How a journalist chases a monster: The monster speaks
And lies, and is laughed at.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
“On jury duty trying not to be picked for a murder trial,” I write a friend in mid-November 2017. It’s day two of hour after bland hour staring at tan walls and reading the same Spanish-language posters so many times I have them memorized.
I was on a jury a few years ago and served as the forewoman. I really do not want to get on another trial in Brooklyn that might last months. It’s a bad time for me to be offline and out of touch — I am obsessively focused on a different trial, this one halfway around the world. And the idea of not being able to follow the proceedings by constantly texting, emailing and calling sources is hard on me. (I would only later realize that I didn’t even understand just how hard I was taking it.)
So many of us have been waiting years for this moment, investing immeasurable time, work and money in trying to get to this point in Kavumu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. We’re ready to see how justice will — or will not — be served to the men who raped nearly 50 little girls in the village. So far, the trial has already seen numerous bizarre developments, including an outburst in which Batumike, the member of parliament who is the ringleader of the men, declared that he would no longer answer any questions from the court.
The same day I’m sitting in a bored trance in a Brooklyn courthouse, my Congolese stringer, Yves Kulondwa, is stuffed with seven other people in a taxi, slowly making his way to the Kavumu courthouse. The roads are cratered with ponds of mud from heavy rain the night before. People have piled within them rocks of varying sizes, ostensibly to help cars get through the mush. But the rocks don’t help this car.
“The taxi passes over them, jolting, as if it were seized with a violent fit of hiccups!” Yves writes.
Twenty minutes later, the taxi blows a tire, and the group has to hitch a ride in a minivan.
The day before this is a scorcher in eastern Congo.
By afternoon, the Kavumu judges have cleared the courtroom for certain testimonies, so would-be observers are forced to stand around outside in the blasting sun, waiting to be readmitted. The day drags on until, eventually, at 4:30 p.m., Yves sees soldiers rush into the building.
“Something must be happening,” he writes in his notebook. “I quietly approach a window and peek inside the room. Two court officers frame one of the defendants (I can’t quite make out his features). They lead him to the back of the room, far from the others. What is happening?”
A soldier tells Yves that one of the defendants, an uneducated man with six children named Ciza, has just confessed to belonging to Jeshi ya Yesu (the Army of Jesus), the militia formed by Batumike, and he’s also identified some of his codefendants as members. Those men then tried to assault Ciza.
Violence has found its way into the courtroom.
And, with that, the hearing is suspended for the day. Yves waits outside for the defendants to exit. As they come out, he notes that “almost all of them have a scowl. They keep their heads down. For once, when they are taken to their van, they do not raise their hands to greet family members. They are furious.”
The man who pointed fingers at the others comes out last.
“He looks like a wounded bird,” Yves writes.
The next morning, the mud-spackled minivan gets Yves to the court at around 10 a.m. Although the defendants are not yet present, most of their lawyers are. While waiting for the accused to show up, one of the prosecutors jokes, “Maybe the other detainees took care of poor Ciza.” The lawyers burst out laughing.
Like a lot of people. I don’t love jury duty, but in 2017, I am — if not exactly happy — okay with doing it. I’ve just spent nearly four years hoping for the trial in Congo, waiting for justice to come for the families of Kavumu. How could I feel anything but privileged to be part of our functioning, democratic justice system? And with everything happening simultaneously in Kavumu, I feel especially strongly about jury duty right now.
But after two days of waiting to be called by the lawyers in Brooklyn, we adjourn for 10 days. So, I still have no idea if I’ll be serving on the murder trial, although I should know soon. In the meantime, a lot is happening in Congo.
In fact, the world is about to finally hear from the mastermind behind the girls’ attacks, Batumike. And, we’re also about to witness his delusional sense of self-importance.
When Yves first sends me a photo of Batumike, I’m surprised at his bulldoggish appearance. I think I told you once that the MP’s derisive nickname is Mr. 10 Liters, because that’s the size of a common squat, plastic jerrican used to carry water?
I ask Yves if the MP is possibly an ethnic Twa — one of the area’s indigenous pygmies — because he stands at least a head shorter than anyone around him. I had met members of the Twa community the last time I was in South Kivu province.
Yves is clearly laughing in his reply: “Oh no! He is not! He’s just short! Very short!”
There is no denying, however, the man’s outsized indignance during the trial. And the childishness of his shenanigans.
