Author Topic: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo  (Read 492 times)

guest5

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Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« on: July 15, 2020, 10:48:17 am »
Belgian Princess Condemns Her Family’s Brutal Colonial History in Congo & Calls For Reparations
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Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. have sparked a reckoning about racism and colonialism across the world, including in Belgium, where a growing movement is demanding the country address systemic racism and make amends for its violent colonial legacy. King Philippe issued an unprecedented statement “expressing regret” for Belgium’s brutal colonial rule in Congo under Leopold II, who ran the country as his personal fiefdom and under whose command millions of Congolese were enslaved and killed. “It’s an erased history,” says Belgo-Congolese journalist and activist Gia Abrassart. We also speak with Princess Esméralda, a member of the Belgian royal family and great-grandniece of Leopold II, who says the country has taken an important first step, but adds that “we have to go much farther.”

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90sRetroFan

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2020, 02:56:40 pm »
If Esmeralda were sincere, she would at least have voluntarily refrained from reproducing since she knows she is from a racist bloodline. She did not.

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“we have to go much farther.”

No kidding. All racist bloodlines must be eliminated.



NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2021, 02:45:47 am by 90sRetroFan »

guest5

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #2 on: November 03, 2020, 11:57:29 pm »
Leopold II of Belgium: The Biggest Coverup In European History


King Leopold II Killed 8-10 Million People | Hotboxin with Mike Tyson
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Mike Tyson talks about King Leopold II killing millions of people with Justin Wren.

guest5

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #3 on: November 08, 2020, 04:09:18 pm »
When Belgium committed a holocaust in Africa
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This is how the story of Leopold’s regime colonised, exploited, murdered, enslaved, and maimed the people of the Congo and how Brussels’ dark colonial past is catching up to it today.


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Iso-Kayra
2 days ago
And Europe cries when people from Africa come to their countries
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simon0802
2 days ago
Europeans have never done any good for Africans!!

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Hamaka Labaka
2 days ago
Antwerp in Belgium is the world capital of diamonds ... stolen in Africa!
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Warrior Race
2 days ago (edited)
European colonialism in Africa...
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WolveZOid
2 days ago
Interest is destroying Africa and they are STILL being looted today imo

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99 HAK
2 days ago (edited)
1943 4 Million Bengals were killed by Churchill. You won't hear that in history.
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Sindabad
2 days ago
This was [JUDEO]Cristian terrorism in Africa
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No comment
2 days ago (edited)
Lol.. I thought [JUDEO]Christian is a peace loving people ..smh

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Emperor YT
2 days ago
And these countries lecture us about humanity, freedom and democracy

Judging from the comments I think it's safe to say people have had enough with the constant bullshit coming from the West and out of ignorant western mouths and minds.

guest5

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2020, 10:50:16 pm »
King Leopold's ghost still haunts the Congo
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The #Congo's natural resources have inspired a most unnatural history of greed and violence, which cost the lives of some 10 million.
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In the heart of Africa lies a country called the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a vast place with lush forests, vigorous rivers, and incredible riches such as gold, timber, uranium, cobalt, diamond, etc. These natural resources have inspired a most unnatural history of greed and violence. For over a century, the Congo has been haunted by the memories of its past. While other African nations have come to terms with a history of exploitation and colonisation, the Congo continues to relive the unshakable legacy of one man - King Leopold II of Belgium, whose ventures cost the lives of some 10 million.

90sRetroFan

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2021, 10:55:43 pm »
OLD CONTENT

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State

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In 1876 Leopold II of Belgium hosted a geographic conference in Brussels, inviting famous explorers, philanthropists, and members of geographic societies to stir up interest in a "humanitarian" endeavor for Europeans to take in central Africa to "improve" and "civilize" the lives of the indigenous peoples.[11] At the conference, Leopold organized the International African Association with the cooperation of European and American explorers and the support of several European governments, and was himself elected chairman. Leopold used the association to promote plans to seize independent central Africa under this philanthropic guise.
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While exploring the Congo for Leopold, Stanley set up treaties with the local chiefs and with native leaders.[13] Few to none of these tribal leaders had a realistic idea of what they were signing, and, in essence, the documents gave over all rights of their respective pieces of land to King Leopold II. With Stanley's help, Leopold was able to claim a great area along the Congo River, and military posts were established.

