Belgium Congo genocide. The Land of Severed Hands
The events in the neighboring Belgian colony of the Congo were important for understanding the mood of the Portuguese.
The Belgian Congo was a model colony. An economy based on modern mining (75% of the world's cobalt, 60% of uranium, diamonds, copper, tin, tungsten, etc.) and commercial agricultural production grew steadily at 4-5% per year, so that in terms of GDP per capita by 1960, the Congo was not only the leader in Africa, but only slightly inferior to the same Portugal or Greece.
Developed infrastructure, a network of railways and highways covered the entire country, airports in 38 cities. Beautiful modern cities.
Congo was the leader in the percentage of literacy among the indigenous population in sub-Saharan Africa (42% by 1960), had a good health care system that successfully defeated a number of tropical epidemics. A modern social system with unemployment benefits.
Yes, impressive picture. Only one question - where is the place for the indigenous people?
Everything in the Congo rested on 100 thousand white colonists, the maximum that a Congolese could achieve was to become a petty clerk, a sergeant of the colonial Force Public troops, a teacher primary school or a nurse.
Yes, literacy is high, but in parochial schools they taught only to count, read, write - moreover, contrary to the colonial practice of other countries, mainly in local languages. It was not until the mid-1950s that the first colleges for locals were opened.
And by 1960, there were 16 university graduates for every 12 million inhabitants of the Congo! Yes, in Coimbra alone, back in the late 40s, ten times more Africans studied! Moreover, all the Congolese graduated from universities with a degree in political science, and not a single doctor, engineer or agronomist.
Until 1953, the Congolese simply had no rights, not even the right to own property.
Only at the turn of the 1950s did the Belgians begin to do something to "assimilate" the Negroes; the category "evolue" was introduced, following the example of the French. But the very procedure for changing status was extremely complex and confusing, accompanied by humiliating checks like regular medical examinations to see if the candidate for "civilized" beat his wife. And by the mid-50s there were only 1557 evolutions. Then the procedure was noticeably simplified, and by 1960 there were already 175 thousand Evolue, which was almost 1% of the black population.
At the same time, the alleged privileges - equal status with whites - remained for the most part on the paper. Of the 5,000 administrators by 1960, only three were blacks. Segregation reigned in the cities.
In 1956, blacks were allowed political activity dozens of political parties emerged. Parties could be called socialist, progressive, popular, democratic, but in fact they were formed along tribal lines. The leaders were MNC (Congolese National Movement) Patrice Lumumba, ABAKO (Bakongo Alliance) Joseph Kasavubu and CONAKAT (Confederation of Katangese Tribal Associations) Moses Tshombe.
The Belgians at that time talked about the 30-year transitional stage to independence, they talked about the projects of the Belgian-Congolese Federation. But black leaders were not willing to wait.
On January 4, 1959, a peaceful demonstration in the capital of the colony, Leopoldville, develops into riots, several days of chaos, hundreds of people died.
The Belgian authorities, most of all afraid of drawing the country into a colonial war, will announce the granting of independence by 1964. Demonstrations, rallies, strikes, often turning into bloody clashes, continue.
And the Belgians surrender. In February 1960, at a round table conference in Brussels, it was decided to grant independence in June.
Elections in May brought the victory of the MNC, but it did not receive an absolute majority. As a result, power was divided, 50-year-old Kasavubu became president, 35-year-old Lumumba became prime minister.
On June 30, 1960, the Congo gained independence.
Africans are celebrating - now we have become masters instead of whites. As the American ethnographer Alan Merriam, who witnessed this process in Stanleyville, wrote: “They believed that independence would free them from white domination, that they could work less or not work at all, that there would be more money, there would be no taxes to pay, there would be freedom. to use white houses, cars and women." Some enterprising residents of Leopoldville organized a "trade" in European women for 10 shillings, "guaranteeing" buyers that they would become their property after independence.
