Congo Events Described By City Missionary

Press, Volume C, Issue 29421, 25 January 1961, Page 2

Congo Events Described By City Missionary

Charred bodies in burnt out new model cars, new shops looted and smashed—-these are some of the memories that a New Zealand missionary, Miss Elmira Mullon, has brought back to Christchurch from the strife-torn Congo.

These scenes, which took place in the native quarter of Elisabethville after the Force Publique riots in July (the European quarter was quite untouched), were what she saw as she passed through Elisabethville on the first stage of her evacuation from her Katanga missionary post.

Terrorising the countryside of north-east Katanga was a new menace, a gang of youths called the Jeunesse, Miss Million said. A highly organised youth movement until the outbreak of hostilities, the Jeunesse members had suddenly gone chaotic last September, attacking miners and Europeans. They would appear a.t the door of homes, brandishing bicycle chains and loaded revolvers, crazed from taking hashish and demanding anything they wanted. They even looted hospitals, tearing strips from foam rubber mattresses, and destroying what was of no use to them. Two of Miss Million’s fellow missionaries, Mr and Mrs H. W. Beckett, were menaced in their Manomo home and robbed of many of their possessions, including a motor scooter. They were rescued by a United Nations squad, but only after permission had been obtained from Baluba tribal heads. Missionaries Murdered Missionaries in a nearby area were hacked to death with hatchets late last year by Jeunesse youths, Miss Mullon said, jne of them was a New Plymouth man, Mr E. G. B. Knauf. None of the missionaries stationed at Miss Multon’s former post had been harmed when she was evacuated, but five of them—four women and a man—were still in the area. No-one knew their fate. Miss Mullon said yesterday. “One of the saddest things about the whole affair is the nullification of all the work and money that the Belgian Government and missionaries from all over the world had poured into the Congo for the benefit of the native people,” she said. The medical unit at Mulongo dealt with 1000 outpatients a day. maintained a nearby leper camp with 400 patients, a tuberculosis camp, an X-ray plant, a large maternity unit which also held an ante-natal clinic three times a week, and an operating theatre. There were two doctors and two nurses for this work. Substantial Grants Miss Mullon was attached to the Plymouth Brethren mission station as a clerk. The Belgian Government gave substantial grants to Protestant and Catholic missions, and

paid for all drugs used and for food for the lepers. Miss Mullon’s job was to do all the returns from these and the unit’s accounts, in French. One of the Belgian Government projects which she mentioned particularly was the installation of a water scheme for Mulongo. costing more than EN.Z.3000. It had almost reached completion when rioting broke out first. It is now non-existent. "You couldn’t imagine what happy and full lives we led in the Congo before the disturbances,” Miss Mullon said yesterday. The natives were very well treated by the Belgian government, and there was no racial discrimination at all, except that Europeans had no vote in Congo affairs. Power Mad “Getting the vote was the natives’ first taste of politics, and they went power mad,” Miss Mullon said. “We knew there would be trouble, because the Baluba tribesmen are so proud, and when Mr Tshombe was voted in they took the childish attitude of refusing to have anything to do with his regime. Instead, they were determined to support Mr Patrice Lumumba, even though he was a Communist.” This and two other factors Miss Mullon considered to be the prime reasons for the outbreaks. One was that after too-

early granting of independence, at the demand of Kasavubu last January, the, Belgian government panicked, fearing another Mau Mau situation. The third reason was the use of recruits in the Force Publique of prisoners of the worst type, who were largely responsible for many of the atrocities that took place during the riots. "We knew there would be trouble when independence was granted so quickly, instead of over a five-year period as originally planned, but we did not expect it so soon.” Miss Mullon said. Undisciplined Children Before the disturbance, the people had lived happy and contented lives, she said. Women and girls tended gardens and grain fields, while men fished in the nearby lake and river, and hunted for wild birds. Boys were taught in school by African teachers, and there was a girls’ school run by an American missionary. Many natives had Western facilities such as radios and bicycles, but they never looked after any of their possessions or their homes. Children were seldom disciplined. “Part of the trouble in the Congo was that the Africans had seen too much of Western amenities,” Miss Mullon said. At Church on Sundays, African elders would be dressed in full European dress, with collar and tie, and suits, while the European men would be in tropical drill clothes, she said. In Mulongo, Miss Mullon lived in a thatched roof house similar to those of the Africans. It had a copper ceiling, verandas all the way round the house, and was closed in on two sides. Instead of windows. most of these houses had mosquito mesh, and when it rained, bamboo blinds pulled down to keep the house dry. “It also made it very dark,” Miss Mullon commented. Miss Mullon left Mulongo in July, and arrived in Christchurch on Friday after a long wait at Cape Town. She will not be returning to the Congo —“There is no use going back to do accounts now that there are none to do.” Miss Mullon graduated M.A. from Victoria University in 1926. She trained at Wellington Teachers’ College, and left a post as senior mistress at Papanui High School to go to the Congo in 1959.