Christian de Bonchamps, a French explorer who served Leopold in Katanga, expressed attitudes towards such treaties shared by many Europeans, saying, "The treaties with these little African tyrants, which generally consist of four long pages of which they do not understand a word, and to which they sign a cross in order to have peace and to receive gifts, are really only serious matters for the European powers, in the event of disputes over the territories. They do not concern the black sovereign who signs them for a moment."[14]
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"I do not want to risk ... losing a fine chance to secure for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake."
King Leopold II, to an aide in London

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Leopold no longer needed the façade of the association, and replaced it with an appointed cabinet of Belgians who would do his bidding. To the temporary new capital of Boma, he sent a governor-general and a chief of police. The vast Congo basin was split up into 14 administrative districts, each district into zones, each zone into sectors, and each sector into posts. From the district commissioners down to post level, every appointed head was European. However, with little financial means the Free State mainly relied on local elites to rule and tax the vast and hard-to-reach Congolese interior.[24]
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The first change was the introduction of the concept of terres vacantes, "vacant" land, which was any land that did not contain a habitation or a cultivated garden plot. All of this land (i.e., most of the country) was therefore deemed to belong to the state. Servants of the state (namely any men in Leopold's employ) were encouraged to exploit it.

Shortly after the anti-slavery conference he held in Brussels in 1889, Leopold issued a new decree which said that Africans could only sell their harvested products (mostly ivory and rubber) to the state in a large part of the Free State. This law grew out of the earlier decree which had said that all "unoccupied" land belonged to the state. Any ivory or rubber collected from the state-owned land, the reasoning went, must belong to the state; creating a de facto state-controlled monopoly. Suddenly, the only outlet a large share of the local population had for their products was the state, which could set purchase prices and therefore could control the amount of income the Congolese could receive for their work.
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A decree in 1892 divided the terres vacantes into a domainal system, which privatized extraction rights over rubber for the state in certain private domains, allowing Leopold to grant vast concessions to private companies. In other areas, private companies could continue to trade but were highly restricted and taxed. The domainal system enforced an in-kind tax on the Free State's Congolese subjects. As essential intermediaries, local rulers forced their men, women and children to collect rubber, ivory and foodstuffs. Depending on the power of local rulers, the Free State paid below rising market prices.[30] In October 1892, Leopold granted concessions to a number of companies. Each company was given a large amount of land in the Congo Free State on which to collect rubber and ivory for sale in Europe. These companies were allowed to detain Africans who did not work hard enough, to police their vast areas as they saw fit and to take all the products of the forest for themselves. In return for their concessions, these companies paid an annual dividend to the Free State. At the height of the rubber boom, from 1901 until 1906, these dividends also filled the royal coffers.[31]

The Free Trade Zone in the Congo was open to entrepreneurs of any European nation, who were allowed to buy 10- and 15-year monopoly leases on anything of value: ivory from a district or the rubber concession, for example. The other zone—almost two-thirds of the Congo—became the Domaine Privé, the exclusive private property of the state.

In 1893, Leopold excised the most readily accessible 259,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi) portion of the Free Trade Zone and declared it to be the Domaine de la Couronne, literally, "fief of the crown". Rubber revenue went directly to Leopold who paid the Free State for the high costs of exploitation.[32] The same rules applied as in the Domaine Privé.[27] In 1896 global demand for rubber soared. From that year onwards, the Congolese rubber sector started to generate vast sums of money at an immense cost for the local population.[33]
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After widespread criticism, this "primes system" was substituted for the allocation de retraite in which a large part of the payment was granted, at the end of the service, only to those territorial agents and magistrates whose conduct was judged "satisfactory" by their superiors. This meant in practice that nothing changed. Congolese communities in the Domaine Privé were not merely forbidden by law to sell items to anyone but the state; they were required to provide state officials with set quotas of rubber and ivory at a fixed, government-mandated price and to provide food to the local post.[43]

What "anti-slavery" means in Western civilization.....