The colonial army Force Public consisted of 600 white officers and 26,000 black privates and sergeants. On July 1, blacks from the garrison of the capital went to a demonstration, indignant at the public demotion of an African sergeant, who said that after independence it was not necessary to obey the Belgian officers. Commander Lieutenant General Emil Janssens orders the garrison of nearby Tiswil to return the demonstrators to their barracks. Tisville's garrison rebelled, and behind him, and throughout the country, soldiers began to kill white officers, rape their wives, and loot.
In an attempt to pacify the army, Lumumba dismissed all Belgian officers on 6 July. One sergeant-medic (and a relative of Lumumba) became a major general and commander in chief, another sergeant clerk (Joseph Mobutu) became a colonel and chief of staff.
But the unrest only grew, blacks attacked whites and each other, all semblance of order disappeared. A general flight of whites began, on which the entire economy and the state apparatus of the country rested. The Africans who tried to replace them had no experience. Trains stopped running, food became scarce in the cities, epidemics broke out.
The special envoy of the UN Secretary General, Rajeshwar Dayal, who arrived in August, described the situation as follows:
“The administration of the country was completely paralyzed ... The judicial system did not work, there was not a single Congolese who was at least approximately familiar with jurisprudence and could work in the courts. Most of the Belgian doctors abandoned their patients, and people were treated in hospitals as best they could, junior medical staff and nurses.Some of them boldly but unskilledly performed complex operations ... Customs did not work, docks and shipyards froze.Belgian personnel abandoned control towers at airports, after which air travel became an extremely dangerous business.Transportation along the river and railways carried out on a case-by-case basis. There was a serious shortage of goods and services.
Belgium sent paratroopers to save its citizens, they established control over the main cities of the country, on July 11 Tshombe proclaimed the independence of Katanga, which provided half of the country's foreign exchange earnings, and set about creating an army led by white mercenaries.
On July 12, Lumumba asked the UN to expel the Belgian "aggressors" and annex Katanga. After 3 days, the first UN soldiers began to arrive, replacing the Belgians. The UN also sent civilian specialists to improve the work of government agencies.
Following Katanga, the province of South Kasai declared independence, and other regions called for federalization. The country was falling apart before our eyes.
After the UN refused to help Lumumba in the fight against the separatists, he turned to the USSR. With Soviet transport support, the Congolese army launched an offensive on Kasai. Accompanying it with massacres of civilians.
Because of the appeal to the USSR for help, the West recorded Lumumba as a "communist" and the ruling coalition split. On September 5, Kasavubu fired the prime minister and Lumumba the president. Both ordered Mobutu to arrest the rival. Then Mobutu on September 14 made the first of his coups, dispersing parliament.
After that, Lumumba's supporters proclaimed the independence of the Eastern Province with the capital in Stanleyville, new battles broke out, with new bloody massacres up to ceremonial cannibalism.
In November 1960, Lumumba escaped arrest while trying to get to Stanleyville, but was captured by Mobutu's forces. On January 17, 1961, he was handed over to the Katangese, who killed Lumumba.
And all this bloody mess, when in just two years a prosperous colony fell into chaos, was happening before the eyes of the Portuguese. Reinforcing them in the opinion that the Belgians were wrong.
Defective king
Leopold II ascended the Belgian throne in 1865. At that time, a a constitutional monarchy so the power of the king was very limited. Leopold tried in every possible way to expand his spheres of influence. For example, he proposed to pass a law on a referendum, thanks to which the inhabitants of Belgium could express their opinion on issues important to the country.
The power of Leopold II in Belgium was limited by parliament
The king in such a case could veto depending on the results. Parliament did not pass this law - the monarch would have received too much power in this case. Disappointed, Leopold II even considered abdicating.
Leopold II
Dealer King
The king actively advocated for the transformation of Belgium into a colonial monarchy. He did not want to put up with the fact that his country did not manage to grab a tasty morsel from Africa. But this idea of the king was not supported by parliament. In 1876 Leopold held an international geographical conference in Brussels. At it, the monarch proposed to create a charitable organization that would go to the Congo - to plant Christianity among the local population, fight the slave trade and cannibalism, and in every possible way contribute to the development of civilization.
