Bitterness of Death Past the Sacked Kongo but Shall Human Hyenas Satisfy Justice?
Bitterness of Death Past the Sacked Kongo but Shall Human Hyenas Satisfy Justice? is an article written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in Los Angeles Record on 1 november 1909.
This article is the fourth and final part of a slightly modified abstract of a part of Arthur Conan Doyle's essay : The Crime of the Congo (1909).
Article
TYPE OF NATIVE SOLDIER IN THE KONGO. THESE ARE THE MEN WHO ARE TURNED LOOSE WITH ORDERS TO PUNISH NATIVES WHO DO NOT PRODUCE ENOUGH RUBBER.
WHEN THIS KONGO BOY'S FATHER DID NOT PRODUCE ENOUGH RUBBER THEY CHOPPED OFF HIS RIGHT HAND. WHEN THE FATHER FELL BEHIND A SECOND TIME THEY CHOPPED OFF THE BOY'S FOOT.
(Herewith is the concluding installment from "The Crime of the Congo" by Sir Conan Doyle, in which the author calls for justice for the victims of the white oppressor. — Editor.)
By Sir A. Conan Doyle .
When a Belgian commission was appointed to investigate Kongo matters after the publication of Mr. Casement's report of astounding atrocities, the soldiers kept many natives from appearing before the commission with their stories.
One aged chief was held back from the commission and was punished by witnessing the killing of his wife for trying to testify.
He brought with him, in the hope that he might lay them before the judges, 182 long twigs and 76 smaller ones to represent so many adults and children who had been killed by the A. B. I. R. company in the past few years.
"His account of the method by which these unfortunate people met their deaths will not bear printing. The wildest dreams of the inquisition were outdone. Women had been killed by having stakes thrust into them. When a horrified missionary asked the chief if this was personaly known to him, his answer was, "They killed my daughter Nsinga in this manner; I found the stake in her."
"Last year, or the year before," reported Mr. Harris, a missionary, "a young woman Imenega was tied to a forked tree and chopped in half with a hatchet, beginning at the left shoulder, chopping down through the chest and abdomen and out at the side."
In spite of the fact that such evidence as this did not reach the commission the result of its research was that one man was punished. And this was Mr. Stannard, one of the accusing witnesses, who was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and to pay $200.
He was convicted of criminal libel for saying that certain evidence from Lontulu, a chief, had been presented to the commission. Stannard could prove neither by the chief who had been tortured and his whiskers pulled out, nor by the commission that the commission had received the evidence.
As a matter of fact, Chief Lontulu gave just the evidence Mr. Stannard says he did, and here are some of the questions and answers:
Pres. Janssens to Lontulu: Were the people of Monji given the corpses to eat?
Lontulu: Yes. They cut them up and ate them.
Baron Nisco: Did they flog you?
Lontulu: Repeatedly.
Pres. Janssens: Did you see sentries kill your people? Did they kill many?
Lontulu: Yes. All my family is finished.
Pres. Janssens: Are you sure that each of your twigs (110) represents one person killed?
Lontulu: Yes.
President: Were the sentries and those who helped given the dead bodies to eat?
Lontulu: Yes, they ate them. Those who took part in the fight cut them up and ate them.
Lontulu, after torture, and while Stannard was being prosecuted for criminal libel for repeating Lontulu's testimony, was forced to deny all that he had previously testified to.
Such was the manner in which the Belgian commission was able to blazen to the world a triumphant vindication of King Leopold and his Kongo administration! Conditions in the Kongo today, though murder and mutilation have ceased, are not greatly improved, according to testimony given by W. Cessie Murdoch, a traveler.
"All the people I saw" — with few exceptions — "are taxed with rubber," says Murdoch. The rubber tax is an intolerable burden. It is difficult to describe it calmly. What I found was simply this:
"The 'tax' demands 20 to 25 days' labor every month. It was some time before I discovered that in the Domaine de la Couronne, west of Lake Leopold, there is no rubber. Once the vines have been found the working of the rubber is the small part of the labor. I have made a calculation of the distance the people I have met have to walk, and I find that the average cannot be less than 300 miles. They will cover this distance in 10 or 12 days. The rest of the time is used in hunting for the vines and tapping them. I saw some men returning empty handed. They had been hunting for over eight days and had found nothing. What the poor wretches would do I cannot imagine. If they failed to produce the usual amount of rubber they would be put in prison.
Individual acts of atrocity have, for the most part ceased. The state agents seem to have come to the conclusion that it is a waste of cartridges to shoot down these people.
It will be seen that, so far as the people are concerned, the problem is solved, the bitterness of death is past. No European intervention can save them. In many places they have been utterly destroyed. But they were the wards of Europe, and surely Europe, if she is not utterly lost to shame, will have something to say as to their fate.
Sums of money amounting to $35,000,000 have been traced to the king, and this money has been spent partly in buildings in Belgium, partly in buildings on the Riviera, partly in the corruption of public men and of the European and American press, and finally in the expense of such a private life as has made King Leopold's name notorious throughout Europe. Of the guilty companies the poorest seem to pay 50 per cent and the richest 700 per cent per annum.
Surely there should be some punishment for those who by their injustice and violence have dragged Christianity and civilization in the dirt. Surely also there should be some compulsory compensation out of the swollen money bags of the 300 per cent concessionaries for the widows and orphans, the maimed and the incapacitated. Justice cannot be satisfied with less.
