Ind: Belgium confronts its heart of darkness

Belgium confronts its heart of darkness

King Leopold was hailed as a hero for 'civilising' the Congo. Now a
remarkable exhibition in Brussels tells the forgotten history of a brutal
exploitation that killed millions and shamed a nation
By Michela Wrong

The Independent
23 February 2005


In the sprawling palace of Tervuren, in a leafy suburb of Brussels, Leopold,
King of the Belgians has finally been dethroned. A daunting statue of the
hook-nosed monarch has been heaved from centre stage in the royal museum
that was his brainchild and built with the proceeds of his African
adventure.

The avatar of the former national hero now skulks in a distant corner; in
his place are a series of antique black and white photographs of mutilated
bodies in turn-of-the-previous-century Congo. One of the stark and
disturbing images shows a father from the Nsala tribe contemplating the
chopped-off hand and foot of his daughter in front of him. The sepia-tinted
horror show is part of "Memory of Congo, The Colonial Era" a remarkable
exhibition that has set off a critical re-examination of Belgium's grisly
record in its only colonial possession.

As the decades roll by and the surviving archives are dusted off and opened
up, the European powers that colonised Africa in the 19th century's
undignified scramble for land are becoming accustomed to an unpleasant,
prickly emotion: shame. Whatever our own Gordon Brown may have said during
his recent trip to the continent, the time for apologising for colonialism's
errors is by no means past. On the contrary, humble pie is more firmly on
the menu now.

From the horrific tactics used by the British to put down Mau Mau in Kenya
in the 1950s to the racist laws the Italians applied with such gusto in the
Horn of Africa in the 1930s, more damning evidence is surfacing of
systematic white misbehaviour in former Western colonies. But no colonial
master has more to apologise for, or has proved more reluctant to
acknowledge and accept its guilt, than Belgium.

On the roll-call of Africa's colonial and post-independence abusers, it
undoubtedly holds unenviable pride of place. And the fractured, despairing
state of the Democratic Republic of Congo today, a ragged hole at the heart
of Africa, plagued by civil war, destitution and disease, can be traced back
to that uniquely damaging misadministration. Little wonder, then, that when
Congo's present leadership recently took the quixotic step of placing King
Leopold's statue back on its plinth on the capital Kinshasa's main
thoroughfare, it stayed up for less than a day before the authorities
thought better of it. If modern-day Belgians have conveniently forgotten the
past, the Congolese, who toppled all Belgian statues in the 1970s on a nod
from dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, certainly have not.

The extraordinary brutality of the Belgian era owed a lot to the colony's
unique status. Most other African colonies were appropriated by governments,
regarded as national responsibilities. This vast land mass in central
Africa, 80 times the size of Belgium itself, became the personal possession
of King Leopold ll in 1885. With personal ownership comes a sense of total
impunity.

While waiting to inherit the throne of tiny Belgium, Leopold had taken note
of how Britain, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands had built their national
wealth on foreign territories. He became obsessed with finding his own, an
acquisition that would, he believed, turn "a small country with small
horizons" into a world power commanding respect. "No country has had a great
history without colonies," he wrote. "A complete country cannot exist
without overseas possessions."

He looked for openings in Fiji, Sarawak and the Philippines, before a golden
opportunity presented itself in the form of the American explorer, Henry
Stanley, who in 1877 had braved malaria, typhoid, whirlpools and cannibals
to trace the course of the river snaking around the Congo basin.

Leopold recruited Stanley, known as "Breaker of Rocks", as his agent and
soon the explorer was establishing trading stations along the river, signing
treaties with chiefs who little understood they were giving away their
rights, land, and natural resources.

The King was extraordinarily successful in keeping the details of his pet
project a secret, bribing foreign journalists and politicians to write
glowing accounts and systematically destroying sensitive paperwork. In many
ways, that culture of obsessive secrecy has reached out from the past to
suck in the modern era, making a form of national whitewash possible.

Leopold famously said when he was forced to hand over the Congo Free State
to the Belgian nation: "I will give them my Congo but they have no right to
know what I have done there," and proceeded to burn archives.

Congo's appropriation was presented to the world as a philanthropic act, a
distorted version of the facts which the Royal Museum for Central Africa in
Tervuren has faithfully disseminated well into the 21st century, despite a
torrent of increasingly sarcastic remarks by modern historians.

In theory, Leopold was simultaneously wiping out the area's vibrant slave
trade and spreading Christian civilisation. In fact, the monarch many
Belgians still regard as a national hero had his eyes firmly fixed on
Congo's ivory, timber, gum and copal. As the motorcar became popular in the
civilised world, Leopold's attention turned to rubber, which grows wild in
the Congo and was needed to feed the world's growing tyre industry. The
entire colony became a vast rubber-tapping enterprise, with villagers set
cripplingly high production quotas by their Belgian superiors.