The Congo did not belong to Belgium, but personally to Leopold II
As a result, the king founded the "International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa" and personally headed it. Leopold sponsored several explorers of the African continent, including Henry Stanley. The organization also sent its officers and missionaries to Africa, who imposed treaties on slave terms to the leaders of local tribes.
In 1884−1885, a conference of European powers was held in Berlin to discuss spheres of influence in Africa. Serious passions flared up - in those days, every state dreamed of getting a share of the untold African wealth. By that time, Leopold already controlled vast territories in the Congo Basin, but it was at the Berlin Conference that he was officially recognized as the sole ruler of the Congo Free State.
Labor camp the size of Congo
From now on, no one limited the actions of the king in the Congo. The Congolese became real slaves of Leopold II, who turned the country, 76 times the size of Belgium, into a kind of labor camp. The entire population of the Congo was obliged to work for the Belgian king - mostly people were employed on rubber plantations. The volume of rubber produced in the Congo during the reign of Leopold increased almost 200 times. The extraction of ivory also brought a large profit. Even small children worked.
Those who did not comply with the norm were beaten and maimed
Those who did not fulfill their norm were beaten and maimed. Working conditions were appalling, thousands of people died of starvation and epidemics. Leopold II, who promised at a conference in Berlin to "improve the material and moral conditions" of the Congolese, did not care at all about the quality of life of the locals. He spent most of the money he earned on the development of Belgium, for example, he sponsored the construction of the 50th Anniversary Park in Brussels and the railway station in Antwerp.
Mutual responsibility
To control the huge population of the Congo, detachments of the "Public Forces" were created. From time to time they passed through the villages and staged demonstration executions of the recalcitrant. From the fighters of the detachments, as evidence of the need to consume cartridges, they were required to provide the severed hands of the dead. If the soldiers spent cartridges in excess of the norm, they cut off the hands of living people. In Belgium, they looked at the deeds of their king through their fingers. The newspapers explained the cruelty towards the locals as a reaction to the cruel customs of the Congolese themselves - cannibalism still flourished in the country at that time. In 20 years, the country's population has almost halved - that is, about 10 million Congolese have died.
exposure
In 1899, Joseph Conrad's story "Heart of Darkness" was published, which tells about a sailor's journey to Central Africa. The author described in detail the terrible living conditions of the natives and the inhumanity of the orders imposed in the colony. Together with the report of the British diplomat Roger Casement, the story drew public attention to the atrocities of the Belgians in the Kongo that belonged to their king.
Severed hands served as a record of the number of cartridges spent
Leopold II was forced to sell his African possessions to Belgium. The Free State of the Congo was renamed the Belgian Congo - under this name the colony lasted until independence in 1960.
The American film "Apocalypse Now" has long become a classic of cinema, and one of its characters, the crazy Colonel Kurtz, is practically the standard of madness on the screen. But few people know that the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which inspired the creators of this film, was written based on real events that took place in the Congo at the end of the 19th century. And they were much darker than any movie fantasy ...
Bastard and throne
The gigantic territory of the Congo Basin for a long time remained beyond the reach of European discoverers, although the banks near its mouth were still visited by Portuguese caravels at the end of the 15th century. Dense tropical forests prevented them from penetrating deep into uncharted lands, and cascades of huge waterfalls prevented them from going up the Congo River. To this was added a whole bunch of infections and a truly deadly climate for Europeans. Therefore, the territories located in the heart of the "Black Continent" remained unknown until the 1870s - the era amazing people and no less amazing events.
Map of the Congo, 1906
culture22.dk
One of these people was born on January 28, 1841 in the small Welsh town of Danby and was baptized under the name "John Rowlands, bastard." His mother, Betsy Perry, was a housewife, and John did not know anything about his father: there were too many "candidates", including the local drunk John Rowlands.
