Africa addio Page #4

Aqui es Portugal.

This is Portugal.

Brancos y pretos as todos portugues.

White or black, we're all Portuguese.

But the rebels of Angola don't agree.

This is Africa.

Only blacks are Africans.

Black and white, brancos y pretos,

wart en blank, blanches et noires

a dilemma which is present,

current, universal

that is more and more being colored red.

January, 1964.

The Watusi,

pursued by the Bantu in revolt

flee toward the Ugandan border

carrying their wounded.

The war of the Bantu against the Watusi

is nothing more than racial persecution

fomented for political purposes

by the presence and propaganda of China

in the state of Rwanda Burundi.

In just two months,

the Bantu have massacred 18,000 Watusi.

The underbrush hides the

still-fresh proof of a ferocious horror.

On the banks of the Kwoni River,

under the trunk of a tree still wet

with blood, used as a chopping block.

The border police caught them in the act

and arrested 25 Bantu guerrillas.

But aside from this,

no government, black or white

has lifted a finger

to stop the bloodbath.

Meanwhile, the waters of the Kagera

send thousands of corpses downstream.

For days,

the fishing is macabre and abundant

carried out with lazy diligence

by the residents along the river.

The feeling of compassion

doesn't exist here.

What exists is a good source of

drinking water that has to be kept clean.

Because the river is life. Because

it is life that kills, not death.

Ten days and nights of exodus

along the roads of Uganda.

The Watusi were a people with

a thousand year history as herders.

A people of survivors

who continue to flee toward the unknown

failing to understand and in shock.

It is a people that no longer exists.

This is more or less how Noah's

terrestrial paradise must have been.

Hearing the far-off rumble of thunder,

he set about constructing the great ark.

The same ancient silence,

the same sovereign harmony,

the same divine balance

that man still has not managed to upset.

Image and likeness

of that terrestrial paradise

destroyed with that same divinity

by the sudden wrath of a vindictive God.

It's dawn on February 25, 1964.

After having put down the rebellion

of the African armed forces,

the English troops have left again.

The ancient British law to protect

the fauna having lapsed a second time,

the African governments decide to open up

even the national parks to hunting.

Faced with the most severe measures,

white and black game wardens

now employed by the African authorities

have no choice but to obey and organize

the details of the "cropping" operation

or "harvesting the animals."

From now on, once a week, on Friday,

the harvest operation will resupply

local markets with fresh meat.

For the first time in the history

of the last refuge of African fauna,

in the inviolate sanctuaries of nature

where it was considered sacrilege

to even speak loudly,

men are entering armed with guns.

The take from one day

of hippopotamus harvest amounts to 160.

The park authorities sell them

to butchers for 300 shillings each

or about $45.

The number of animals to kill

is established each time

based upon the demands of the market,

but not one more nor one less

so as not to disrupt the prices.

The rest are left alive

for the next day, completely at peace,

yawning right next to the river where,

up until yesterday

tourists came to photograph them.

Killing them is child's play.

You just have to choose,

like the targets at a shooting gallery.

Babies, adults,

males, females and pregnant females...

Since this is the world's richest park

and hippopotamus will always be abundant,

up to the day

when there aren't any more.

The request for 45 elephants has also

been fulfilled without difficulty.

Now they're butchered on the spot

to simplify the transport

of prime and choice cuts.

Among the butchers,

not even one injury.

Elephants, which hunters described as

the most ferocious animals in Africa

in reality allow themselves

to be slaughtered like goats

whether it's those miserable males

suffering from toothaches

or the legendary pregnant females.

The truth is that in all of Africa

there is only one truly ferocious animal:

Man.

Wounded animals that go to die

at the edge of the parks

must be destroyed much more quickly

than the vultures normally would do.

The tourists must not know and,

above all, must not see.

And now we'll offer you a souvenir photo

of the butchery from 1964,

the richest storehouse

of hippopotamus meat in the world.

Don't worry.

Look over there, in the water.

A few have remained

for next Friday.

And here's another.

Look long and hard,

especially since today is Friday

any Friday in any season.

It's the most recent souvenir photo

in our journey

through what were the safe refuges

of African fauna

the centuries-old game reserves,

the inviolable sanctuaries of nature

where it was considered sacrilege

even to speak loudly.

Now you can scream, shout,

swear and even curse

without the fear of disturbing

anyone or anything.

The most harmful of animals, man,

has passed by here.

You can follow his tracks

for miles and miles

along this dusty white road that today

crosses the heart of Africa,

always winding along scenes

of nothing but desolation and death.

We just left behind

an Africa that's disappearing

and immediately we enter an Africa

that's already disappeared.

The division is a clean crack.

On the other side,

confusion and indiscriminate death.

On this side,

order and discriminating life.

This is the view of Cape Town from above,

one of the largest cities in South Africa,

the country today with

the most enemies in the world.

To the universal cry that proclaims

"Africa for Africans,"

the South Africans respond,

"This is not Africa."

And this, at least, is true.

This is a view

that suddenly and unpredictably appears,

an ignored and distant landscape

that seems to have wriggled away from

the network of parallels and meridians.

If it isn't Africa,

it also isn't Europe or America.

There's nothing that can give sense

to a geographic expression.

It's not an African mirage

because it exists in time and space.

It's not a Promised Land because

it lacks the biblical requirements.

All that's left is to define it

as a miracle...

a weighty miracle carried out

over three centuries

by a persecuted people wanting to prove

that only its God is the true one.

A miracle that,

despite its physical reality,

transcends the limits of time and space,

wrapping men and objects

in a soft blanket of bliss

in a delicate balance between

the transient and the eternal.

The black Africa of tribal dances,

of swollen breasts offered

to the glory of nature

survives only on movie sets.

A film is being shot in South Africa

about the Zulu,

the proud African tribe that made things

so difficult for the Boers.

Today, Zulu maidens

come out of the academy,

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