The Brutal Truth

"Well, we were just abiding by the conditions of our magic potion. We had to rape women in order to make it work, and beat the enemy."

Another rapist, wearing a black skullcap, is sitting in a corner. "Well, those women were not taken by force. The thing is they were in a combat zone where most of the fighters relied on magic power. This magic potion worked in such a way that you've got to rape women in order to overcome the enemies who've invaded our country, the Congo. That is why all those things have happened."

Here is where the film shows the twisted layers of damage from war, twisted until the soldiers believe they must rape to win. Twisted until the viewer becomes engulfed in the twisted message of magic and enemy control and devastation. And you shout at the screen. Because the film shows you the pain of women raped in front of their husbands and children. Rammed with sticks until the uterus ruptures. And they bleed. And urine seeps forever. And they are cast away. And children are born of the rapes. And their mothers must carry them because they are obliged. One mother, raped at age 15, says in the film that she named her daughter Lumiere, which means light. She will tell her daughter she did not know the girl's father.

How many such children will be born of rape? One cannot say. But the number of rapes, as told by the film's collection of rapists, is staggering.

"Well, those that I remember, I could number them to 18." It's green beret again, touting his rape tally.

Camouflage hat says he has raped seven women. Green hood says five. Red T-shirt admits to two. Black sunglasses: about 20.

Black skullcap says, like an accountant: "It's hard to keep record of the number of women that I've raped. The thing to keep in mind is the fact that we have stayed too long in the bush, and that induced us to rape. You know how things are in combat zones. We raped as we advance from village to village."

The rapists melt back into the bush. But their chilling words now are caught forever in this film that takes us deep into the horrors of a silent war waged by Congolese government forces, by rebels, and sometimes even by United Nations peacekeepers.

"He who rapes a woman rapes an entire nation," a policewoman says in the film.

Says Jackson, "They are forgotten women in a forgotten war."

She is both witness and survivor. The viewer learns that Jackson herself was gang-raped -- assaulted here in the District in 1976 as she was leaving her office late one night. "The three men who attacked me that night in Georgetown were never found," she says in the film.

She shared her story with the women in Congo. "They all asked about the war that was happening in my country. I explained to them that even in peacetime, women are not safe. . . . The idea to them that women, and white women, could be raped in peacetime," she said in an interview, "they could not imagine such things could happen."