From the age of six, John lived in a workhouse in St. Asaph, where he fully drank the atmosphere characteristic of such establishments. At the age of fifteen, he left the inhospitable walls, and two years later he signed up as a cabin boy on an American sailing ship and arrived in New Orleans. The surrounding people remembered the mind of the young man and his tendency to boast. After some time, Rowlands changed his surname to Rolling, and later decided to name himself after the merchant Henry Stanley, who gave him a job. So New World recognized the ambitious journalist Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley later claimed that he not only grew up in the United States, but was also born there - however, when the "native Yankee" was worried, he sometimes cut through a characteristic Welsh accent.
Henry Morton Stanley
wasistwas.de
Stanley's finest hour came in 1871, when he went in search of the world-famous explorer David Livingston, who had disappeared somewhere in the wilds of South Africa. The former bastard approached the matter on a grand scale: his rescue expedition numbered almost two hundred people, becoming the largest hitherto known. Stanley did not consider the lives of the porters and made his way through the jungle literally ahead. At the slightest suspicion of hostility, he fired on and burned the oncoming villages. In November 1871, Livingston was found and rescued. Being a true master of self-promotion, Stanley took full advantage of the opportunity to become famous. He decorated books about his adventures with photographs, maps and drawings, readers received a lot of details about the hitherto unknown land - and, of course, remembered the name of the one who showed them this land. It was considered an honor to meet with Stanley the most prominent people of the era - for example, the famous American General Sherman.
Well, if the bastard has achieved such success and world fame, then why not try the king? Leopold II became the legitimate King of Belgium in 1865. His father Leopold I, a representative of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty, served the Russian emperors Paul I and Alexander I, became a member of the House of Lords and a general british army, accepted the crown of Greece, but soon abandoned it and became the first king of Belgium, which seceded from the Netherlands in June 1830. The future Leopold II was brought up in traditional strictness from childhood, almost not communicating with his parents - so, to meet with his father, the son had to make an appointment.
Leopold II
wikimedia.org
Having become king, Leopold II saw with his own eyes that empires rule the world: British, French, German, Russian ... Almost all European countries of that time had colonies across the ocean, and very extensive ones. While Belgium... "Little country, small people" ("Petit pays, petits gens")- this is how Leopold once said about his homeland. Few Belgians were seriously interested in the possibility of capturing new lands and obtaining new sources of income.
In search of a suitable place for the application of his ambitions, Leopold went through almost the entire Earth- from Argentina and Ethiopia to the Solomon Islands and Fiji. The king even tried to buy lakes in the Nile Delta in order to drain them and claim sovereignty over the resulting territory. Leopold carefully studied the reports of travelers, geographers, and even convened a geographical conference in Brussels chaired by the Russian traveler P.P. Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky. The search continued for several years, and then Stanley discovered a whole world in Africa - still nobody.
Meeting with Stanley, Leopold suggested that he organize a new expedition to the Congo. Stanley agreed and set to work with ardent enthusiasm. Traveling again to Africa and almost dying of malaria there, he brought over four hundred treaties with tribal leaders and village elders. According to the typical text of the treaty, for one piece of cloth per month, the chiefs (and their heirs) voluntarily transferred all sovereignty and rights of government over their lands, and also agreed to help the Belgian expeditions with labor in laying roads and constructing buildings.
The sudden appearance of a new player on the African continent provoked a strong reaction from other European powers. Britain remembered that the Portuguese, allies of the British, discovered the Congo four centuries ago. However, at the Berlin Conference, the skillful diplomat Leopold managed to enlist the support of the United States, France and Germany against Britain and Portugal.
On February 26, 1885, the General Act was signed, then the Free State of the Congo was proclaimed, Leopold II (as a private individual) became its sovereign, and Stanley became its governor. At the same time, almost all the highest and middle ranks of the administration were personally selected by the king, who, the king, ruled the colony directly.
