This should be considered a human right’s violations report.
Beaten with hippo skin by ICCN Conservator
OpEdNews received an urgent plea from the Democratic Republic of Congo today. On September 27, 2007, Raphael Muhindo YALALA, Director of the Lulimbi Primary School, and headmaster of the Nyakakoma secondary school, was savagely beaten and tortured by conservationists working in Virunga National Park, DRC.
Yalala is married and the father of two children. This is yet another in a series of atrocities perpetrated against the people of Kivu province by so-called animal conservationists. OpEdNews and COA News have reported extensively on the graft, corruption, and misuse of American tax dollars in this region. Virunga Park and the same conservators and conservationists who tortured Yalala recently received $496,000 of new funds for wildlife conservation from the United States Congress. According to a State Department press release, poaching, armed conflict and “demographic pressures” were justification for the grant.
This report was released to OpEdNews by Paul LUGHEMBE of S.E.A., an animal rights and humanitarian organization based in the Great Lakes Region of central Africa. This same organization has been tracking gorilla trade and smuggling in the region. Lughembe fully realizes that he can be arrested and tortured for making this report. Hopefully, by shining some light into this dark corner of covert activities in Virunga Park, we will offer him some protection.
“Our cause is noble; let us speak for voiceless; your support is needed at this crucial time. We believe that any time we can loose our lives due to making noise through such reports, but we truly believe that one day unspoken truth will be known and spoken on the top roofs,” Lughembe wrote today.
The following is the narrative of what happened.
On September 29, a gamekeeper in Virunga Park by the name of MUKOMGOLI killed a hippo and offered some of the meat to the school director, Yalala. Hippos are a protected species. So are humans, and you cannot eat hope for a better future. The following day, September 30, the Park conservator whose name is KAMBALE KIPIRI-DILERE sent his bodyguard to order Yalala to report immediately to the conservation compound because Yalala’s name was found on a list of people who ate bush meat (hippo).
When Yalala reported to the compound, he was questioned about the meat he received from the Virunga Park gamekeeper and he admitted that “of course” he was given a piece of meat, but the meat was gone since he fed his family with it. Yalala also confirmed that the ICCN gamekeeper Mukongoli provided the hippo.
The Lulimbi station conservator, KIPIRI, proceeded to use strip the shirt off of the school principal and whipped him ferociously with a piece of hippo skin. Yalala was beaten until he lost consciousness and stopped breathing. The beating stopped and the sentries were ordered to drag the unconscious Yalala to a jail cell where he was left, abandoned and unattended.
The following morning an unnamed “conservationist” took Yalala into a public courtyard and proceeded to torture him in order to demonstrate his authority.
Children who were on their way to school saw their director being beaten and humiliated in the mud. In response and in horror, they ran quickly to alert their classmates. In a stunning act of bravery, all of the children ran to the conservation station and ordered the immediate liberation of their director.
At that point, the conservator ordered his game rangers to shoot the children. Luckily, the children were all family of the gamekeepers and the instructions to shoot were not obeyed, “because they were afraid to kill their own children.” Instead, they shot into the air and around the pupils.
Undaunted, the pupils set fire to the sentry box, broke down the jail door, but were unable to liberate the director.
The conservator KIPIRI and his game rangers fled to Kipiri’s residency in order to save their lives. Shortly after being welcomed back to school by their teachers, two gamekeepers arrived. One, whose name is Timoro, beat a teacher, Jean Pierre Bigate, on the head with a stick. The second gamekeeper, Derouge-Mundeke, wounded another teacher whose name is Kakule Tsongo.
Finally, the conservator called for help from the PNC (Congolese National Police) in order to rescue and protect himself. The police arrived with other well-armed security officers and ANR (National Agency of Investigation) officers.
“Really it was sorrowful to see a conservationist act as small god in this area. Every time we have been denouncing many facts and these days such practices have taken a high stage.
“Not a long time ago; a gamekeeper was arrested in traffic of ammunitions to poachers, and commandant ordered to his soldiers to kill animals for his wedding. We regret to realize that these practices do still continue, Lughembe reports.
Evidently, the conservationist-conservator, Kipiri, had a score to settle with the school director Yalala, and set him up with the “gift” of hippo meat.
“Things must change; it is not a faith fact; but a truth and reality because in many countries you cannot witness again what we are still witnessing here, Lughembe wrote.
On Monday, 27 August 2007, Congolese national Mr. Vital Katembo
Mushegezi, a state Conservator and Senior Game Warden, sent out an urgent SOS appeal from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr. Katembo has come under attack from powerful forces seeking to maintain the long-standing silence about corruption, extortion, and criminality involving international non-government organizations (NGOs) working in the conservation, development and humanitarian sector in Central Africa. While previously concerned for his livelihood and security, Mr. Katembo has now been barred from his offices at the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN) and he is deeply concerned for his life and his family's security.
ICCN is the same organization responsible for the employment of the individuals’ names in this human rights violation report.
Vital Katembo Mushegezi has worked for years for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN), a state-run entity in control of Congo's national parks. In the past year Mr. Katembo has been increasingly concerned about "conservation" in Central Africa, and he has shown unflinching courage by publicly challenging organizations and individuals who are profiting from the billion dollar conservation, development and humanitarian sectors at the expense of human suffering and exploitation of the environment. Mr. Katembo has been increasingly vocal, notwithstanding the threat and actualization of retaliation over past months.
Katembo is still in hiding for his life and United States authorities have not lifted one finger to aid him. USAID and Congress continue to dump tax dollars into a cesspool of corruption.
In the rural areas of Africa the people's lives and histories revolve
around their communities and connections with people, the land and
tradition. To people living in Africa, white and black alike, the land
is not exotic, wild or foreign, it is "home." And home does not always
provide safety and comfort.
