[118] on the disappearance of slavery,[119] on the density of the population,[120] on the growing number of their pupils, “especially since the State has issued orders for all children within reach to attend the mission schools,”[121] on the gradual disappearance of the primitive customs of the natives,[122] and lastly, on the contrast between the present and the past.[123] Will it be admitted that these Christian English missionaries, who, during their journeys, visited the various factories, and witnessed markets of rubber being held, would, by keeping silence, make themselves the accomplices of an inhuman or wrongful system of government? Among the conclusions of one of the Annual Reports of the Congo Balolo Mission is to be found the following: “On the whole, the retrospect is encouraging. If there has been no great advance, there has been no heavy falling off, and no definite opposition to the work.... There has been much famine and sickness among the natives, especially at Bonginda.... Apart from this, there has been no serious hindrance to progress....”[124] And speaking incidentally of the beneficial effect produced by work on the social condition of the natives, a missionary writes: “The greatest obstacle to conversion is polygamy. Many evils have been put down, _e.g._, idleness, thanks to the State having compelled the men to work; and fighting, through their not having time enough to fight.”[125] These opinions of missionaries appear to us to be more precise than those expressed in a Report on every page of which it may be said one finds such expressions as: “I was told,” “it was said,” “I was informed,” “I was assured,” “they said,” “it was alleged,” “I had no means of verifying,” “it was impossible for me to verify,” “I have no means of ascertaining,” &c. Within a space of ten lines, indeed, occur four times the expressions, “appears,” “would seem,” “would seem,” “do not seem.”[126]
The Consul does not appear to have realized that native taxes in the Congo are levied in the shape of labour, and that this form of tax is justified as much by the moral effect which it produces, as by the impossibility of taxing the native in any other way, seeing that, as the Consul admits, the native has no money. It is to this consideration that is due the fact, to give another example, that out of 56,700 huts which are taxed in North-Eastern Rhodesia 19,653 pay that tax “in labour,” while 4,938 pay it “in produce.”[127] Whether such labour is furnished direct to the State or to some private undertaking, and whether it is given in aid of this or that work as local necessities may dictate, one ground of justification is always to be found in what the Memorandum of the 11th February last recognizes is the “necessity of the natives being induced to work.” The Consul shows much anxiety as to how this forced labour should be described; he is surprised that if it be a tax it is sometimes paid and recovered by commercial agents. Strictly speaking, of course, it cannot be denied that the idea of remunerating a person for paying his taxes is contrary to ordinary notions of finance; but the difficulty disappears if it is considered that the object in view has been to get the natives to acquire the habit of labour, from which they have always shown a great aversion. And if this notion of work can more easily be inculcated on the natives under the form of commercial transactions between them and private persons, is it necessary to condemn such a mode of procedure, especially in those parts where the organization of the Administration is not yet complete? But it is essential that in the relations of this nature which they have with the natives, commercial agents, no less than those of the State, should be kind and humane. In so far as it bears on this point the Consul’s Report will receive the most careful consideration, and if the result of investigation be to show that there are real abuses and that reforms are called for, the heads of the Administration will act as the circumstances may require.
But no one has ever imagined that the fiscal system in the Congo attained perfection at once, especially in regard to such matters as the assessment of taxes and the means for recovering them. The system of “Chieftaincies,” which is recommended by the fact that it enables the authorities and the native to communicate through the latter’s natural Chief, was based on an idea carried into practice elsewhere:--
“The more important Chiefs who helped the Administration have been paid a certain percentage of the taxes collected in their districts, and I think that if this policy is adhered to each year, the results will continue to be satisfactory and will encourage the Chiefs to work in harmony with the Administration.”[128]
The Decree on the subject of these Chieftaincies[129] laid down the principle of a tax, and its levy in accordance with “a table of contributions to be made every year by each village in produce, forced labour, labourers, or soldiers.” The application of this Decree has been provided for by deeds of investiture, tables of statistics, and
## particulars of contributions, forms of which will be found in Annex IV.
In spite of what is stated in the Report, this Decree has been carried out so far as has been found compatible with the social condition of the various tribes; numerous deeds of investiture have been drawn up, and efforts have been made to draw up an equitable assessment of the contributions. The Consul might have found this out at the Commissioners’ offices, especially in the Stanley Pool and Equator districts, which he passed through; but he neglected as a rule all official sources of information. No doubt the application of the Decree was at first necessarily limited, and it is possible that the result has been that for a certain time only such villages as were within a short distance from stations have been required to pay taxes; but this state of things has little by little altered for the better in proportion as the more distant regions have become included in the areas of influence of the Government posts, the number of villages subject to taxation has gradually increased, and it has been found possible to levy taxes on a greater number of persons. The Government aim at making progress in this direction continuous, that is to say, that taxation should be more equitably distributed, and should as much as possible be personal; it was with this object that the Decree of the 18th November, 1903, provided for drawing up “lists of native contributions” in such a way that the obligations of every native should be strictly defined.
“Article 28 of this Decree lays down that within the limits of Article 2 of the present regulations (that is to say, within the limit of forty hours’ work per month per native) the District Commissioners shall draw up annual lists of the taxes to be paid, in land or duration of labour, by each of the natives resident in the territories of their respective districts. And Article 55 punishes ‘whoever, being charged with the levy of taxes, shall have required of the natives, whether in kind or labour, contributions which shall exceed in value those prescribed in the tables of taxes.’”
It in matter of common notoriety that the collection of taxes is occasionally met by opposition, and even refusal to pay. The proofs of this, which are to be found in the Report of the Consul for the Congo, are borne out by what has happened, for instance, in Rhodesia:--
“The Ba-Unga (Awemba district), inhabitants of the swamps in the Zambezi delta, gave some trouble on being summoned to pay taxes.”[130]
“Although in many cases whole villages retired into the swamps on being called upon for the hut-tax, the general result was satisfactory for the first year (Luapula district).”[131]
“Milala’s people have succeeded in evading taxes.”[132]