Now white man, colonizing new lands, helped multi-shot rifles - against warlike natives, quinine - against malaria, river steam boats - against long distances. The government of the new "state" passed laws according to which all the rubber collected by local residents was surrendered to the authorities, and each local man was required to work forty hours a month for free. Years passed, for the time being, no one in Europe even suspected a real kingdom of civilized terror in Central Africa.
Soldier, king and journalist
In 1890, "thunder from a clear sky" struck. George Washington Williams, a black veteran of the U.S. Northern Army and the Republican Army of Mexico, as well as a lawyer, Baptist pastor, and founder of a Negro newspaper, who had visited the Congo a year earlier, wrote an open letter to King Leopold. In it, Williams described the swindling tricks of Stanley and his assistants, who intimidated the natives: electric shocks from wires disguised as clothes, lighting a cigar with a magnifying glass with the threat of burning down an unruly village, and much more.
George Washington Williams
wikimedia.org
Williams openly accused the Belgian colonial government of slave trade and kidnapping. Even the Congolese armed forces often consisted of slaves: the Belgians paid three pounds for the head of a man suitable for military service. On August 2, 1891, Williams died, but the wave he raised did not subside.
French journalist Edmond Dean Morel joined the British shipping company Elder Dempster in 1891 and gained access to extensive statistics on West Africa. Once Morel noticed that almost exclusively soldiers, officers and rifles with cartridges were brought to the Congo in exchange for rubber and ivory. Of course, international trade in those days was very specific - but still not so much. In this case, instead of trade, outright robbery took place. In addition, messages began to come from the Congo from missionaries, merchants, and even agent officers themselves.
It turned out that the norms for the delivery of rubber were constantly increasing, and at times: instead of 40 hours, the population of the Congo had to work 20-25 days a month. The pickers were forced to go to the forests far from their native places (sometimes hundreds of kilometers away), without receiving any payment or receiving pennies. The collection of rubber was controlled by a network of agents from different countries Europe or the USA, who commanded local detachments. If the plan was overfulfilled, then the agent's salary increased, and he returned home faster, otherwise organizational conclusions could follow (for example, an increase in the service life). How the agent would succeed was of no concern to anyone, and some of them raised the fee dozens of times.
Congolese slaves
nationstates.net
Natives who were indignant or did not fulfill the norm were whipped with scourges of dried hippo skin, imprisoned, and this is even in the best case: some of the guilty were cut off their hands or genitals. Agents recruited local concubines without asking their consent, soldiers took away food from the natives. For each cartridge fired, it was necessary to report - and the soldiers brought the right hands of the people killed or simply “punished” by them.
Villages-"debtors" were burned, their population was exterminated. Often, officers shot people on a dare or just for fun. During the suppression of one of the uprisings in the Congo, the tribe took refuge in a large cave and refused to leave it. Then, at the exit from the cave, fires were laid out and it was blocked for three months. Later, 178 bodies were found in the cave. For the arrangement of new stations where the agents lived, porters were required, who were recruited from among local residents and subjected to merciless exploitation: there were cases when not a single person returned from a difficult campaign of several hundred kilometers.
"The Ten Commandments are fairy tales, and whoever is thirsty - drinks to the bottom"
Although Kipling in his poems described Burma as a territory where the ten commandments do not apply, what happened in the Congo was too much even for the familiar Europeans. A monstrous international scandal broke out, the echoes of which even reached Australia. Bishops, newspaper publishers, members of the British Parliament protested. Even Conan Doyle and Mark Twain devoted their talents to the investigation. One could consider their accusations as rich fantasy and slander of the king - however, in this case, famous writers and publicists scrupulously listed eyewitness accounts. There are also many photographs depicting the atrocities of the colonialists in the Congo.
Slave punishment. A photo from work conan Doyle "The Crime of the Congo"
africafederation.net
Eyewitnesses testified that many areas of the Congo, previously densely populated, are now deserted, the roads are overgrown with grass and shrubs. The number of victims is still disputed - according to some sources, up to half of the entire population of the Congo died. Leopold II denied everything, sponsoring expeditions of necessary witnesses, and remained untouched. The fate of some junior officers was different: already at the beginning of the 20th century, several people were tried and executed.
