Colonial forays

Belgium’s history with what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of brutality and exploitation. In 1885, Leopold II, King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, became the sole owner of what was then called the Congo Free State. The story of how one of Africa’s largest countries, roughly the size of Western Europe, became privately owned – that is, not owned by the Belgian state but by its people’s king – is one of complex deceit, subterfuge, greed and mania. Leopold was responsible for the killing and mutilation of millions of people – some estimate up to ten million – in Central Africa. Animals were victims too. ‘At the start of the nineteenth century there were up to twenty-six million elephants in Africa. That number currently sits between four and five hundred thousand.’ In nine years, the tusks of 94,000 elephants were shipped into Antwerp alone. Eventually, forced to relinquish to Belgium his so-called Congo Free State, Leopold destroyed all incriminating documents, writing to an aide, ‘I will give them my Congo, but they have no right to know what I did there.’ The Palace furnaces were said to burn for eight days.