Butoke
update, July 10, 2009
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today, July 10, 2009, Yahoo France has as major news that
two lovely small children were abandoned in a Park in Paris.
I muse. One hundred and fifty years ago, in France, the
Sisters of St. Vincentius had built small cradles where mothers could
anonymously abandon babies. Abandonment was frequent; so was infanticide and
abortion, and it was not news worthy, even though persons with a heart reacted
either like the sisters, taking care of victims, or like the early feminists,
propagating contraception. In fact, one of my own great-great grand fathers was
an abandoned baby, given the name D’hier (yesterday’s baby).
Here in Kasaï, Butoke tries hard to manage a situation
similar to the one in Europe 150 years ago.
·
Two convents of Sisters collect orphans and
abandoned children in limited numbers, as they do not receive substantial
donations, anymore. Butoke supplies the milk for all their infants. But they
are reaching their limits for accepting more newborns.
·
We (Butoke)
accept orphans and abandoned children unconditionally. We hired two women to
look after babies, especially newborns, thanks to special sponsors. But the
newborn babies often arrive after 1-2 weeks without milk or food, and mortality
is frighteningly high.
·
Yesterday, to our surprise, two children we
hospitalized have been subsequently abandoned, left without contact or food. So
we embrace them. This is the 4th time this has happened.
·
We have
supported three cases where first the father walked out on the family. After a
couple of months, the mother followed suit by walking out in turn, leaving 5
siblings ranging from 15 years to 4 years to fend for themselves. There has
been no more news or contact. It is mindboggling, except that children are said
to be a wealth, and wasting one’s own wealth is maybe a forgivable waste.
We currently have 30 children who were left without
family links other than what we can provide. All those over 6 years old go to
school.
I look at the
well fed babes left in Paris and remember the faces of the kids we received;
many hungry, angry faces and fewer lethargic faces, and I search their happy,
lively faces now and pray. I wish I knew a sure way to inspire adults to feel
responsible to protect and educate at least their own children if not all
children.
In that context, we talk to parents about spacing
children and about contraception. We provide contraceptives to those who choose
to try. We talk about the rights of children. But most adults have no concept
of rights, especially for children and women. Human relationships are seen as
either power relationships between men or property rights within families,
especially towards women and children.
The rape of a girl is equated with a theft of dowry and
punished by a commensurate fee to her family. Her feelings, her dignity, her
rights are hardly a consideration, sometimes even for her. Recently in Luiza,
Dr. Jean happened to observe at a chief’s house a negotiated settlement for the
rape of a three year old girl. He was able to convince the parents and the
chief that this was against the law and to see that the rapist was delivered to
justice.
Children are routinely verbally abused by any adult.
Women shower abuse on each other at the suspicion of the slightest fault and
receive the same from men. Disputes over card games between youngsters
sometimes lead to a general battle between clans and several deaths. Hallucinations are accepted as realities
willed by those that figure in the hallucinations. So they get abused, accused
and harassed until they admit their “fault.” Children or women accused of
witchcraft by pastors are harassed and abused in their churches. The great
majority of children in the Western Kasai are abused and become abusers in
their turn. How to break the cycle collectively?
We think that the story of Moses and Euro-Asian history
provide some clues.
·
It took 40
years after physical liberation of the Jewish slaves to develop basic
citizenship and nationhood, driven by the strong moral and spiritual leadership
of Moses and Aaron, both having been oppressed and abused to different degrees,
both still prepared to see their abusers suffer. But both with faith that God
is One. His law is one and invariable,
demanding basic morality in our relationships to other human beings. No one can
power play or ask favors with Him or with other human beings. No one is the
property of anyone.
·
Europe and Asia have taken about 1800 to 2000 years
after Christ to apply the same principles. Feudal systems with slavery were
overturned by violent revolutions rejecting slavery, proclaiming emphasis on
equity and human rights, later confirming progressively this emphasis through
political struggles and cultural revolutions led by charismatic leaders.
All observers and local people agree that people in
Western Kasai suffer tremendously. They are the most severely malnourished of
Congo; they have a very short lifespan (average 40 years; only 1% of the
population is over 55 years). They cry out to God in their suffering,
constantly over the radio, but also each person in popular hymns you hear day
and night, in the crying of children day and night Most people of Western Kasai
are both oppressed and oppressor.
This dynamic, paradoxically labeled witchcraft, has been
very well analyzed and represented in a film called Kerekou. The
“witch,” called Karavan, has been tortured and has a perpetual suffering which
she revenges by instilling fear, by creating nonsensical myths that prolong
everyone’s suffering, by instilling lack of confidence in each other. Kerekou
is young, full of questions on the why and how of events in his village and
first seeks to combat the witch, but his grandfather leads him to help her out
of her suffering even if it may risk his life and encourages him to continue to
question reality. He liberates Karavan, even marries her, and finds that at the
same time he has liberated all those who were like mummies, petrified in fear.
What can we do to liberate people of Western Kasai? Isn’t
it a true collective conversion we seek? Churches have not managed to instill
respect for the dignity of each human being. Historical churches do marginally
better than the so-called African churches, as they, especially the protestant
churches, maintain more polite exchanges, but they are labeled hypocrites, as
vengeance is not uncommon.
