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Film captures rapists and their victims in Congo



Saturday, April 5, 2008

Filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson traveled to a conflict zone in ... Marie Jeanne is one of many women who "lined up" to tell ... Marie Jeanne was raped by soldiers when she was pregnant,...


When Lisa F. Jackson was 25 and living in Washington, D.C., she was gang-raped after leaving work in the upscale Georgetown district. Her story was front-page news, but the three perpetrators were never caught.

Jackson, a documentary filmmaker, kept recalling that trauma last year, when she visited Congo to interview victims of sexual violence. Tens of thousands of women and girls are raped each year by armed militiamen who often mutilate the genitals of their victim with guns and sticks.

Why, Jackson wanted to know, if her rape was considered news, does the huge wave of Congolese atrocities go unreported and unacknowledged? In her devastating 75-minute film, "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo," Jackson searches for the answer by speaking to the victims; to physicians and aid workers; to U.N. peacekeepers whose numbers are inadequate to the problem; and, finally, to the rapists themselves.

Jackson, 57, calls the crisis "a holocaust in slow motion." Her film premieres 10 p.m. Tuesday on HBO, with several repeat broadcasts throughout the month. Go to HBO: Documentaries or The Greatest Silence Official Site for more information.

Speaking by phone from her home in Manhattan, Jackson said she tried for two years without success to raise funds for "The Greatest Silence." The subject made people uncomfortable, she found; it was easier for them to look the other way. Finally, she went last May to Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, and then to the eastern city of Bukavu.

Jackson went alone, equipped with a camera and no crew - something she'd never done in 30 years of filmmaking - and found Bernard Kalume, a Congolese translator who helped her make contact with victims, rapists and aid workers.

In the past decade, an estimated 250,000 women and girls, some as young as 4 or 5, have been raped by soldiers. In some cases, their genitals are mutilated and they become incontinent. The shame of rape is so pervasive that their husbands, and often their families, reject them. The children of rape are also shunned.

The rape epidemic isn't entirely senseless, Jackson found. "This is a resource war, pure and simple." Congo is rich in diamonds, gold and coltan, or columbite-tantalite, a metal used in cell phones, DVD players and computers. The 10-year civil war, which has claimed 4 million lives, is a fight for access to those minerals, and the sexual violence is part of that fight. By raping and terrorizing women, the military maintains a heightened climate of instability and fear.

"It's an incredible tragedy," Jackson says. "There is almost literally the blood of Congolese women on our cell phones."

Being a rape victim, Jackson said, she had a built-in connection with the women she met and interviewed. She brought them photos of herself with family members, told them about the night she was assaulted.

In most cases, the women had never spoken publicly. Given the chance, Jackson said, "they would literally line up to talk to me until there was no light. Just to have someone listen to them without judgment."

Jackson spent four months in the Congo altogether, spread over three visits. She went to villages where virtually all the women had been raped. She saw Panzi Hospital, which treats victims whose vaginas were brutalized and who suffer from permanent loss of bladder and bowel control.

"I wanted to find rapists who would talk to me," she says in the film. Despite "huge apprehensions," she and her translator drove six hours into a jungle conflict zone where men in hooded jackets held rifles and arrogantly justified their deeds.

"I rape because of a need," one says. "After that I feel like a man." Another speaks of rape in terms of expedience: "I have no time to negotiate. I have no time to love her."

Jackson remembers that day: "The single most chilling moment was when I had just finished interviewing the rapists. They just melted back into the trees, and I couldn't help thinking, 'Who is their next victim going to be?' There was no one there to arrest them; they were off to claim their next victim."

Today, Jackson is making various plans to distribute her film and expose the situation in Congo. She testified Tuesday before the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, and will show "The Greatest Silence" at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, and the European Commission in Brussels.

She wants the people of Congo to see it, and is having the film translated into Lingala, the language of western Congo, and Swahili, the language of eastern Congo. "I want to do local screenings, probably with generators and hanging sheets on the sides of buildings, in the villages where I filmed.

"I feel a real responsibility to these women. So many of them said, 'Please, take our story to the world.' "

E-mail Edward Guthmann at eguthmann@sfchronicle.com.


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Hashishi

I was chatting to this South African the other day, and he was surprised by the fact the streets in the UK were all 'open': he was used to high walls covered in barbed wire or electric fencing and bars on all the windows and doors- even in the most respectable areas. We really don't even know we're born.

Good post, Sterbs.

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Freedom_User

Hmm... That's super sad. I'm going to have to watch this. If they had massive oil fields, I doubt they would be in this situation today.

Trocisp

They have massive amounts of other resources (which you would know, if you read the full article), and that's actually the cause of the strife.

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dedbr

This is no more tragic than a genocide in Darfur. Don't get me wrong, this is bad, but the whole continent seems to be going up.

These rapes have been in the news for some time. I guess I read the news too much.....

If you are really interested in the troubles in Africa, try to see these two movies: The Lord Of War with Nicholas Cage. A story about an arms dealer with no qualms about his business.

Blood Diamond with Leonardo Dicaprio. This one explains the slave trade and how these people are used to harvest illegal diamonds so the world market can have them.

Read also anything you can about Darfur. Rape has been a common tactic there, used for many years.

Maybe some political reality would be in order here. The Congo, Sierra Leone and Liberia all fit into a triad there that spells muder, rape and mass mayhem. These people are being robbed of their heritage by the same kind of people who have been sticking it to them for the last couple of hundred years.

The same exact thing is happening in Darfur.

"If You Could...." is a thread about Darfur.......
http://www.marijuana.com/politics/84...you-could.html

From "If You Could....."
Some Where In Ded Land...............

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sterbo

Actually, our whole world as we know it, is "going up".

[quote] Rape has been subjugation de rigueur for as long as man has occupied this planet.I found this to be the usual vapid Hollywood fare.

If you really want to understand the nature of the troubles in Africa then get a copy of "Industrializing Africa, by Makonnen Alemayehu.

amazon.com/gp/product/0865436533/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top/104-3782793-8967924

Now here is a superb film (as far as fictional representations go).

Yea, us White boys...

dedbr

sterbo....

Actually, in a world full of black people, like these nations, it is the same racial group who preys upon them directly......
If by "white boys" you mean the fat cat establishment assholes, then yeah, I could agree with you......

Haven't read that book yet. Have to put it on the to do list.......Or better yet, just send the money to "Doctor's Without Borders"........

One of the best......


Some Where In Ded Land..............