Correspondence and Report from His Majesty's Consul at Boma Respecting the Administration of the Independent State of the Congo [and Further Correspondence]

by Roger Casement

Whereas there was not one killed or wounded among the soldiers or among the Company employés;

Whereas, therefore, it would be absurd to call it war; and killing under such circumstances constitutes a crime which no law or necessity authorizes, and which is punishable by the Penal Code, whether it be committed by a private person or by a representative of authority;

Whereas, on the other hand, the accused cannot plead in extenuation the principle of official subordination, in view of the fact that such a plea is only valid in the case of representatives of authority who carry out the orders of an official superior, and then only so far as the authority of that superior extends;

Whereas the accused was not a representative of authority and he did not owe official obedience to any one; it was in no way part of his duty as an agent of a Company to co-operate in measures of repression; he was, therefore, fully entitled to refuse to execute the orders which might be given him to this effect, and, if he executed them, it was at his own risk;

Whereas, moreover, it is a principle of law that even obedience to one’s official superior does not constitute a valid plea, when the illegality of the order is obvious;

Further, whereas there is no truth in the statement that the accused, as he affirms, only obeyed the orders of the Chiefs of the police station;

Whereas the truth, on the contrary, is that the latter were, in point of fact, under his orders;

Whereas a mere non-commissioned officer like Nagant; a mere military assistant (corporal) like Jamart, could not have any authority over the accused, who occupied the high position of a District Superintendent of the Société Anversoise du Commerce au Congo, and had under his orders a large staff of white men and natives;

Whereas all the witnesses were unanimous in stating that in all the expeditions which he made with the Chiefs of the police station, it was he who commanded, gave orders to, and punished, not only his own men, but even the soldiers of the State; whereas, especially in the case of the expedition against the Banga, it is evident that corporal Jamart, quite young and but recently arrived in Africa, knowing neither the language nor the country, and, besides, so ill that he nearly always had to be carried, and remained several days’ journey to the rear, was simply a lay figure made use of by the accused in the belief that by Jamart’s presence he would be able to cover his own illegal actions and to involve the State in his own responsibility;

Whereas it is therefore useless for the accused to plead good faith in having acted in accord with the representatives of authority;