Gynaecologist Denis Mukwege operates in a war where sexual assault is
used as a weapon
Alex Duval Smith in Bukavu
Sunday November 14 2010
The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/14/doctor-mukwege-congo-war-rapes
Deep in the eastern Congo, in the thick of a conflict that plumbs the
depths of human cruelty, one doctor in a single-storey hospital is
keeping hope alive. Gynaecologist Denis Mukwege draws his strength, he
says, from the indomitable spirit of the most weakened of victims -
women raped in a calculated act of war who arrive, "broken, waiting
for death, hiding their faces", at his hospital. "Often they cannot
talk, walk or eat," he says.
A 14-year war that is, in effect, a continuation of the genocide that
took place in neighbouring Rwanda has become a "gynocide", in which
rape is used to tear the bonds of a community apart and facilitate
access to mineral wealth.
In this volatile environment, 55-year-old Mukwege and his team have
surgically repaired more than 20,000 women out of the thousands who
have been war-raped in the Congo's Great Lakes region. "Rape," he
says, "destroys women beyond the bounds of the describable."
Yet his patients keep inspiring him to strengthen his commitment. "A
few years ago, a woman came to us who had been raped and had caught
HIV," he says. "She arrived with her five children, and we treated
her. When she left, she was given $20 to help her on her way. The
other day she invited me over. She has bought a piece of land, built a
house, paid a dowry for her son's wedding and has $1,000 she wants to
spend on a business trip abroad. When you see the determination that
can exist within someone whom one has tried to destroy, you want to
fight alongside them."
Panzi hospital sits on a tree-lined dirt road in a suburb of Bukavu,
the capital of South Kivu province, built by the Belgians to resemble
an Ardennes town. Simple but clean and well organised, the 400-bed
hospital is a haven of sanity in a sick environment. Mukwege built it
up from scratch in 1999 after his previous hospital at Lemera, 300km
away, was destroyed.
Mukwege is tall, his height exaggerated by his black clogs ? a
reminder of time he spent in Sweden, where all medical staff wear
them. He has a deep voice, a ready ear and a childlike glint in his
eye whenever things get tense. Pipped to the 2009 Nobel peace prize by
President Obama, he is adored here and faces a barrage of greetings on
his daily rounds.
On his desk, the lamp is vintage Ikea, supplied by the Swedish army.
Mukwege, a pastor's son who trained in Burundi and France, drew on his
contacts in the Pentecostal church to set up Panzi. "When I was eight,
I accompanied my father to see a little boy who was ill. He prayed for
the boy but, to my disappointment, he did not give him medicine. He
said that was the doctor's job. So I told him I would become a doctor
so people he prayed for would get better more quickly."
The third of nine children, he opted for gynaecology early in his
career after seeing the pain endured in childbirth ? especially forced
deliveries due to the lack of availability of Caesarean sections ? by
rural Congolese women. He says his faith in God helps him to confront
the depraved notion of rape as a weapon of war in a conflict where
forces on all sides often share one rifle between three soldiers. "It
is the work of Satan. It is evil. In a conventional war, if someone is
killed by a bullet, there can be grieving and life moves on. With
rape, the effects can surface 15 years later."
He believes the war in eastern Congo ? which began in reprisal against
perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and has evolved into a
frenzied scramble for mineral wealth, especially for the prized
colombo-tantalite (coltan), crucial for the production of microchips ?
has been allowed to continue because of discrimination by the
international community. "The indescribable events here amount to the
worst form of terrorism. In any other part of the world, the
international community would have put a stop to it. International
justice is not doing its work here. There are people in some parts of
the world who believe that other human beings ? Africans ? somehow
have a higher threshold of pain, that they love their children less,
that savagery for them is normal, or rape culturally acceptable."
A few hundred metres from the hospital, Mukwege has set up a safe
house where patients, after counselling, are taught sewing, weaving
and soap-making skills. Raped women need to become self-sufficient
because they are often rejected by their husbands and families.
The rape survivors that pass through Dorcas House are aged between two
and 80. One 15-year-old tells her story while struggling to pacify her
18-month-old son, conceived after she was taken from her village by
armed men and forced to be a "wife" for several months. "I cannot go
back to my village. I am afraid they will take me again. I heard
recently that they took my cousins. I also do not know whether my
aunt, who is my only living relative, would take me in, or accept
Baraka," says the girl, who, despite having borne a son conceived in
hate, gave him a name that means "blessing".
Mukwege says sexual assault is comparable to biological warfare as an
extermination tactic. He says there is a policy to make fathers and
children watch the rapes. To render the woman sterile, the rapists
complete the brutality by firing a bullet into the vagina or shredding
its walls using a rifle butt or tree branch.
There are signs that the international community is waking up to this
conflict, which may have claimed as many as four million lives ? more
than any other since the second world war. After a frenzied attack in
July in which 300 women were raped over three days in Walikale, in
northern Kivu, the United Nations last month sent a delegation to
investigate. In France, Callixte Mbarushimana, the political leader of
the Forces D?mocratiques de Lib?ration du Rwanda (FDLR) was arrested
under an International Criminal Court warrant that cites rape among
the charges. But this month, claiming a renewed need to quell chaos,
Rwanda has reportedly rescinded on an agreement made in September and
sent troops back across the border into Kivu's three provinces.
Like many in his country, Mukwege believes the international community
would rather have a war-ravaged Congo that can be pillaged than one
that, by its sheer size and natural resources, could become powerful.
"History is repeating itself," he says. "A century ago, the world
needed rubber for tyres and 10 million people died in King Leopold's
plantations. Now it wants coltan ore for the microchips of phones and
gadgets, and Congo is home to 70% of reserves."
On his white coat, a badge given to Mukwege by a Jewish organisation
cries for an end to the cynicism: "Don't stand idly by," it says. At
Panzi, the message seems to have filtered down to all. "The other
morning there was a rumour that my house had been attacked. When I
arrived at the hospital, I saw three handicapped girls whom I knew
because they are patients, waiting for me.
"The teenagers started hugging me and saying they had heard that my
life was in danger. They explained that they had come to defend me. I
had tears in my eyes. These handicapped girls wanted to help me, a big
burly man. This is what I feel all the time from those who come to the
hospital - the desire to keep loving, to keep giving, even when
someone has tried to strip you of all your dignity and values. You
cannot abandon people like that."
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
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