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In direct violation of his promises of free trade within the CFS under the terms of the Berlin Treaty, not only had the state become a commercial entity directly or indirectly trading within its dominion, but also, Leopold had been slowly monopolizing a considerable amount of the ivory and rubber trade by imposing export duties on the resources traded by other merchants within the CFS.

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Prices increased throughout the decade as industries discovered new uses for rubber in tires, hoses, tubing, insulation for telegraph and telephone cables and wiring. By the late-1890s, wild rubber had far surpassed ivory as the main source of revenue from the Congo Free State. The peak year was 1903, with rubber fetching the highest price and concessionary companies raking in the highest profits.

However, the boom sparked efforts to find lower-cost producers. Congolese concessionary companies started facing competition from rubber cultivation in Southeast Asia and Latin America. As plantations were begun in other tropical areas—mostly under the ownership of the rival British firms—world rubber prices started to dip. Competition heightened the drive to exploit forced labour in the Congo in order to lower production costs.

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By the final decade of the 19th century, John Boyd Dunlop’s 1887 invention of inflatable, rubber bicycle tubes and the growing popularity of the automobile dramatically increased global demand for rubber. To monopolize the resources of the entire Congo Free State, Leopold issued three decrees in 1891 and 1892 that reduced the native population to serfs. Collectively, these forced the natives to deliver all ivory and rubber, harvested or found, to state officers thus nearly completing Leopold's monopoly of the ivory and rubber trade. The rubber came from wild vines in the jungle, unlike the rubber from Brazil (Hevea brasiliensis), which was tapped from trees. To extract the rubber, instead of tapping the vines, the Congolese workers would slash them and lather their bodies with the rubber latex. When the latex hardened, it would be scraped off the skin in a painful manner, as it took off the worker's hair with it.[44]
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The Force Publique (FP), Leopold's private army, was used to enforce the rubber quotas. Early on, the FP was used primarily to campaign against the Arab slave trade in the Upper Congo, protect Leopold's economic interests, and suppress the frequent uprisings within the state. The Force Publique's officer corps included only white Europeans (Belgian regular soldiers and mercenaries from other countries). On arriving in the Congo, these recruited men from Zanzibar and west Africa, and eventually from the Congo itself. In addition, Leopold had been actually encouraging the slave trade among Arabs in the Upper Congo in return for slaves to fill the ranks of the FP. During the 1890s, the FP's primary role was to exploit the natives as corvée laborers to promote the rubber trade.

More "anti-slavery" by Western civilization.....

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Many of the black soldiers were from far-off peoples of the Upper Congo, while others had been kidnapped in raids on villages in their childhood and brought to Roman Catholic missions, where they received a military training in conditions close to slavery. Armed with modern weapons and the chicotte—a bull whip made of hippopotamus hide—the Force Publique routinely took and tortured hostages, slaughtered families of rebels, and flogged and **** Congolese people with a reign of terror and abuse that cost millions of lives. One refugee from these horrors described the process:

We were always in the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved.... When we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes round their necks and taken away.[45]

They also burned recalcitrant villages, and above all, cut off the hands of Congolese natives, including children. The human hands were collected as trophies on the orders of their officers to show that bullets had not been wasted. Officers were concerned that their subordinates might waste their ammunition on hunting animals for sport, so they required soldiers to submit one hand for every bullet spent.[46] These mutilations also served to further terrorize the Congolese into submission. This was all contrary to the promises of uplift made at the Berlin Conference which had recognized the Congo Free State.
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A reduction of the population of the Congo is noted by all who have compared the country at the beginning of Leopold's control with the beginning of Belgian state rule in 1908, but estimates of the death toll vary considerably. Estimates of some contemporary observers suggest that the population decreased by half during this period. According to Edmund D. Morel, the Congo Free State counted "20 million souls".[51] Hence, Mark Twain mentioned the number of ten million deaths.[52] According to British diplomat Roger Casement, this depopulation had four main causes: "indiscriminate war", starvation, reduction of births, and disease.[53] Sleeping sickness was also a major cause of fatality at the time. Opponents of Leopold's rule stated, however, that the administration itself was to be considered responsible for the spreading of the epidemic.[54]