The tragedy of the Congo was reflected in fiction. In 1890, the future writer Joseph Conrad enlisted on a Belgian steamer bound for the Congo. In the Belgian colony, Conrad personally saw more than once Africans who died of exhaustion or were shot in the head. Conrad described the slaves seen in the Congo in the novel Heart of Darkness, published in 1899 (the same scenes are in his diary):
“I could see all the ribs and joints, protruding like knots on a rope. Each was wearing an iron collar around his neck, and they were all connected by a chain, the links of which hung between them and tinkled rhythmically.
One of the characters in the novel, Mr. Kurtz, an ivory merchant and jungle stationmaster who "decorated" her with severed heads on stakes, may have been inspired by Captain Leon Rom (and several other prototypes). Born Belgian, Rom made a quick career in the colonial administration of the Congo, then in local armed forces, rising to the rank of captain and heading an important station located at Stanley Falls. According to a number of reports, after the natives killed and ate two employees of the station, 21 severed heads of the rebels were brought to the captain's house - Rum decorated the flower bed with them.
Leon Rome
wikimedia.org
In 1908, the Congo Free State was annexed by Belgium and officially became a colony. However, peace on this earth did not come even after gaining independence in 1960: there were long decades of turbulent events ahead.
Literature:
- Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Crime of the Congo. - London, Hutchinson & Co., 1909.
- Firchow, Peter Edgerly. Envisioning Africa: Racism and Imperialism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. - Lexington, University Press of Kentucky, 2000.
- Hochschild Adam. King Leopold's Ghost. - London, Mariner Books, 1998.
- Kyunne M. Hunters for rubber. A novel about one type of raw material. - Moscow, Foreign Literature Publishing House, 1962.
- Twain Mark. Monologue of King Leopold in defense of his dominion in the Congo. Sobr. op. in 8 volumes. Volume 7. - M .: Pravda, 1980.
08.09.2014 0 11456
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is located in Central Africa. The history of this small state, lost in the depths of the African continent, began in the Paleolithic era. Until the end of the 19th century, European countries did not seriously consider these places as their potential colonies.
But when, in the 70s of the century before last, King Leopold II of Belgium paid close attention to the territory of the present-day Congo, a truly hellish life began for the natives.
From the ancient Paleolithic to the sinister Leopold
Traces of the Lower Paleolithic - stone tools - were found by archaeologists in the territory of the Congo in the upper reaches of the Kasai, Lualaba and Luapula rivers. It is believed that in ancient times this area was inhabited by pygmies. Around the 2nd millennium BC, civilization came here with the Bantu tribes. The Bantu not only mastered metallurgy, but also determined the foundations for the unification of territories, according to which modern states will begin to form in the future.
It was the Bantu on the territory of today's Congo that created the first proto-state associations. The states of the Congo, Kakongo, Matamba and Ndongo were located in the lower reaches of the Congo River (Zaire), in the center of the country the Bantu states were created by the states of Bakuba (Bushong), Bateke (Thyo) and Bolia. In the upper reaches of the Kasai, Lulua and Lomami rivers, the states of Luba, Kuba and Lunda were located.
Victims of Leopold's policy in the Congo
The state of the Congo, one of the most significant among the 10 existing proto-state associations, arose around the 14th century, at that time it included the north of Angola. The capital of the Congo was the city of Mbanza-Kongo (San Salvador), and the rulers of the state bore the title of mani-kong.
Business contacts with European countries(and mainly with Portugal) the Congolese were established even then. Most of their profits came from the slave trade. Slaves from the Congo also worked on American plantations. The first "money" among the Congolese were lunkans - this is how the local tribes called copper castings weighing 500-700 grams.
At the end of the 15th century, the first Christians appeared on the territory of the Congo, “these were the Portuguese. A similar expansion of the zone of influence of Portugal led to an uprising several decades later. The active resistance of the natives prompted the Portuguese colonists to limit their presence in this region.
