Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
By: Mweusi Karake
White mercenary army- Black press-gungs
In my last article, I showed you pictures of children whose hands were cut off because their families produced less rubber than the quota assigned. To enforce such a brutal slavery, King Leopold II, could not just rely on the Belgian army. King Leopold was therefore, forced to hire mercenaries from different European countries to defend his interests. These were organized into a private army, known as “laForce Publique”, which numbered up to 19,000 men. All the officers were white, while all the rank-and-file soldiers were black men who had been forcibly enlisted into thearmy and forced to serve in the Force Publique for a minimum of seven years. Recruits were sometimes bought from tribal leaders, although often they were simply kidnapped.
So a number of native chiefs instead of mobilizing their people to fight the oppressors, they instead took the “mice’’ safe zone, and worse than the mice in the fable, they collaborated. As for the native forced conscripted soldiers, for them it was certainly better to be a soldier than a slave. To ensure efficiency, the black soldiers were deployed away from their chiefdom of origin, the Force Publiquewas therefore, created to enforce the labour policies. Individual workers who refused to participate in rubber collection would have their limbs chopped off or even killed and there were cases when entire villages were erased.
As more and more demand for rubber became rampant, King Leopold realized that he could not harvest the Congo rubber alone. So he hired part of the land to private companies. La Force Publique acted simultaneously as an army of occupation and as a police force which served the interests of the trading companies. The Force had to deal with several resistances, which were put down with horrifying savagery. In practice, the Free State of the Congo was an enormous concentration camp.
Between 1891 and 1906, the companies were allowed to do whatever they wished with no judicial interference, the result being that forced labour and violent coercion were used to collect the rubber cheaply and maximize profit.
Originally the rubber was carried by the slaves to the port for export. This had its own cost. There is a limit to how much weight of problems a man can carry. No matter the whipping, and other forms of punishment, if a man was too ill or too hungry , he cannot be pushed further. So a number of slaves died. During the 1890s, and thanks to the brutal use of slaves, a more reliable transport network was built up, thus making it possible to export even more of the Congo’s natural resources. The construction of these infrastructures, all created exclusively for personal interests, resulted in the deaths of many workers of all ages. Their working days were long and hard, and required an enormous amount of physical effort.
The cruelty of King Leopold and Belgium is summed up in the following statement, “to make up for the low production, troops began to use hands as currency – chopping them was a way of punishing workers who did not fulfill their quotas, and, at the same time, served to show that soldiers were doing their part in exerting pressure over the local population to ensure the fulfillment of these quota Leopold II and his functionaries” ( www.gazetadopovo.com).Soldiers literary had to deliver hand count, to prove how many people’s hands had been chopped off.
King Leopold’s thugs could not be “belled”
As indicated, some Congolese slaves tried to resist. Resistance and counter attack are totally different attitudes. There was no armed rebellions of any kind. No attempt to create guerrilla force. Guerilla rebellions have worked for centuries and the vast forest would have been a good terrain for Guerilla warfare. But the Whiteman had just arrived with guns and the Congolese peasant saw him as invisible. Lack of gun powder or leadership or both might have played a role for half the entire population to die and not put up a fight.
But the Belgians feared that small rebellions could develop into wider uprising, and so Belgium found a brutal solution to quell these small unrests lest they become real self-liberation forces, andCongolese ForcePublique soldiers were obliged to prove that they were not wasting costly ammunition by providing every cut hand of any native rebel they killed as proof of efficiency.
Estimates assert that the population of Congo was decreased by 50 % during this time. Surely if there was an organized fight, it is doubtful whether King Leopold’s mercenaries would have whipped out the entire Congolese population.
Leopold Compensated instead of being punished!!
After 10 years of personal ownership of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II and his genocidal activities, no more hidden to the so called developed world, Leopold was forced to relinquish the property. No indictment in any court of law for him or his mercenaries. Unlike NAZI Germany, Belgium was not bombed and Congo Free State was transferred to the Belgian government!
Thus, the Belgian Congo was born, now formally a state colony, still the colonial administration continued to wield control over the native population. Violence and terrorism remained the means adopted to impose the will of the Belgian colonialist and the trading agents over the African people; which would only become independent onthe 30th June 1960.
The transition was not cheap: despite the accusations, Leopold only relinquished his control after a financial compensation of 215 million Belgian francs, approximately more than 2.3 billion US dollars in present-day currency. The King got rich, but left a legacy of poverty in Africa. The Largest and resource wealthiest country remains very poor until today. Congolese resources continued to be used to develop Belgium, but very little to show for Congo’s development. Indeed by independence, Belgium Congo had only 10 University graduates. And the country ranked as the 176th out of 189 in the United Nations’ Human development index; Thanks to post-colonial leaders such as Mobutu Sese Seko, who were equally megalomaniac and kleptomaniac who like King Leopold II, ran Congo, which he named Zaire, like a personal property.
The psychology of the oppressed:
I have ever watched in real life when a cat is about to kill a mouse. After a long chess, the mouse reaches a point where it surrenders. Shivering with fear, it is no more able to run. We all know cats as beautiful domestic pets, but watching the final assault on a mouse, you realize that a cat can be very sadistic. The rats actually ends up dying from intense fear than the cat’s attacks, it is then that the cats picks its prey! Whether a mouse or a human being, the biggest blow to the oppressed is when you finally come to believe that “there is nothing I can do about my situation”, and leave your fate in the hands of the oppressor.
Western arrogance and hypocrisies:
Despite Belgium unparalleled atrocities in the Congo, after the First World War, and the defeat of German, Belgium was rewarded with two former German colonies, Rwanda and Burundi by the League of Nations, a predecessor to United Nations. Like the Democratic Republic of Congo, the two countries today still suffer from the hangover of Belgium colonialism. And so while Nazi Germany was heavily punished, an equally “Nazi” Belgium was rewarded simply because “black lives don’t matter”. Belgium today is the proud headquarter of the European Union.
Every year German pays hundreds of millions to holocaust survivors. Polish have demanded and received compensation from German. Yet not even one case of reparation has been awarded, by Belgium to the Congolese.Fight for your rights:
So whether it is a cat chasing a rat or colonizers oppressing the native, a slave owner, it is only the oppressed who frees himself. Sympathizers may come to your aid, but will come when you have started your own struggle.
Take for example, the Haitian Revolution against the French; that began as a slave revolt as far back as 1791, and ended with the founding of an independent state. Revolts over revolts that went on until 1903. One hundred and twelve years ( 112) of not giving up!Talk of belling the cat. News of the first successful rebellion, the only slave uprising in history to end with the foundation of a new country; went on to inspire countless other revolts throughout the United States and the Caribbean.
Here in Africa: We have examples of the Algerian War of Independence, fought between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front(Front de Libération Nationale – FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France.
South African Africa Nation Congress (ANC), was formed in 1890, and only fully liberated South Africa in 1984! Once again we are talking about more than 100 years.
So don’t ask “who will bell the cat”. Ask “how can we, together bellthe cat” to achieve Africa’s economic liberation.
Mweusi Karake is a veteran journalist and former head of Public Relations/Corporate Communication at the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).
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