In the absence of a census providing even an initial idea of the size of population of the region at the inception of the Congo Free State (the first was taken in 1924),[55] it is impossible to quantify population changes in the period. Despite this, Forbath more recently claimed the loss was at least five million.[56] Adam Hochschild and Jan Vansina use the number 10 million. Hochschild cites several recent independent lines of investigation, by anthropologist Jan Vansina and others, that examine local sources (police records, religious records, oral traditions, genealogies, personal diaries), which generally agree with the assessment of the 1919 Belgian government commission: roughly half the population perished during the Free State period. Since the first official census by the Belgian authorities in 1924 put the population at about 10 million, these various approaches suggest a rough estimate of a total of 10 million dead.[57] Jan Vansina returned to the issue of quantifying the total population decline, and revised his earlier position, he concluded that the Kuba population (one of the many Congolese populations) was rising during the first two decades of Leopold II's rule, and declined with 25 percent from 1900 to 1919, mainly due to sickness.[58][59][60] Others argued a decrease of 20 percent over the first forty years of colonial rule (up to the census of 1924).[61] According to the Congolese historian Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem 13 million died.[62] To put these population changes in context, sourced references state that in 1900 Africa as a whole had between 90 million[63] and 133 million people.[64]

90sRetroFan

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2021, 10:56:23 pm »
OLD CONTENT contd.

More details on a separate page:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State

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Between 1891 and 1906, the companies were allowed to do whatever they wished with almost no judicial interference, the result being that forced labour and violent coercion were used to collect the rubber cheaply and maximise profit. A native paramilitary army, the Force Publique, was also created to enforce the labour policies. Individual workers who refused to participate in rubber collection could be killed and entire villages razed. Individual white administrators were also free to indulge their own sadism.
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With the majority of the Free State's revenues derived from the export of rubber, a labour policy (known by critics as the "Red Rubber system") was created to maximise its extraction. Labour was demanded by the administration as taxation. This created a "slave society" as companies became increasingly dependent on forcibly mobilising Congolese labour for their collection of rubber.[22] The state recruited a number of black officials, known as capitas, to organise local labour.[22] However, the desire to maximise rubber collection, and hence the state's profits, meant that the centrally enforced demands were often set arbitrarily without considering the numbers or the welfare of workers.[21] In the concessionary territories, the private companies which had purchased a concession from the Free State administration were able to use virtually any measures they wished to increase production and profits without state interference.[12] The lack of a developed bureaucracy to oversee any commercial methods produced an atmosphere of "informality" throughout the state in regards to the operation of enterprises, which in turn facilitated abuses.[23] Treatment of labourers (especially the duration of service) was not regulated by law and instead was left to the discretion of officials on the ground.[21] ABIR and the Anversoise were particularly noted for the harshness with which officials treated Congolese workers. The historian Jean Stengers described regions controlled by these two companies as "veritable hells-on-earth".[24]

Workers who refused to supply their labour were coerced with "constraint and repression". Dissenters were beaten or whipped with the chicotte, hostages were taken to ensure prompt collection and punitive expeditions were sent to destroy villages which refused.[21] The policy led to a collapse of Congolese economic and cultural life, as well as farming in some areas.[25] Much of the enforcement of rubber production was the responsibility of the Force Publique, the colonial military. The Force had originally been established in 1885, with white officers and NCOs and black soldiers, and recruited from as far afield as Zanzibar, Nigeria, and Liberia.[26]
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Failure to meet the rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions (imported from Europe at considerable cost) for hunting.[46] As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in chopped-off hands. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighboring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were too unrealistic to fill. A Catholic priest quotes a man, Tswambe, speaking of the hated state official Léon Fiévez, who ran a district along the river 500 kilometres (300 mi) north of Stanley Pool:

All blacks saw this man as the devil of the Equator ... From all the bodies killed in the field, you had to cut off the hands. He wanted to see the number of hands cut off by each soldier, who had to bring them in baskets ... A village which refused to provide rubber would be completely swept clean. As a young man, I saw [Fiévez's] soldier Molili, then guarding the village of Boyeka, take a net, put ten arrested natives in it, attach big stones to the net, and make it tumble into the river ... Rubber causes these torments; that's why we no longer want to hear its name spoken. Soldiers made young men kill or **** their own mothers and sisters.[47]

One junior officer described a raid to punish a village that had protested. The officer in command "ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades ... and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross".[48] After seeing a Congolese person killed for the first time, a Danish missionary wrote, "The soldier said 'Don't take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don't bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service.'"[49] In Forbath's words:

The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber ... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace ... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.