The beginning of the XVIII century in the Congo is marked by the emergence of an anti-European movement, called the Antonian heresy. It is noteworthy that the leader of the rebels was a heresiarch woman with the Christian name Beatrice. She called herself Saint Anthony and preached that the Kongo was the birthplace of Jesus and all the saints, and that the Catholic clergy were deeply hostile to the Bakongo people. In early 1709, the uprising was crushed.
Truly dark times for the numerous tribes of the Congolese came at the end of the 19th century. In 1876, the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa was organized by the Belgian King Leopold II.
In fact, this organization served only as a cover for other, geopolitical actions. Deftly using the contradictions that existed at that time between countries capable of claiming the territory of the Congo, Leopold II took control of a vast territory.
Currency - severed hands
De jure, the Congo became a Belgian colony, and de facto became the patrimony of the Belgian king. Leopold II was not a noble missionary. The only thing that interested him was the maximum extraction of profit in any way. Congo, with the knowledge of the new owner of the country, was flooded with gangs of punishers led by European officers. These gangs plundered the country with impunity. No one was going to reckon with the local population: if the Europeans didn’t like something, the Congolese were killed by entire villages.
Most of the local population was forced to work on hevea plantations. The Belgians came up with a monstrous, but exclusively effective way increase in labor productivity. This "stimulus" for 10 years of its use has allowed to increase the production of rubber in the Congo by 40 times.
If a person, be it a child, a woman or an old man, did not fulfill the norm for collecting rubber, his hand was cut off. The “humanism” of this measure of influence was that failure to comply with the norms was generally punishable by execution. But the scrupulous Belgian government had every patron counting.
Punishers were required to provide the severed hand of the executed as evidence of the use of the cartridge for its intended purpose. The killers were spurred on by the prospect of receiving a reward for each victim.
Thirst for profit pushed the thugs to cunning - in the end, the executioners began to simply chop off the hands of the Congolese. It got to the point that the limbs turned into a currency, a kind of equivalent of value. The insane epidemic of chopping off human hands swept not only the Belgian punishers, but also the local population.
The inhabitants of peaceful villages, not fulfilling the norm for collecting rubber, which turned out to be too high for them, driven by animal fear, attacked other villages and chopped off the hands of their neighbors in order to pay the Belgian king a terrible tribute.
The largest amount of rubber in the Congo was mined in 1901-1903. It was during this period that the severed hands of slaves were measured in baskets. The village that did not meet the rubber collection quota had to provide the Belgian authorities with two baskets of hands. Often, in order to force local residents to work, the colonists took hostage women and children who were imprisoned during the entire rubber harvest season.
Path to Independence
In the Congo, the birth rate was rapidly falling, hunger and disease were widespread. During the reign of Leopold II in the Congo, the population of the country decreased by 10 million people. The king sold his fiefdom to the Belgian government only in 1908, shortly before his death. Leopold II did not feel remorse for the millions of maimed and killed people, because, apparently, he did not consider the Congolese as such at all.
In 1908, the former possession of the king turned into a colony of the Belgian Congo. This stage in the history of the country lasted more than 50 years. In 1959, the National Movement of the Congo, led by Patrice Lumumba, won elections to the local parliament, and on June 30, 1960, the state gained independence and became known as the Republic of the Congo. Subsequently, over the course of several decades, rulers changed in the country as a result of coup d'état, and only by the beginning of the 21st century did the political situation there more or less normalize.
The reign of the bloody Leopold is still remembered there. Evidence of his atrocities - in numerous photographs. So the Nazis subsequently acted - like the Belgian colonists, the actual atrocities were not enough for them. The Nazis also filmed everything for history.
Nikolai SYROMYATNIKOV
Everyone already knows that the EU has extended sanctions against Russia. Brussels noted that the sanctions against Crimea and Sevastopol are part of the policy of non-recognition of the annexation of the peninsula to Russia. They were supposed to be automatically extended if the situation in this matter does not change.
