CONGO REPUBLIC: Death at the Wall

Among the odd cults that nourish in the French Congo, perhaps the oddest of all is the Matswa cult, which takes its name from a Congolese who served as a French army sergeant in World War I. Preaching passive resistance against the French, Andre Matswa persuaded his followers not to pay taxes, accept identity cards or cultivate peanuts as ordered by the French. He died of dysentery in a French Congo prison in 1942. His disciples, deifying him, hold that he is still alive and will return one day to the Congo to drive the whites out. In their legend, he was buried in a great cement hole, his arms and legs tied with cables, but broke free and got away, now lives in a royal palace in Paris. They call him Jesus Matswa, cherish photomontages that show Jesus chatting amiably with Matswa on the Mount of Olives. More recently, Matswanists have put together an unlikely trinity comprising Matswa, Jesus and Charles de Gaulle.

Most of the French Congo’s 15,000 Matswanists either abstain from voting in elections or vote for the dead Matswa. Particularly nettled by such tactics is the Abbe Fulbert Youlou, Premier of the new Congo Republic, because the Matswanists are of his own tribe—the Lari. Since the Congo recently became self-governing, there have been frequent-clashes between Matswanists and other Lari tribesmen. The Matswanists were stoned; their homes were burned. Driven out of their own countryside, 2,500 Matswanist refugees squatted in a suburb of the capital of Brazzaville and refused to be evacuated.

Last week, on Youlou’s orders, 300 police moved in on the overcrowded squatter colony, tried for two hours to persuade the Matswanists to leave peacefully, then attacked them with clubs and tear gas. Gradually, as they fell back, about 200 of the Matswanists were pinned against a wall, and would not move. The cops grabbed them one by one and hauled them away in trucks. But when they reached the rear ranks of the crowd, police saw a melancholy sight: 36 Matswanists, including one woman and a child, had been pressed back, temporarily blinded by the tear gas. Crushed against one another, they had been smothered to death against the wall.