In theory, each right hand proved a killing. In practice, to save ammunition soldiers sometimes "cheated" by simply cutting off the hand and leaving the victim to live or die. More than a few survivors later said that they had lived through a massacre by acting dead, not moving even when their hands were severed, and waiting till the soldiers left before seeking help. In some instances a soldier could shorten his service term by bringing more hands than the other soldiers, which led to widespread mutilations and dismemberment. Leopold II reportedly disapproved of dismemberment because it harmed his economic interests. He was quoted as saying "Cut off hands—that's idiotic. I'd cut off all the rest of them, but not hands. That's the one thing I need in the Congo."[36] Other practices used to force workers to collect rubber included taking women and family members hostage.[35] ABIR agents would imprison the chief of any village which fell behind its quota; in July 1902 one post recorded that it held 44 chiefs in prison. These prisons were in a poor condition and the posts at Bongandanga and Mompono recorded death rates of three to ten prisoners per day each in 1899.[37] Persons with records of resisting the company were deported to forced labour camps. At least three camps, one at Lireko, one on the Upper Maringa River and one on the Upper Lopori River.[37]

Aside from rubber collection, violence in the Free State chiefly occurred in connection with wars and rebellions. Native states, notably Msiri's Yeke Kingdom, the Zande Federation, and Swahili-speaking territory in the eastern Congo under Tippu Tip, refused to recognise colonial authority and were defeated by the Force Publique with great brutality, during the Congo Arab war.[38] In 1895, a military mutiny broke out among the Batetela in Kasai, leading to a 4-year insurgency. The conflict was particularly brutal and caused a great number of casualties.[39]
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The presence of rubber companies such as ABIR exacerbated the effect of natural disasters such as famine and disease. ABIR's tax collection system forced men out from the villages to collect rubber which meant that there was no labour available to clear new fields for planting. This in turn meant that the women had to continue to plant worn-out fields resulting in lower yields, a problem aggravated by company sentries stealing crops and farm animals.[37] The post at Bonginda experienced a famine in 1899 and in 1900 missionaries recorded a "terrible famine" across ABIR's concession.[37]
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Neither the Belgian monarchy nor the Belgian state has ever apologised for the atrocities.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo

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By 1908, public pressure and diplomatic maneuvers led to the end of Leopold II's personal rule and to the annexation of the Congo as a colony of Belgium, known as the Belgian Congo.
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During the First World War (1914–1918), the system of "mandatory cultivation" (cultures obligatoires) was introduced, forcing Congolese peasants to grow certain cash crops (cotton, coffee, groundnuts) destined as commodities for export.[45] Territorial administrators and state agronomists had the task of supervising and, if necessary, sanctioning those peasants who evaded the hated mandatory cultivation.[46]
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The state took over so-called "vacant lands" (land not directly used by local tribes) and redistributed the territory to European companies, to individual white landowners (colons), or to the missions. In this way, an extensive plantation economy developed.
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The basic idea was that the development of the Congo had to be borne not by the Belgian taxpayers but by the Congolese themselves.[55] The colonial state needed to be able to levy taxes in money on the Congolese, so it was important that they could make money by selling their produce or their labour within the framework of the colonial economy.
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disastrous effects of erosion and soil exhaustion brought about by the mandatory cultivation scheme.
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During World War II industrial production and agricultural output increased drastically. The Congolese population bore the brunt of the "war effort" – for instance, through a reinforcement of the mandatory cultivation policy.[60] ... The Belgian Congo became one of the major exporters of uranium to the US during World War II (and the Cold War), particularly from the Shinkolobwe mine. The colony provided the uranium used by the Manhattan Project, including in atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.[41]
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There was an "implicit apartheid". The colony had curfews for Congolese city-dwellers and similar racial restrictions were commonplace. Though there were no specific laws imposing racial segregation and barring blacks from establishments frequented by whites, de facto segregation operated in most areas. For example, initially, the city centers were reserved to the white population only, while the black population was organized in cités indigènes (indigenous neighbourhoods called 'le belge'). Hospitals, department stores and other facilities were often reserved for either whites or blacks. In the Force Publique, black people could not pass the rank of non-commissioned officer. The black population in the cities could not leave their houses from 9 pm to 4 am. This type of segregation began to disappear gradually only in the 1950s, but even then the Congolese remained or felt treated in many respects as second-rate citizens (for instance in political and legal terms).
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The paternalistic ideology underpinning colonial policy was summed up in a catch-phrase used by Governor-General Pierre Ryckmans (1934–46): Dominer pour servir ("Dominate to serve").[69] The colonial government wanted to convey images of a benevolent and conflict-free administration and of the Belgian Congo as a true model colony. But the colonialists paid no or very little attention to the full emancipation of the Congolese. The colonizer alone believed he knew what was good for the Belgian Congo.

