The Greatest Silence - Rape in the Congo

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, World Tour Part Five

Thursday April 17th
Brussels Belgium

Staying in Brussels with Shannon Meehan from The IRC who welcomed me to her bright lovely apartment with a tin of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.  She has been a dynamo helping organize these screenings and using the film to galvanize action around the issue of “gender based violence” (like Heidi, she also hates the terminology) in the DRC.

The first screening was in a room in the Belgian Parliament.  Shannon had told me that the room would be full for the noon screening, but at 12:15 it was half empty and folks were still streaming in.  The delay worked to our advantage as when we arrived there was no sound system – the tech guys had assumed it was some sort of power-point presentation and were a bit surly about being asked to provide speakers.  Juliette Boulet, the Green Party MP who was sponsoring the event, handled their disrespect with considerable aplomb, especially when they balked at helping find cardboard or table clothes to cover the windows, whingeing that “this is not our job.”  Shannon surmised later that if Juliette had been a man – or perhaps an MP with more seniority – they would not have been so crude and unhelpful.  In the end a chivalrous waiter helped us bock out the uncharacteristic Belgian sunlight.

I had spent part of the day before wandering Brussels a bit agog at all the triumphal arches and palaces, wide boulevards and manicured parks and considering that they were all made possible compliments of King Leopold’s depraved plunder of the Congo over a hundred years ago.  There was something repellant about the plane trees in the King’s garden, all pruned and plucked and wired into tortured, trellised, non-tree-like postures, the nature drained and dragged out of them, sad joke trees.  Somehow they seemed a perfect metaphor for the evils of colonialism.  And towards the end of my visit I was shocked to find out that this hideous chapter in Belgium’s history is barely alluded to in its history books.  Natalie, Shannon’s boss, Belgian born, said that she knew nothing about these hellish exploitations until well into adulthood.

I sat out the screening in an adjacent conference room and people were still streaming in an hour after the film had started (Shannon would later comment “fuck me sideways – this country has some of the most arrogant self-involved people I’ve ever met…”).  Right after the screening a woman (who had only been identified as “Madame C.”) made a statement.  She identified herself as a Congolese woman (from Massisi?) who had been raped (by FDLR?) and wanted to attest that from her own experience everything in the film was true.  The post-screening discussion was predictably monopolized by a clatch of Congolese who, again, felt the need to vent and anguish over ground that the film had already covered, but several lawmakers and NGO officials asked about concrete policy suggestions and mention was made of the potential role of the EU in forcing attention on the war and demanding enforceable peace accords to diminish violence in the east.

That night’s screening was held at the European Commission  (and organized in part by One World) and every seat was full.  The lights came up as the film ended and Shannon and I came to the front of the room and nobody moved, nobody clapped, everyone just stayed frozen in their seats.  I broke the spell by initiating a Q&A and was impressed by the high level of the inquiries about policy, impunity, a discussion of issues around the resource exploitation etc.   After the discussion I walked out with Igor Blacevic from One World who provided me such a lovely metaphor for these doings.  He mentioned a scene in one of Tarcovsky’s last films where a man puts a dry stick into the ground and tells his son to water if every day without fail – it may look like a dead stick, but you never know.

"The Greatest Silence" World Tour, Part Three

March 21 – 26, 2008

Friday March 21st, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Somehow survived another fairly tortured overnight flight from London. I’d splurged on business class seats, but Ethiopian Airlines def isn’t the Ritz.  It was an old plane that didn’t seem to have the modern stabilizers that make new planes fly smoothly though the turbulence that had our little Flight 711 heaving and lurching side to side and up and down for at least half of the 10 hours aloft.  The plane didn’t leave London until 10:00pm and though I’d had to check out at noon the lovely hotel peeps let me set up a little “office” space in the back of the dining room, where I spent almost 5 hours just replying to e-mails that had come in from the London screenings – requests for copies, interview requests, questions about how to help, where to give money, where can it be seen again, could they show it at their college, to their church group, their legal aid society, could they use it for a fundraiser.  How do you say “no” to a person who writes: 

I was recently in the audience at the showing of the film at the ICA in London, as part of the Human Rights Watch film festival, and wanted to thank you - I was incredibly moved by the film and the voice that you have given these women and the issue. Seeing the film has inspired me to encourage everyone I know to watch it too - as a tool for awareness raising and bringing to life this often hidden issue, I think it is unrivalled. I wonder whether it is possible to get hold of a copy of the DVD for showing both privately, and also screening publicly (I'm looking into possibilities for showing this to a wider audience locally)?

I felt obliged to respond to every one of the inquiries and - poof! - there went the afternoon,  My gawd, this “outreach” is a full time job, a suspicion that was confirmed tonight by director Nick Francis, whose film  “Black Gold” opened the Addis festival.  It’s a terrific doc about Ethiopian coffee growers and the profound gap between what they make and what their precious commodity sells for on the world market. Smart and sharp with a brilliant crusading central character.  Nick and his brother premiered this film at Sundance in 2006, and he’s still making the festival rounds, still working the cause of third-world farmers, of ending US subsidies and trade barriers, of fighting for a living wage for the coffee workers.  Oy, what do I have ahead of me?

Sunday March 23rd, Addis

It was the African premiere and there was a pretty fair crowd.  The Sebastapol Theater is a huge space that seats like 900+ and people were sprinkled about making the 300 or so in the audience seem like less.  And there were an astonishing number of men in the audience.  The Q&A began with an emotional testimonial from a woman in the front row who had to pause several times to compose herself but managed through tears to say how the film confirmed for her that women are the stronger sex and perhaps that is why they have to suffer so. 

