I am not a superstitious person, and I’ve never been. Yet recently I’ve been reduced to thinking the Democratic Republic of the Congo is haunted by a deadly ghost; the one of voracious old King Leopold II of the Belgians. I am convinced the latest malevolent deed of that ghost has been to spit out of its fiery mouth one Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, to carry forward the malevolent task of inflicting torment upon that unfortunate land. ALSO READ: Rwanda envoy to UN: Solutions to DR Congo conflict lie in inclusive, constructive dialogue In case you didn’t know, Leopold was the notorious nineteenth century monarch of the Belgians who ran the vast territory in central Africa and extracted a personal fortune from it that made him richer than Croesus. Of all Africans that suffered the horrors of colonialism, it’s safe to say none came close to what the people of today’s Democratic Republic of Congo endured. Leopold’s two-decade personal rule of the vast territory (before he ceded it to the Belgian state) amounted to a crime against humanity that actually was worse than what Hitler and his Nazis would perpetrate during the holocaust of the Jews. The wording I’ve borrowed for this article is one that was made famous by Adam Hochschild for the title for his 1998 book, King Leopold’s Ghost – a tour de force of research, reporting, and prose. If you aren’t versed in the history of Belgian depredations in its prize colony, do yourself a favor and get this book to get a true idea of the crimes against humanity old Leopold perpetrated. It outlines the origins of Leopold’s preternatural greed in acquiring an African property the size of what today is known as Western Europe (and all the resources in it), and the tricks he employed to realize that ambition. ALSO READ: Rwanda to France: DR Congo crisis can be over if ‘real issues’ are addressed To cut a long story short, the Belgian monarch sometime in 1886, acquired the services of Welshman turned American Henry Morton Stanley (née John Rowlands Bastard – yes, that’s what was on his birth certificate because no one knew who his father was) as his agent, to travel into the African interior. Stanley’s task was to map out the place, write his observations, and report back to Leopold. To cut an even longer story short, Stanley, traveled to Central Africa, in the guise of a newspaperman – he already was widely celebrated as a journalist in the West for having searched for and found ailing missionary David Livingstone “in darkest Africa” – to undertake the mission. Stanley, a brutal man whose tactics included summarily executing any of his African porters that became too sick, or too exhausted during marches through forests, swamps, river rapids and other natural obstacles, duly delivered on his commission. He handed his cartographies, as well as extensive journals of his findings, describing a veritable Eldorado of natural wealth, to a delighted Leopold. The latter, armed with knowledge that no one else had, would hoodwink fellow European rulers into ceding the huge territory – the celebrated Stanley as his advocate – as a “Congo Free State”. The benevolent-sounding monarchy sold his intentions as a “humanitarian”, “civilizing” mission”. ALSO READ: It is not too late for DR Congo to choose peace The Belgian scored his success during what became infamously known as the Scramble for Africa – venue, Berlin, capital of the German Empire; date, 1884-85 – when European overlords were carving up Africa for themselves. One of the touching attributes of those overlords was how strenuously they promoted high-sounding ideals – “bringing Christianity and Civilization to the savages” – as the reasons for dividing Africa into individual spheres of influence when, in reality, their minds were delirious with images of mountains of gold, all sorts of other precious metals, as well as ivory, and more natural resources of “the dark continent”. After Leopold conned his contemporaries with earnest talk of philanthropic, humanitarian intentions for his Congo Free State, he was in a unique position. The gaunt, imposing king of the Belgians probably is the only man in history to run a colony as an individually owned property, with all the proceeds of the exploitation going into his personal purse. And what a brutal way he went about looting and plundering the Congo! His agents fanned out, in key areas known to be rich with ivory and with rubber. Native males were abducted, at gunpoint, and hustled off on elephant hunting expeditions, to harvest ivory – hard, dangerous arduous work that involved numerous encounters with enraged, massive, dangerous beasts, leading them into traps, killing them, and hacking away in their skulls to remove the tusks. Elephants killed many a villager, trampling them to death, goring them with their tusks, stomping them, but the Belgian slave drivers cared very little. Ivory was precious, and the life of an African native valued nothing. But if hunting ivory was bad, it was nothing compared to what was involved in the collection of rubber. Leopold’s agents would round up entire villages, separate the men from their families, after which each was given a quota of rubber to collect. Failure was met with inhuman punishments. A man that failed to collect their full quota was stretched on a wooden rack, and a slave driver savagely beat them with a hippo-hide whip on the back and buttocks, leaving the quivering, screaming man a bloody mess. As time went by, the Belgians cranked up the terror levels, devising the penalty of amputating hands for any whose rubber collection they deemed insufficient. As for any man that dared escape, well, their family – wife and children – already were held hostage. Rape was in store for their wife. Amputation of limbs was in store for the children. The natives probably were lucky in that there wasn’t yet great demand in those times of metals like copper, cobalt, tungsten and others. One shudders to think what malevolent acts Leopold’s agents would’ve devised to extract those. Today in history books one will come upon photographs of grisly exhibitions of amputated hands, or of forlorn-looking villagers sitting around with stumps for arms. Desperate natives worked themselves to death. Starvation took a terrible toll, with every able-bodied villager being conscripted into collecting rubber or ivory, and no one left to grow crops. Terror and death, prodigious amounts of death, were the price the Africans of the Congo Free State paid to satisfy their monarch’s unquenchable thirst for wealth. Some estimate the number of Congolese dead at twelve million. By the time Leopold relinquished control of the territory, the native populations had sustained a massive, collective trauma that was never cured. The Congo gained independence in 1960, and before long societies of the newly self-governing country were engulfed in riots. The Katangese wanted a separate country. Ditto the Kasaians. Big men of the new republic, most notably Mobutu Sese Seko, were already selling out their countrymen, as agents and puppets of the erstwhile colonial masters. The popular Lumumba was murdered, the victim of machinations involving the Belgians, the CIA, and locals like Mobutu. There were further riots, burning of city neighborhoods, and fighting. The erstwhile colonialists then organized a coup, to put their man Mobutu in power, Remember all this every time you see headlines, such as the recent one in The Economist – an imperialist apologist mouthpiece of a magazine if ever there was one – blaming Rwanda for DR Congo’s problems! Remember this history every time busy-body organs like Human Rights Watch and similar publish their hit pieces, blaming violent Congolese convulsions on Rwanda. Congolese regimes yell at the top of their voices that “ba Rwandais” are responsible for their issues. When they victimize ethnicities – such as the Tutsi, Rwandophone communities – of their country (whom Stanley never asked if they wanted to become part of Leopold’s property!) they yell about Rwanda. But the root cause of problems is the Congolese themselves and their governments. They’ve never taken time to address the ghosts of their colonial past. They will continue to be the losers of history if instead they prefer to keep externalizing their problems, rather than take ownership for their own issues.