Also:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruanda-Urundi

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the economic policy practised in the Belgian Congo was exported eastwards: the Belgians demanded that the territories earn profits for the motherland and that any development must come out of funds gathered in the territory. These funds mostly came from the extensive cultivation of coffee in the region's rich volcanic soils.

To implement their vision, the Belgians used the existing indigenous power structure. This consisted of a largely Tutsi ruling class controlling a mostly Hutu population, through the system of chiefs and sub-chiefs under the overall rule of the two Mwami. The Belgian administrators believed that the Tutsi were superior and deserved power. While before colonization the Hutu had played some role in governance, the Belgians simplified matters by further stratifying the society on ethnic lines. Hutu anger at the Tutsi domination was largely focused on the Tutsi elite rather than the distant colonial power.[4]

Finally, independence:

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Congolese resistance against colonialism was widespread and took many different forms.[71] Armed resistance occurred sporadically and localized until roughly the end of the Second World War (e.g., revolt of the Pende in 1931, mutiny in Luluabourg 1944). From the end of the Second World War until the late 1950s, the so-called "Pax belgica" prevailed. Until the end of colonial rule in 1960, passive forms of resistance and expressions of an anti-colonial sub-culture were manifold (e.g., Kimbanguism, after the prophet Simon Kimbangu, who was imprisoned by the Belgians).
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Congolese participation in World War II and news of changes in other colonies resulted in their organising to gain more power. As a result of the inability of the colonial government to introduce radical and credible changes, the Congolese elites began to organise themselves socially and soon also politically. In the 1950s two markedly different forms of nationalism arose among the Congolese elites. The nationalist movement—to which the Belgian authorities, to some degree, turned a blind eye—promoted territorial nationalism, wherein the Belgian Congo would become one politically united state after independence.

In opposition to this was the ethno-religious and regional nationalism that took hold in the Bakongo territories of the west coast, Kasai and Katanga. The first political organisations were of the latter type. ABAKO, founded in 1950 as the Association culturelle des Bakongo and headed by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, was initially a cultural association that soon turned political. From the mid-1950s, it became a vocal opponent of Belgian colonial rule. Additionally, the organization continued to serve as the major ethno-religious organization for the Bakongo and became closely intertwined with the Kimbanguist Church, which was extremely popular in the lower Congo.
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In 1958, the demands for independence radicalised quickly and gained momentum. A key role was played by the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). First set up in 1956, the MNC was established in October 1958 as a national political party that supported the goal of a unitary and centralised Congolese nation. Its most influential leader was the charismatic Patrice Lumumba. In 1959, an internal split was precipitated by Albert Kalonji and other MNC leaders who favoured a more moderate political stance (the splinter group was deemed Mouvement National Congolais-Kalonji). Despite the organisational divergence of the party, Lumumba's leftist faction (now the Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba) and the MNC collectively had established themselves as by far the most important and influential party in the Belgian Congo. Belgium vehemently opposed Lumumba's leftist views and had grave concerns about the status of their financial interests should Lumumba's MNC gain power.
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Increasingly, the colonial administration saw varied forms of resistance, such as refusal to pay taxes. In some regions anarchy threatened.[84] At the same time many Belgians resident in the Congo opposed independence, feeling betrayed by Brussels. Faced with a radicalisation of Congolese demands, the government saw the chances of a gradual and carefully planned transition dwindling rapidly.[85]