If they failed to meet the targets, the Force Publique - essentially a
mercenary army recruited in West Africa - would be sent in to slaughter the
men, burn huts and rape women. These soldiers cut off the hands of their
victims, whether dead or alive, as proof for their Belgian masters that
their bullets had not gone to waste. If, today, we associate amputated hands
as atrocities peculiar to Sierra Leone and Mozambique's rebel movements, it
was a white-led force that introduced the practice to the Congo.

One Congolese historian, Professor Ndaywel e Nziem, has estimated the death
toll during that era at a staggering 13 million. While that figure seems
impossibly high, there is little doubt that vast areas of Congo were left
depopulated. The proceeds of Leopold's looting funded many of the grandiose
monuments that grace Belgium today: the Royal Palace at Laeken, Brussels'
Cinquantanaire arch, Ostend's seaside arcade and golf course were all paid
for with Congolese blood and sweat.

The brutality of the Leopold era, which prompted Joseph Conrad to write
Heart of Darkness, was eventually exposed thanks to the efforts of British
journalist Edmund Morel and the homosexual diplomat Roger Casement, who got
the information they needed to create a scandal from missionaries working in
the Congo.

In 1908, faced with growing controversy over the brutalities, the ageing
Leopold was forced to reluctantly hand his prized possession - a territory
he had never bothered to personally set foot in - over to the Belgian
government. But Belgium's exploitation did not end with Leopold's rule, it
merely entered a new chapter. The energetic extraction of copper and cobalt
in the southern Katanga province replaced the ruthless extraction of rubber
as Congo's main raison d'etre.

Belgian officials were known for their enthusiastic use of the chicotte, a
murderous whip made of plaited hippopotamus hide, and although the Belgian
government undoubtedly invested in Congo's infrastructure, it also kept the
country in a deliberately infantilised state. The primitive Congolese needed
to "evolve" before they could be trusted with their own destiny, white
officials believed.

When Brussels, taken by surprise by the nationalist fervour sweeping Africa,
reluctantly granted independence in 1960, the country had only 17 university
graduates and was clearly unprepared for self-rule.

Some of Leopold's regal arrogance undoubtedly communicated itself to his
successors in the Belgian government, who did not see why Congolese
independence should mean the loss of precious mineral resources. In a brazen
bid to perpetuate colonial rule by other means, Belgium encouraged Katangese
leader Moise Tshombe to secede, pulling the carpet from under the feet of
Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first elected prime minister.

The behind-the-scenes role subsequently played by Belgian officials in
Tshombe's torture and assassination of the charismatic Lumumba was exposed
to withering public light in 2001 by Ludo de Witte, author of The
Assassination of Lumumba.

Lumumba, still seen by many Congolese as the great nationalist leader they
never had, was beaten relentlessly, shot along with two aides and his body
then dissolved in acid, to ensure it was never found.

After publication of de Witte's book's and an official inquiry, a Belgian
parliamentary commission concluded that the country bore "moral
responsibility" for Lumumba's killing. Belgium's Foreign Minister formally
apologised to the Congolese people and Lumumba's family for his country's
"apathy" and "indifference".

For many Congolese, who see their own history as one long series of cynical
manipulations by outside powers with designs on their nation's extraordinary
natural resources, that apology marked something of a symbolic turning
point. But there are still plenty of retired Belgian administrators and
right-wing historians working and writing in Belgium today who believe their
country did a fine job in Congo and deserves to be congratulated rather than
vilified.

The fact that the most popular recent book written on King Leopold's
depredations, Adam Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost, was the work of an
American outsider rather than a Belgian speaks volumes about the deliberate
amnesia Belgium developed on the actions of its beloved king.

Marc Reynebeau, who has written a political history of Belgium, is among
those to highlight the national importance of the horrors on show at the
controversial royal museum. "Belgian colonisation of Congo is seen as horror
and violence," the author said. "The pictures of children with chopped-off
hands are the ultimate symbols. It took Belgium a century to recognise that
past. The exhibit 'Memory of Congo' is the first impetus for change, the
first time Tervuren recognises the horror. But the real work has yet to
start."

Although the museum in Tervuren may be belatedly changing, it seems likely
to be a long time yet before Belgians look at statues of Leopold ll -
instantly recognisable with his indomitable hooked nose and spade-shaped
beard - with anything other than respect.

Michela Wrong is the author of 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the
Brink of Disaster in the Congo', published by Fourth Estate. Her second
book, 'I didn't do it for you: How the world betrayed a small African
nation' has just been published
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