When Batumike is first called to the stand, he loudly proclaims his innocence and protests that he and his men are not being given food in prison. He says that their hunger is just the first sign of what is about to be a miscarriage of justice.
Soon after this, Batumike raises his hand to say that he is hypertensive, and feels weak from not eating. “I may even fall,” he tells the court, “if I remain on my feet any longer.” He demands that he be kept in better conditions, “like those of the International Criminal Court, where at least people eat before they appear.”
A court officer brings Batumike a chair, and, as Yves puts it, the first president “sneers that he will also get him a fan. People are laughing.”
After a judge reads aloud the charges against him, Batumike takes off his tight-fitting, sporty jacket, “in which his round, protruding stomach does not seem to have enough room.” (Work with a stringer who can really write, I say.)
As a pastor and, moreover, an elected member of parliament, Batumike reminds the court, he is someone who leads and represents the people.
“He advocates for the weak and can’t hurt a fly,” Yves writes with sarcasm. “He says he has never owned, used or even touched a weapon in his life.” The MP also claims that he has not stepped foot in Kavumu since 2012, the year he killed a German plantation owner and took over the man’s land, which then became the militia’s base. (I would use “allegedly” in cases like this, but it’s all been adjudicated.)
A number of pieces of evidence police say were taken from Batumike’s house are put before him, including a Colt handgun, marijuana, precious stones such as cassiterite (the principal ore in tin), 203,000 Congolese francs (about US$100) and a number of documents. (FYI: A few of the accused, as well as Batumike’s own wife, will soon testify that they didn’t know the weed was weed, just that it was a medicine used for “aches and pains,” and “for the children.”) The items were seized when officers arrested Batumike in June 2016. During the 4 a.m. arrest, he tells the court, he was “upstairs praying.”
The defendants seem to fall back on the church to try to legitimize themselves. One morning, they even bring bibles to court.
Batumike also claims that he’s never heard of his own armed militia, Jeshi ya Yesu: “It is a pure invention of my enemies to bring me down,” he says.
A prosecution lawyer then asks him: “If this is true, then why is it that since you and your men were arrested there have been no more murders in the area, and no more abductions of little girls, let alone girls raped?”
For once, Batumike is speechless.
My jury duty resumes at the end of November.
A group of us are called to be questioned by the lawyers after nearly eight hours in the waiting area. Dozens of potential jurors are brought into the courtroom, including a nun, a rabbi and an imam (nope, not the beginning of a raunchy joke). But before the lawyers begin, the judge asks if there is anyone in the room who does not speak English — they may go.
A handful of people of varying ethnicities stand up and leave.
Then I watch as about a dozen people exchange looks, silently agreeing that they too should get up and leave. I’m mesmerized. It’s obvious that not a single one of them can’t speak English.
When we continue, the judge tells us that we’ll be serving on a violent murder case if we’re picked. Is there a reason any of us feel we are not going to be able to serve on this difficult case? Speak now.
The room begins to blur. The judge’s voice seems to be moving farther away. All I can hear is my own sped-up breathing. Before I’m aware of what I’m doing, I raise my hand. The judge asks me to explain why I can’t serve — to tell him out loud, in front of everyone. But I can’t do that.
I say, “Please, can I tell you privately?” A court officer escorts me closer to the bench.
“Your honor,” I say quietly while the room dims around me, “I’m a journalist, and I’m currently covering an extremely traumatic trial abroad. I have PTSD as it is, and I don’t think I can handle another trial about violence, emotionally.”
As the words come out my mouth, I realize that if I had to do this right now, I would crumble. The judge studies me for a moment. After a few seconds, he says: “I believe you. You are dismissed. Good luck.”
I say thank you and hurry into the sunlight, grateful, but overwhelmed. Doing something selfish like this feels uncomfortable, but it’s done. Sitting there week after week listening to yet more horrors — I just can’t do it.
As I begin my walk home, I pull out my phone and start emailing, texting and calling Yves and my other contacts in Congo — and around the world — to see if they have any updates.
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The juxtaposition of these two trials in your life is eerie. I’m so glad the judge believed you. I hope he reads this series and remembers.
Not only does Yves have immense talent drawing, his choice of words is exquisite. Is English taught in Congolese schools?
Thank you again, and your stringer is a good artist, and writer.