In 1959, King Baudouin made another visit to the Belgian Congo, finding a great contrast with his visit of four years before. Upon his arrival in Léopoldville, he was pelted with rocks by black Belgo-Congolese citizens who were angry with the imprisonment of Lumumba, convicted because of incitement against the colonial government.
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In January 1960, Congolese political leaders were invited to Brussels to participate in a round-table conference to discuss independence. Patrice Lumumba was discharged from prison for the occasion. The conference agreed surprisingly quickly to grant the Congolese practically all of their demands: a general election to be held in May 1960 and full independence—"Dipenda"—on 30 June 1960. This was in response to the strong united front put up by the Congolese delegation.
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As planned scarcely five months earlier, the hand-over ceremony by the Belgians took place on time on 30 June 1960 at the new residence of the Governor-General of the Belgian Congo in Léopoldville.

One week later, a rebellion broke out within the Force Publique against its officers, who were still predominantly Belgian. This was a catalyst for disturbances arising all over the Congo, mainly instigated by dissatisfied soldiers and radicalized youngsters. In many areas, their violence specifically targeted European victims. Within weeks, the Belgian military and later a United Nations intervention force evacuated the largest part of the more than 80,000 Belgians who were still working and living in the Congo.[87]

Even in independence, the oppressors were aided in evading justice. The Belgian state had a chance to show remorse by leaving the Belgian colonialists to face their (well overdue!) fate at the hands of those whom they had oppressed. It chose instead to actively shield them from what they more than deserved. This is why the anti-colonialist struggle is not over, nor will it be until justice is finally done. They did not let us finish it in the colonized territory, so we will have to finish it in Belgium (as well as in all the other former Western colonial powers which behaved similarly).

NEVER FORGIVE. NEVER FORGET.

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2021, 10:58:11 pm »
OLD CONTENT contd.

www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/world/europe/belgium-kidnapping-congo-rwanda-burundi.html

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Racial segregation was a pillar of Belgian colonial rule, historians say. Until the late 1950s, the colonial authorities discouraged interracial romance and banned interracial marriage before the Catholic Church.

Many white Belgian men, nevertheless, married black Congolese women according to local customs, producing children sometimes called métis. But in the eyes of Belgium, these children undermined official segregation policies and blemished the white race’s prestige, official documents from that time show.
...
“Children born out of parents of mixed color during colonial times were always considered as a threat to the colonial enterprise, to profits and to the prestige and the domination of the white race,” said Assumani Budagwa, 65, a Belgian engineer and amateur historian who was born in colonial Congo and whose family experienced the separation of mixed-race children.

guest5

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2021, 09:58:26 pm »
The Congo’s colonial history
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Did you know that between 1880 and 1920, Belgium’s King Leopold II murdered 50% of the Congo’s population, for which Belgium has never formally apologised? 
#KingLeopoldII​


90sRetroFan

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2021, 04:49:58 am »


Rather than financial reparations, it would be more meaningful to permanently open Belgium's borders for anyone from its former colonies who wish to migrate there.

guest78

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #10 on: June 11, 2022, 02:21:35 pm »
Belgium's colonial history in Congo: Is 'regret' enough? | DW News
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Belgium's King Philippe has expressed his deepest regrets for his country's brutal rule in its former colony, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Millions of Congolese were killed, mutilated or died of disease as
the land was pillaged for its resources, particularly under the rule of King Leopold the Second. That history has overshadowed the ongoing visit of the current King, with many Congolese expecting restitution of some kind.


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You don't have to be pushed to apologize if you are remorseful. Belgium doesn't see any wrongdoing on these innocent Congolese
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Strange how Europe (responsible for so much colonial horror) cares so much about Ukraine's borders now.
R:
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Are you saying that because Europeans were colonialists that they have to be consistent and continue supporting colonialists such as Russia...cause that's so silly you have no idea...
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A begin could be the Belgian nationality for Congolese people currently living in Belgium.

90sRetroFan

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Re: Belgian Colonialism in the Congo
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2022, 08:05:41 pm »
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A begin could be the Belgian nationality for Congolese people currently living in Belgium.

Not just those already in Belgium, but any who want to migrate to Belgium now or in the future.