Apparently the EU Council fancies itself our judges. And let's see how "free", "legal" and "democratic" they are.
When they say the word genocide, we immediately remember - the genocide directed against the Slavs, gypsies, Jews during the Second World War, but not everyone knows that such a beautiful country as Belgium staged a genocide against the people of the Congo at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A terrible and nightmarish genocide that killed half the population of the country. But it would seem that Belgium "legally" received the right to govern this country, as far as it is possible to govern the country legally, if it was not the people of the country who decided it.
“What is striking in this story is the blatant hypocrisy of King Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909), who became the sole owner of the Congo, convincing the leaders of European states who agreed at the Berlin Conference (1885) to give him this country so that he would take care of the welfare of the local population, improve moral and material conditions of their life, fought against the slave trade, encouraged the work of humanitarian, Christian missions and scientific expeditions and promoted free trade in the region.
Berlin Conference 1884-1885
First of all, for these purposes, he “privatized” all the lands of the “Free State of the Congo” (more than 2 million square kilometers) into personal property and made 20 million people his own slaves, who, under the supervision of a private army, were supposed to extract rubber and ivory. For 20 years, Leopold II became one of the richest people in Europe. Rubber brought him an income of 700% of the profit.
King Leopold was known as a very effective business executive - he saved on everything: he did not build a single hospital for his slaves, who were dying from epidemics in tens of thousands, he urged not to waste bullets for executions, but to kill criminals in other ways. By the way, cannibal tribes were hired by the Belgians to control the population.
In the Congo, all “civilized” methods of mass violence were tested - concentration camps, child labor, a hostage system, chopping off hands, including children, for petty offenses (in edification to other slaves), torture, public rape of wives and daughters in front of husbands and fathers.
Punishment with chains for non-payment of taxes 1904.
Locals mutilated by soldiers
Children mutilated by Congo soldiers. 1905
Victims from rubber plantations being treated in a mission. 1908
For the slightest offense, workers were maimed and killed. As evidence of the “targeted” consumption of cartridges during punitive operations, the fighters of the “Public Forces” were required to present the severed hands of the dead. It happened that, having spent more cartridges than allowed, the punishers cut off the hands of living and innocent people. Subsequently, photographs taken by missionaries of devastated villages and maimed Africans, including women and children, were shown to the world and had a huge impact on the formation public opinion, under whose pressure in 1908 the king was forced to sell his possessions to the state of Belgium. By this time he was one of the richest people in Europe.
In the photo, a man looks at the severed arm and leg of his five-year-old daughter, who was killed by employees of the Anglo-Belgian Rubber Company as punishment for a poorly done job collecting rubber. Congo, 1900
At the beginning of the 20th century, facts of genocide began to seep into Europe and the United States. Then King Leopold ordered the destruction of all documents and archives related to his activities in the Congo. However, it was the famous writers of that time who left this tragedy in history: Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the book "Crime in the Congo", and Mark Twain wrote the pamphlet "King Leopold II's Monologue in Defense of His Rule", Joseph Conrad published the popular story "Heart of Darkness".
In Belgium, they still love their king for the fact that he built the Arc de Triomphe in Brussels, the Hippodrome and the Royal Galleries in Ostend, but the main thing is that Belgium was enriched at the expense of the Congo right up to 1960 and became, thanks to democratic traditions, the capital of the European union." - Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky wrote about this genocide.
Monument to Leopold II in Arlon (Belgium):
"I began work in the Congo in the interests of civilization and for the good of Belgium"
pater memor (Something like remember father)
On one of the monuments to Leopold II is written "I began work in the Congo in the interests of civilization and for the good of Belgium", on the other - "With gratitude from the Congolese people for the liberation from the Arab slave traders." So briefly characterizes the achievements of our "teachers" of democracy. I don't want to learn from them. I looked at the materials on the topic of this in the internet and even regretted how disgusting and disgusting it is. And these people dare to say something about Stalin! He stopped them from making us Congilesians.