Doctor Returns to Congo and Is Hailed as a Hero

By Jeffrey Gettleman, NY Times, January 14, 2013
BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo—It was as if someone extraordinarily famous had come to town. Thousands of people craned their necks as the motorcade roared by, cellphones out to grab a snap, an air of expectation and excitement eclipsing all the street noise of clanging Coke bottles and beeping motorcycles.

“There he is!” someone yelled. “Le docteur!”

In the back of a white truck—zooming past so fast it spewed clouds of dust—sat a kind-faced man staring out at the crowds: Denis Mukwege, a gynecological surgeon renowned for treating thousands of brutally raped women. He returned home triumphantly on Monday after more than two months in exile after nearly being assassinated, possibly for speaking out on behalf of the countless women who have been gang-raped by armed groups that stalk the hills of eastern Congo.

Congo, torn by war for years and traumatized by dictators for decades, is desperate for heroes. So perhaps it is no surprise that Dr. Mukwege carries such an enormous amount of pride—and hope—on his rounded shoulders, which are most often covered by a white lab coat. For around 15 years now, he has kept a major hospital running in one of the most turbulent parts of the country, sometimes performing as many as 10 operations a day, on women who have been raped so viciously that they stumble in with death trudging just a few steps behind.

For his work, Dr. Mukwege has won many human rights awards and is often mentioned as a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize. The American playwright Eve Ensler, who works closely with Dr. Mukwege, called him a “spiritual force.”

Banners with messages like “We are behind you” flew all across Bukavu on Monday. One man wore a shirt that said, “Welcome our Superman.”

The obvious love and support for Dr. Mukwege among the people here make it all the more difficult to discern who was behind the assassination attempt on a night last October, when four armed men slipped into his house in Bukavu and waylaid him as he drove in. When his trusted guard jumped out to confront the attackers, the gunmen shot him in the head. With bullets flying, Dr. Mukwege, 57, threw himself to the ground, and the attackers fled. Less than a week later, he escaped to Belgium with his wife and two daughters.

The local authorities say they do not know who tried to kill him. But many of his supporters have their suspicions. A month earlier, Dr. Mukwege had delivered a powerful speech at the United Nations in which he denounced mass rape in Congo and railed against his own government—which has a record of silencing critics—for allowing it to occur with impunity, to the point that the United Nations has called Congo “the rape capital of the world.”

He has also criticized Rwanda for fomenting chaos in Congo. Bukavu, though, is relatively safe. A sprawling, disheveled city hunched over Lake Kivu, one of the most beautiful bodies of water in Africa, it has a thin blue haze from thousands of cooking fires. But around the city, in just about every direction, lurk men with guns.

As Dr. Mukwege’s truck pulled into Panzi Hospital on Monday, a crowd of women—many of them rape victims—burst into song. People yelled “Hallelujah!” One delegation of women from an island in Lake Kivu presented Dr. Mukwege with all he needed to survive for a few days—a bucket of charcoal, several cabbages, pineapples, onions and a gigantic pumpkin.

“We don’t need the military or Monusco,” said one woman, referring to the United Nations mission in Congo. “We women will protect you.”

Some people who had stood for hours under the sun were now huddled in the rain, waiting to hear him speak.

Overwhelmed by the outpouring of emotion, Dr. Mukwege mopped his face with his sleeve and stepped to the podium.

“The power of darkness will be defeated,” he called out to wild cheers. But he also asked people to forgive, saying, “We must respond to violence with love.”