The stated goal of the Dutch sister team of Femke and Ilse van Velzen and their production company, IFproductions, is to expose injustice in developing countries and to give a voice to oppressed people. While seeking worldwide audiences, they “reach out to local communities by bringing back their films as educational tools to lift people out of inequality and violence” (http://www.ifproductions.nl/eng/about.html).
Fighting the Silence is the first of three IFproductions documentaries based in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was released the same year as Lisa Jackson’s The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo, also distributed by Women Make Movies. Whereas Jackson, herself a victim of rape, shares her experiences with the women she interviews and therefore includes herself prominently in her film, the van Velzen sisters’ presence is effaced: there is no introductory segment to situate the action or provide context, no voice-over narrative, no interviewer in sight. Furthermore, none of the interviewees is named (except for a list of first names in the credits at the end of the film), nor is the organization for which the female activist works identified.
The film opens with a sequence establishing the context. A woman is speaking about the problem of rape on a radio show; the sign outside the door situates us in Baraka, a town in South Kivu. We then see a man who has been listening to the broadcast on his small portable radio quickly changing stations to listen to music. It is clear that activists trying to tackle sexual violence against women have a difficult task ahead of them.
Three victims/survivors then tell their stories facing a camera: two married women who had been gang-raped by soldiers were rejected by their husbands; a teenage girl, raped by a civilian, was emotionally abandoned by her father. The interviews capture a sense of intimacy between the women and those behind the camera. Other interviewees include a community educator (Chantal), the two husbands, soldiers, and policemen.
All are in agreement that the war is responsible for the violent rapes that have become all too common. But clear statements of fact blur disconcertingly with excuses for the rape as well as justification for inaction. While Chantal decries a society that treats women like second-class citizens, the other women still insist that rape “is not normal here” or “does not exist here.” Soldiers and policemen blame young women who stay out at night and “flirt” with men and women who wear only one “pagne” (cloth). The definition of rape in the new Constitution is ridiculed (e.g., even beating one’s wife is now considered rape!), and some claim that it is in fact the women who are “raping” the men. The filmmakers leave it to the viewers to make sense of the juxtaposed segments and to tease out the relationship between conflict in the region and the roles assigned to women. But all of the comments suggest the problematic nexus between societal attitudes toward women and the use of rape as a weapon of war (in a supposedly postconflict region)—a topic that is especially fraught for those who are wary of reinforcing negative stereotypical notions of Africans.
The film does leave us with some hope, at least for two of the three victims. Thanks presumably to the intervention of the group that Chantal works for, both husbands take their wives back after having shunned them initially. One of the husbands has begun sharing his story, explaining the pressures he felt after the attack on his wife. People gave him the cold shoulder or taunted him for “sharing” his wife with others. Now he is an understanding and supportive husband, setting an example for others. The second woman has joined a group of community educators that puts on plays to raise awareness about sexual violence against women. The young girl’s fate seems less certain. Does her father truly believe that her only option is to become a prostitute? Although her unrepentant assailant is in custody, it is not clear that he will serve a proper sentence, and we are left with her father’s feelings of helplessness and her inconsolable sorrow.
What is encouraging in this film is the picture it gives of the larger web of community in which these women proceed with their lives, however torn asunder that web may be at times. When they are rejected by their husbands, they return to their parents; the families intervene in one instance to convince the man to take back his wife; Chantal’s organization strives to reunite couples, however difficult and imperfect the outcomes may be. In many other films and articles, the women are shown as irremediably ostracized from their families, villages, and communities. While there may be such cases, that is not the only story.
Weapon of War changes the focus from women’s experiences and community reactions to the perpetrators of rape themselves and to sexual violence as a strategy of war. The “Women Make Movies” Web site declares that Weapon of War provides insight into the “strategic uses of rape as a military weapon—and the motives of the men who employ it.” The film opens with a perpetrator explaining in voice-over that if he needs a woman he cannot control himself and he has to go out and relieve his urges. In a chilling discussion early in the film between a military man turned army chaplain and a group of (former?) rebels, we learn that the sweet-faced crusading pastor himself raped six women during the war before coming to terms with his dark past. A main thread in the film concerns a repentant rapist, his victim, and a kind of reconciliation that takes place between them. We learn of the reasons he joined the rebels, their struggles when the support of the population waned, their recourse to looting and raping when voluntarily supplied “rations” were no longer available, how he and two friends always “worked” (raped) together, how tormented he is now, and how difficult it is to rejoin the community. The confessions of the men invariably include references to their animality: they describe themselves as having had no conscience, as having been “wild beasts.” Now they want medicine to cure them, they want to be able to sleep.
The penultimate sequence of the film shows a reconciliation between the man and one of his victims. The woman has the opportunity to tell her aggressor the consequences that his actions had on her life. We know that impunity is rampant, but a significant aspect of her regaining a sense of agency seems to come from her making it clear to him that she has chosen not to take the case to court. After he acknowledges that he knows what he did and begs for forgiveness, she concedes that terrible things happen during wartime and says that her heart is starting to heal. All of this seems to happen in an inconceivably short time and one cannot but wonder how much of what we see is for the benefit of the camera. But any form of healing is to be commended.
