Rubber Massacres : Beto Febole Yiwo -"Rubber is death"
Rubber Massacres :
Beto Febole Yiwo -"Rubber is death"
The Europeans only controlled 10% of Africa in 1870 which increased to almost 90 percent by 1914 during which the European powers participated in the partition of Africa in which they divided Africa among themselves like a commodity and then exploited Africa. King Leopold II of Belgium wanted to set up colonies in Africa. Still, the Belgian government was against it, so with the help of other European powers in the Berlin conference in 1884 in return for a free trade region King Leopold was given the Congo Basin region as a private colony.
Without the agreement of the natives, their freedom and their land were snatched away from them. The land of over 200 native tribes became King Leopold's private property as per the decision of the Western powers.
In the following years, European powers exploited Africa, but the massacres, mutilation, and violation of the native Congo tribes done under King Leopold II were inhumane and catastrophic The effects are still visible to this day but still it has been forgotten to the west dominated world we live today
Establishment of the Congo free state
The European powers held a conference in Berlin to solve internal conflicts on the colonial disputes over Africa. King Leopold II saw this as an opportunity as he wanted to set up colonies in Africa but the Belgian Government showed little interest in the matter. At the Berlin conference, King Leopold II was successful in convincing the Western powers to grant him the ownership of the Congo Basin region in return for protecting and allowing free trade in the region where the Western powers could assemble and trade freely and use the region as a trade zone among themselves.
King Leopold II created the International African Association which later became the International Association of Congo which was a private non-governmental philanthropic organization whose goal was bringing humanitarian assistance and civilization to the natives of the region which has been the motto of every organization or nation sets to colonize a region however they always end up destroying and exploiting the region they colonize.
And yes the Congo Free State became a humanitarian disaster. The lack of accurate records makes it difficult to quantify the number of deaths caused by the ruthless exploitation and the lack of immunity to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists. It is impossible to know the population of the Congo Free State before Colonization and figures like 20 million are just speculations as the Congo wasn't fully discovered before and the number of losses is still disputed .
Leopold created the Force Publique a private army that terrorized natives to work as forced labour to extract resources mostly rubber which was traded with private companies Like the Duncan Tire Company which still exists, the natives never got the benefits or profits of the trade instead the Force Publique disrupted local societies and killed and abused natives.
All the vacant land, forests, and areas not under cultivation were said to be unhabitable and companies were given concessions. The king and the companies then started economic exploitation of the Congolese interior. The King made 70 million Belgian Francs' profit from the system between 1896 and 1905
Atrocities
King Leopold II carried out multiple massacres in the Congo region to force the natives to do unpaid labor for him and the private companies. First, it was just ivory exports but in 1887 John Boyd Dunlop redeveloped the tire which boosted the demand for rubber in the west. Leopold took this as an opportunity as there were huge reserves of natural rubber in the Congo region. The natives were tasked to extract rubber from vines as a form of taxation this system is called the red rubber system.
Failure to meet the rubber quota would be punishable by death. Protesters who protested against it were beaten with whips or killed. Tribal nobles, men, women, and even children all were killed indiscriminately if they failed to meet the quota.
The red rubber system resulted in a total economic decline in the Congo as there was a decline in agriculture. The Congolese society was turned into a slave society. The companies that had bought the concessions from the colony also were free to carry out their own operations and do so as they pleased to increase production to meet the high demand.
The natural resources were exploited to such an extent that it became virtually impossible for the natives to meet the demands. Women and children were arrested and sexually violated until the quotas were met. Soldiers made young men kill or rape their own mothers and sisters.
The soldiers who hunted the protesters and killed the people who failed to meet the quotas were required to show proof that they used their bullet and it wasn't wasted, by cutting off the hands of the people they killed. When failed to keep track of the bullets the soldiers had to cut the hands of living natives as they feared the harsh punishments for wasting precious bullets given to them.
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One junior officer described a raid to punish a village that had protested. The officer in command "ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross".
The hand became a sort of currency among the soldiers and the officials. Baskets filled with hands were put at the feet of the officials as a soldier could shorten his service term by bringing more hands than the other soldiers. Soldiers started widespread mutilations after this village were raided and their hands were cut off. There were cases where soldiers cut off the hands of villagers thinking they were dead but they were alive.
Punishments were uneven as there was a lack of bureaucracy in the region. Sometimes a complete village would be decimated if they failed to meet the demands or protested. Survivors said they survived by acting dead the whole time even when their hands were getting severed and getting help after the soldiers and the officers had left.
Children were sent into child colonies which were established to transform orphans and the kidnapped children into the workforce and soldiers. Children in these colonies were sent to schools controlled by the Christian missionaries and these were the only schools that were sanctioned. 50% of the students died in the schools due to diseases.
The death rate estimated during this time varies from 3 million to 13 million with some estimates even stating 20 million lost souls during the colonization
Investigation and promised justice
The Congo Free State was now renamed as Belgian Congo. The socialists and radicals at that time were against the annexation of the Congo by the Belgian parliament but people believed Belgium should take control of the colony and play a humanitarian role to improve the conditions in Congo.
When the Belgian government took over the administration in 1908, the situation in the Congo improved in certain respects. The brutal exploitation and arbitrary use of violence, in which some of the concessionary companies had excelled, were curbed.
The Red Rubber system was stopped. Belgian colonial Carter brought in the law that stated: "Nobody can be forced to work on behalf of and for the profit of companies or privates", but this was not enforced, and the Belgian government continued to impose forced labor on the natives. There was a transition of the Congo free state to Belgian Congo but the old administration which was under King Leopold's regime was still in control. Public order in the colony was still maintained by the Force Publique which was now under Belgian command. The Belgian state awarded King Leopold 50 million Franks as a mark of gratitude for his great sacrifices made for the Congo.
There was no political freedom whatsoever. the Congolese were still under the direct control of the Belgian parliament. There was racial discrimination and implicit apartheid. There were curfews on The Congolese people in their own land. The black population in the cities could not leave their houses from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. Locals were treated as second-class citizens.
It was after World War 2 the locals began rising up and started protesting and asking for Independence and human rights. It was in 1960 that the Democratic Republic of Congo was established and Patrice Lumumba was elected by the native people as the first Prime minister. But shortly after he was unseated in a US and Belgium-backed coup and was executed.
The following twenty years the Congolese had to go through dictatorship that would further degrade the condition of the country and its people.
To this day people of the Democratic Republic of Congo didn't get the justice and reparations they deserved. There are still statues and monuments of King Leopold throughout Belgium which were built on the foundations of inhumane cruelty. It was June 8 2022 Belgian King Philippe expressed his regrets for the exploitation, violence, and racism during the colonization of the Congo Free State, now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), after years of denials and excuses by Belgian authorities.
Colonialism destroys every country that has to go through it. Initially backed by civilizing and humanitarian acts by the West, the Western countries have always ravaged and exploited the colonies they made on foreign lands whose impacts still live on even after the colonizers leave, even after decades of decolonization.
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