Those of us physically present can pose many questions on
the why and how, bringing people closer to reality; we can console, try to
right individual wrongs, raise awareness about collective wrongs. We can set an
example of not establishing power or property relationships with people. We can
testify through our lives that we truly accept God and His law and that we love
neighbor, self and God. Doing so, we will support and nurture the few adults
that potentially can provide the right type of leadership. We will support and
nurture children still not permanently hurt, for probably Moses and Aaron will
be found by God among them.
We need to be perseverant and patient; the process will
take more than our lifetime. How long? Who knows whether it can be done in 40
years? Or 2000 years? God alone knows, but our small contributions now will
help determine the take-off speed.
Those of us far away from Congo and Western Kasai, can
pray and try to understand the depth of the misery here and help through
activities and resources.
To understand where we can intervene we can try to follow
the geopolitics that foul up the whole situation, notably how war is maintained
in DRC by delivery of precious minerals for weapons or money, how China obtained
exclusive rights on minerals (information on this available from Dickens
Warfield) and thus alienated traditional allies of DRC which may show already a
new reluctance to give aid.
This reluctance is now covered by the excuse there is a
lot of corruption. Yes, there is an amazing amount of corruption but not more
than before. This new reluctance is playing havoc with UNICEF and other
humanitarian aid, just when it is more needed because of the economic crisis
and because of the massive numbers of Congolese (estimated at 100,000 in the
last 9 months) driven brutally from Angola after robbing them of everything.
God first liberated the Hebrews from slavery, the
greatest suffering, before tackling the 40 year task of truly converting them
into citizens. God inspired in the brutal and cruel Middle Ages the Renaissance
and the reform movement and the scientific quest among the Europeans and helped
them to live with less suffering before releasing the revolutionary spirit of
Égalite, Fraternité et Liberté, which we still are trying to incarnate.
We believe that it is necessary to help first overcome
the suffering of the people of Western Kasaï: they need to find three square
meals a day; they need essential health care available including health
education to stop the horrendous child and maternal death rate and stop the
wasted adult lives because of delays in care or intoxication in traditional
care. They need education for all children that instills the quest of the how
and why of reality rather than the learning by rote practiced now. Throughout
all activities, we need to search to express equity and fraternity as well as
liberate individuals to relate to God as our only master, with courage and
truth.
This letter was stopped here for an urgent phone call by
Dr Jean who is in Luiza assisting a UNICEF mission which has gone to check on
the situation of the people driven from Angola. We estimate that since 1
October 2008 about 100,000 people have been driven away, under the most
inhumane conditions: raping women, separating families, torturing many with
imprisonment without drink or food for days on a row, driving them on long
marches of several hundred kilometers, mutilating or even killing those that
resist. We assist from our headquarters in Luiza but are terribly short of
means. The UN sent a first mission early June calling for urgent help, someone
from CRS Congo threw doubt on the numbers of people involved, so help has been
postponed. Let us hope the new UNICEF mission permits a census to be taken while
offering help, and permits the creation of reception centers, for most likely
the movement will not stop before Angola feels cleansed from all Congolese,
which are estimated to be about 400,000.
A brief summary of our recent activities:
Our collaboration with UNICEF
·
We received with a delay of 6 months the USD
$242,844 to continue Water, Hygiene and Sanitation activities in three zones
Bena Leka, Mueka and Tshibala
·
We have been waiting six months for major funding
(signed and sealed) of nutrition activities in Tshikapa (USD 512,000 and Luiza
USD 192,000, both most heavily touched by malnutrition because of the general
economic crisis and the return of people from Angola.
·
We have been waiting 3 months for UNICEF funding for
Water, Hygiene and Sanitation in Tshikaji ($ 20,000). This delay might also be part and parcel of the new reluctance
to help DR Congo, but we are told funding might be forthcoming next week but
much less generous than before, forcing a change especially in the basic model
of latrines.
·
We are waiting for a decision to help the people
driven from Angola with non-food items, value to be determined.
Collaboration with FAO:
·
We are waiting for tools and seeds for 80 families
in the Kananga area. All in kind, estimated value USD 4000.
Activities with CIDA funding through Help the Aged this
year CAD 228.655:
·
the Food security activities this season are
concentrated in the hinterland of Kananga and Luiza. People have started
preparing the fields, as this is the height of the dry season.
·
Our nutrition activities are in full swing in
Tshikaji and Luiza (more information with Dickens).
·
Retraining of primary school teachers is being
prepared for Luiza..
·
We continue the education on women and child rights
and the care for rape victims.
We hope this long reflection and short perhaps too short
activities report will help all to understand our present grasp of reality of
your and our own role and the humble but firm hopes we have that the struggle
we lead is in His service.
Yours in His love
Jean, Lazare and Cecile
Contributions to Butoke in Canada can be sent through
Real Lavergne, Canadian International Development Agency, 200 Promenade du
Portage, Gatineau Quebec, Canada, K1A
0G4.
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Cockeysville, MD, 21030 marked “for Butoke” or to Maryland Presbyterian Church,
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can be sent through Paul Evans, 5 Westville Ave., Ilkley, LS29 9AH, United
Kingdom.