What is missing, however, is an explanation of who is making war on whom and to what ends. Government and rebel soldiers are both guilty of violating civilian women, and at least one interviewee asserts that his group used rape as a weapon of war to terrorize communities. But who the groups are and what their aims are (beyond trying to antagonize the government) is not clear. The cited sixty-plus armed groups all have “political and economic ambitions,” as one of the interviewees explains, but no further details are provided. Another problem is the film’s lack of interpretative focus. Unlike the earlier film, Weapon of War does identify the interviewees, but we are dropped into the action in medias res. And despite the transformations we have witnessed, there is no clear sense of closure. As the ferry starts its journey northward to Goma (where the chaplain will continue his work) in the final shots of the film, the music and landscape convey the desired peace. But the song, sung by a group of soldiers in a church after a sermon dealing with rape earlier in the film, still echoes in the viewer’s head: “war everywhere, who will bring peace?”
But perhaps this is the point. We are left with a lot of information about the humanitarian crisis—lives destroyed, victims and perpetrators suffering from posttraumatic stress—and very little hope for an overall solution. Despite the attempted reconciliation at the center of the film, the work as a whole conveys the message that women’s issues are of secondary importance to the soldiers. “Things are not calm now,” they say menacingly. “This is not a good time.” The film also portrays the inability (and/or lack of political will) of local, regional, and international players to resolve tensions that perpetuate the use of women’s bodies as a battleground.
The third film in the series, Justice for Sale, has a longer running time than the others and offers a more pointed argument. Usually, narratives about rape in the Congo conjure up stories of impunity, miscarriage of justice, and perpetrators who, even when prosecuted, do not receive or serve full sentences. But in this film the victim is a man accused of rape and his case is being investigated by a female human rights lawyer. In an interview with Peace Palace Library (www.peacepalacelibrary.nl ), the filmmakers explain that they were advised against making the film for fear that it would undermine the fight against sexual violence. They insist, however, that their point is that organizations and NGOs that take over criminal legal procedures need to do so in accordance with established legal principles.
In this film, the human rights lawyer Claudine Tsongo investigates the case of Masamba Masamba, a soldier and traditional healer who was prosecuted in 2008 by a military tribunal organized by RADHF (Le Résaux des Associations des Droits Humains de Fizi). After filming the trial, the filmmakers were convinced that there was no evidence to convict him and were “flabbergasted” to learn that he had been sentenced to ten years in prison. When they discovered that his story was not uncommon, they decided to make Justice for Sale. None of this back story is provided in the film, however. The viewer simply starts following Tsongo as she tries to gain access to documentation (such as hospital records), talks to Masamba, and interviews the various parties involved in the case: the plaintiff, Madame Safi; her husband, Captain Mbala; Masamba’s wife; a doctor; and the two lawyers involved in the trial. Footage from the trial is interspersed throughout the film. Along the way we are given a sense of the logistical obstacles faced by Tsongo in her work, the widespread corruption in the legal system (a lawyer recounts how a magistrate had said that once he was being paid a “regular” salary, he expected the bribes he accepted to increase accordingly), and the consequences of the work of NGOs active in legal proceedings. The core debate of the film is captured during a conversation among members of humanitarian aid organizations, NGOs, and lawyers in Goma, all of them Congolese. The NGO representatives concede that there are occasionally illegitimate cases, but argue that substantive cases are often ignored by the judicial system and that convicted rapists tend to receive minimal sentences rather than the twenty years required by the law (and advertised on billboards throughout Goma and Bukavu). Someone cites a case in which the punishment for a crime of sexual violence was a fine. The lawyers lament the pressures put on judges by the visibility given to sexual violence cases and say that it has become sufficient to accuse someone of sexual violence to get a conviction. They insist that both victims and perpetrators should be supported in the name of fairness. We learn that the lawyer defending Masamba worked for free, but Madame Safi’s lawyer was hired by RADHF. In a conversation with Madame Safi’s lawyer Tsongo asks: if an organization organizes the tribunal, presents the cases, and pays the lawyers, are they not buying justice? If an NGO depends on successful convictions in order to raise funds, does this not influence the outcome of tribunals organized by them?
Whereas in the earlier films societal attitudes are quite prominent, Justice for Sale emphasizes the personal stories and intimate details. Madame Safi’s lawyer accuses Masamba of having “consumed” her client’s “fruits.” Tsongo confronts Captain Mbila with the suggestion that the reason he went to see Masamba was because of impotence (he is visibly older than his wife), and Mbila insists that he is “strong every day.” The discourse of blaming the victim and the rationalizations for rape that we saw in the earlier films are absent, although what we are supposed to conclude is unclear. At the end of the film Tsongo tells us in voice-over that the judicial system in the DRC does not inspire confidence. For most viewers, this conclusion is neither new nor surprising. Perhaps what the film does offer is the story of an individual whom people can relate to (updates on Masamba’s case are available on the IFproductions Web site). And, if the legal system can apparently be skewed so easily by the interventions of NGOs, one can also make the case that prevalent attitudes toward women equally create bias against those who are considered second-class citizens and whose “issues” are considered women’s issues rather than those affecting the entire society. The problematic consequences of external aid that are exposed in the film also raise the general question of who is framing the narratives and the initiatives that try to address the violence still wracking the eastern part of the DRC.
This last film does not afford us the hope, however small and imperfect the gains, in the forms of restorative justice or reconciliation that we see in the earlier films. But perhaps the greatest value of these films is not what they bring to Western audiences, where the lack of context can be jarring. As stated earlier, an integral goal of the van Velzens’ company is educational outreach, and they have created mobile cinemas that arrange viewings followed by discussions of the films. They have also, for example, made a series of six short films used by the Congolese armed forces on topics ranging from the mission of the military to the consequences of sexual violence and trauma among soldiers. If the films can serve as starting points for conversations that would otherwise not have taken place, this may be counted as a success.
