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Inside Goma Prison: Colonel Alphonso and the M29

8/3/2013

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No one has been in Goma's Munzenze prison terribly long because when rebels took over the city in November its one thousand inmates all escaped. The rebels arrived and started shooting, the guards ran away. Today, people dressed in bright colours sit with their backs against the prison's tall grey wall holding bundles of deliveries for inmates. Inside, it's a warren of windowless inter-connected rooms, wire-mesh enclosures and dormitories. There's laundry flapping all over the place, people flogging snacks and basic household wares, groups of war veterans sitting in sedate groups, agitated young men picking fights. My guide, a young inmate who enjoys a prefect-like status (presumably due to his good behaviour) courteously gestures for a guard to open the gate for me to enter one of the pens. I notice as he does so there's a man-sized hole in the wire fence left of the gate, which provides an efficient alternative entry point, but -- keeping up appearances -- we use the gate. Standing in the middle of the pen is Alphonse. He's wearing normal clothes - a t-shirt, black slacks - but he has a full-skirted wedding dress over the top. Alphonso, or The Colonel, as he introduces himself, is mad. He speaks excellent English with a proper accent but isn't sure where he learned it. He was a police colonel, he says. Today, he is spear-heading a political movement. This little man with his shoulders crunched up because the bodice of his wedding dress is a bit too tight drags me across the chaotic enclosure to show me a black bomber jacket. He has written on the back in white paint, "M29".

To many people M23 is a motorway but to anyone with a passing interest in Eastern Congo it's the latest headlining rebel group. M29 is Alphonso's version, but he seems unaware of the parody. "We are the movement for defending the rights of minorities", Alphonso says, holding up the bomber jacket to display the logo proudly.

This elderly man is the tragic embodiment of 20 years of intermittent conflict in Eastern Congo. 50% of adults here meet criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a painstaking population-based 2010 survey of the east. That's more than 3 million adults. The same study found that over a million adults had attempted suicide in the last year.

Young men and women whose minds fail to cope with the violence and continual displacement - "les fous" - get bound up like turkeys and kept in a dark room. They arrive at the mental health clinic with their wrists bleeding from the metal fetters they've lived with for months, sometimes years. They are the lucky ones. Others are left behind in villages when rebels arrive, only for the rebels to shoot them dead, or worse.

Alphonso's only crime is that he's mad, the tour guide says. But he has no family and lives in a place with almost no capacity to deal with mental illness so he's in prison. He sleeps alongside three other men on a lower bunk-bed. The room is just fifteen paces long but sleeps over a hundred men - fourteen bunks, eight to a bed. Some sleep in shifts. The prison was designed for 150 in total but houses 536 at the moment.

Four men are "properly mad" in Goma prison, according to inmates. Aside from over-crowding their main complaint is that everyone is lumped in together, the mentally ill, national army veterans, M23 rebels, Mai Mai militiamen, petty criminals, and some who have never even seen a charge sheet. They eat the same thing, rice and beans, every day. "On va mourir" [we're going to die], one man says.
1 Comment
fernando real
8/16/2015 02:57:02 am

.....i am......f.e.m.i.n.i.s.t.....!! for " Change The World "
write,speak,share,spread the Word,make your own proposal,involved your work community,spread the Word and make poesy,with this Project.....of The United Nations ( U.N ) & UN WOMEN.
The Project start on november with the speech below,by President of EE.UU, Barack Obama in New York,UN assembly, like John Kennedy on Berlin....i am...feminist...!! for change the world, women are the key for change,and the POPE Francisco, make the same speech on VATICANE, ROME.., surprising the people over world.
..you can change the world too, ...be expeditive,be creative,be corageous,be altruist, be you....!!
Thanks for your interested , and many thanks for your contribution to a bertter world, thanks for your creativity, for your intellegence and for your courage....thanks in my name , in the name of all iinvolved at this absurd, uthopic and fascinant project, thanks in the name of United Nations ( U.N. ) , and many thanks in the name of millions womens,girls and childs arround the world, you are an inspiration and example for us , and for them....
Wellcome to he biggest net of activist for change the world, and the most global fith columne, the all countries,international institutions, religions institutions, governments administrations, think-tanks, finance world,univeristies, NGOS, foundations, human rights associattions, womens nationals federations, multinationals the all sectors, knowledges centres of each area, and particulars the all sexual, social and policy condition, sex, age, religion confession, ethic, philosophy, ethnic...
You have a power, and this is well , but is a responsability too, the responsability of export your knowledges, creativity, intelligence, sensibility,empathy and resources at all you can trough an altruist way.
The United Nations ( U.N. ) & UN WOMEN ; " Change The World Programme "
IT IS WOMAN...S.T.U.P.Y.D.S,..!! Not is economy,policy,religions,finance world,culture,education,arts,science,love,sex or fall in love.
WOMEN WORLDWIDE SPRING REVOLUTION 2015 ; The last humanity re-evolution for change world and STOP stupyds MEN wars,MEN econony, MEN policies, MEN religions, MEN education, MEN culture, MEN science, MEN communication, MEN journalism, MEN sports, MEN sense life, MEN relationships, MEN bussines, MEN press, MEN love, MEN sex and MEN fall in love.
I AM...........F.E.M.i.N.i.S.T......!!! UN WOMEN world campaign....
Kiss of love , or french kiss for the true way of relation ourself, others, world, espiritual,earth, space, love, sex or fall in love.
.........remenber your bravery.....and make poesy........!!
We will sent you at soon possible, the complete programme , and all involucrated arround the world, down we let a blog , where you can view the first part....., check and if you all right , add your means, ideas, senses and write,make music, film, theather, videogames, press,journalism, innovation, emotional, all sciences-POESY, share in your community work, area, family this message, the blog and the compkete project.
you can do it , only make it with passion, emotion,with soul....be expeditive, genuine, original, , dont make it the belive or think, try to translate how you sense, , let your mind free, and make it with tears, with fun, with sense, with horror, with happy.....be you.....and the theme is " Change World " or THE LIFE.....AND ......YOU .
Change world is an attitude, not is laws, not is norms, not is policy, change world is an fall in love sense, not light or cursi sense.and the first is STOP wars, human traffick, ablacttion, rapes, killied womans, girls and childs,prostituion, and all of the MENS make at womens in all cultures, not is policy,culture,race,democrazy,education,...and all mens arround the world are guilty for make it , for silence, and for cowardice, and all we are guiltys, and in the name of all mens , i am sorry at all women i know, and all womens dont know, and now is possible start change world.
Millions womens , girls and childs arround the world are look you, and are waiting for your courage, be them voice....
remenber your old bravery....spread the world ...and maie poesy...
Now is the time, the new age is coming, the age of womens sense, the new woman, the iwomen.......now it the time for change this crazy realtion.....smile and fight for the new future.......cowardice not is an option way of life....of sense , of love of work....
Fernando Real
id - fernanreal@hotmail.com
phone mobile - 0034627189681
blog - http://www.fernanreal.blogspot.com

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