(And may I just add here that Ethiopian women are the most gorgeous creatures – tall and slim with high foreheads and dark eyebrows and dazzling smiles)

Nick Francis had a very good question about the illegal mines and whether or not the UN forces were doing anything in those areas to support the civilian population and assure that the exploitation was at least kept to a minimum.  I said that to my knowledge this had never been a Monuc priority, a surmise that was later confirmed.

I had one prolonged anxious moment when a gentleman who had been waving frantically from a back row was finally given a chance to ask his question and the wireless microphone man got to him.  He commenced a long spiel in Amharic and at one point the audience giggled and then broke into full laughter with spatters of applause and I’m thinking, OMG - what has he tapped into and exposed about my film that I’ve been completely oblivious to, some horrific cultural faux pas that only this audience knows to be a blunder, exposing my utter naiveté about… what?  On he rambles and I ask the translator, “does he have a question?” and he nods and waves me off and finally comes the reality:  the questioner had first apologized for having to speak in Amharic as his English was inadequate to express the emotions that the film had stirred in him (audience giggles) and then says that in pointing the finger at the first world the film uses the remaining the remaining three fingers to point at Africa (laughter) by laying some blame on Rwanda, Burundi, etc.  Seems he was quoting an Ethiopian proverb that says when you point at someone, three fingers are actually pointing back at you – point and you’ll get the point.  I wanted to hug him.

The Odd Ball Question of the night award went to a woman who inquired if, in my interviews with the rapists, I’d asked the chaps if they feared the wrath of some higher power.  I said, you mean like god?  Yep, that’s what she meant.  I said that I wish I’d had more of my wits about me because I would have loved to have heard from the soldiers if they were looking forward to burning in hell.

I have to note that in Ethiopia it is the year 2000.  The main square/parade grounds are festooned with enormous 2000’s in lights and bright plastic.  I’m told that the building boom is connected with the millennium celebration.  And they operate on a 12-hour clock, from 6-6.  So 6:00 pm is actually 1:00 pm.  A time and place out of time.

Sebastopol Theater, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:

View from my hotel room in Addis -- building construction in honor of The Millennium (it's the year 2000 in Ethiopia):

March 24th, Kigali Rwanda

Rwanda is such a beautiful country, the air smells sweet and there are soft green hills and abundant trees and flowers in every direction and I am so glad to be here… I keep repeating this happy mantra as I wait outside the airport waiting for my ride, sitting on my baggage trolley, waiting.  It’s the first little hitch, really.  When Jimmy and a small entourage pull up over an hour later with a long forlorn story about a punctured tire, all is quickly forgiven.  I’m staying at the Milles Collines, the (in)famous Hotel Rwanda.  I’m tempted to take a swim in the pool that was the source of drinking water for all the hundreds of desperate Tutsi’s who took refuge there during those dreadful weeks of the genocide in ’95.  I can almost picture General Romeo Dallaire, the brave and embittered UN peacekeeper, drinking double scotches at the bar – or maybe I’m confusing him with Nick Nolte.

The view of Kigali from the top of Mille Collines - "Hotel Rwanda":

The swimming pool that ten years ago was the only source of drinking water for thousands...:

The genocide memorial, and mass grave, in Kigali.  Over 200,000 Rwandese are buried here:

Tuesday March 25th

The screening this morning took place in a conference room on the hotel’s top floor.  There was more than a bit of a delay as hotel personnel and guests tried to staunch the sunlight that was streaming through the louvered shades: table clothes and room dividers finally did the trick and darkened the room sufficiently to see the image on the screen.

I watched the last 5:00 of the screening from the back of the room and four women were bent over crying, several women so shaken that they couldn’t phrase a question.   Many of the audience worked in the GBV area, with women’s health centers, rural clinics etc.   The event was sponsored by the Norwegian People’s Aid, which has a big presence in Rwanda and Kenya.

There was in interesting discussion of the ethics of interviewing survivors and showing their faces – many asked if the women would face reprisals.  I explained that they had all given informed consent, some even signing releases.  Many were still skeptical.

I’m listening to Lucy give a presentation about the services that her organization in Nairobi provides to rape survivors (It really is quite impressive, from full rape kits to psychological counseling to free legal advise and HIV prophylaxis.  We’d been talking bout it the night before at dinner and I asked her what kind of conviction rate the police had with sex crimes.  She took a sip of Coca Cola.  “Not very good,” she answered.  In fact it’s pretty damn shitty). 

Mid-litany there is a tap on my shoulder and it’s Bernard Kalume who has taken a taxi from the DRC border, arriving several hours after the screening, but arriving nevertheless.  Huge hugs.  In the lobby he is recognized from the film and poses for many photographs.  After lunch we take a taxi to the US embassy to see if I can weasel an exception and get his visa without the rigamarole of making the on-line appointments, etc.  It’s a no go, no exceptions.  They recognize him, though, as the person who showed up a few weeks ago with his ticket and suitcase but without the cash to pay for the exit visa and was sent back, crushed, to Goma. Back at Mille Colline we meander through the embassy site until we finally find the place to make the appointment.  I write down all his confirmation numbers and tell him this is his last chance.  He promises to be there.

Bernard showed up in Kigali after the screening - a complete surprise: