FORGOTTEN GENOCIDE, WORSE THAN HITLER

by Simeon Nkola Matamba ( Follow on Twitter )

                               King Leopold II of Belgium (1835-1909)



The Twentieth Century is known to be one of the most tense periods in modern history. Starting with the First World War, nations would engage in a larger and deadlier conflict, the Second World War. One of the headlines of the Second World War is the Holocaust, a genocide in which 6,000,000 jews died. Down through the century, conflicts and wars characterised human existence, untill the rwandan genocide in 1994. The duty to study history makes us ensure we remember those two genocides, in which lives came to a brutal end. Nevertheless, another tragedy remains overlooked. A tragedy whose horror is more terrifying than the mentioned twos. The forgotten genocide took place in the "Congo Free State" (1885-1908), orchestrated by worse than Hitler. Leopold II, king of Belgium, owns the record Hitler was not able to break. The Congo Free State genocide in which our fathers died, is a nonevent for many. A forgotten genocide, a forgotten story.

Leopold II, uncomfortable in his tiny domain, would convince the international community to let him occupy the country now known as "Democratic Republic Of The Congo". The intent was to bring development and spread civilization in faraway lands of Africa. European nations in deep naivety let him get his "slice of the african cake", as the need to free Africa from Middle Ages was compulsory. Leopold II inherited the land, eighty times as big as the tiny belgian kingdom. Leopold II owned the whole territory of DRC as a private property, forcing natives to work to exhaustion, in collecting rubber and ivory in the jungle. Brutal mistreatment of natives followed. When quotas of rubber were not reached, relatives of men working in the biggest Gulag camp, worse than Stalin's, had hands chopped off.

Resorting to murder, starvation, exhaustion, exposure, disease against local people, Leopold II brought masses into subjection. The death toll is believed to number up to at least 10,000,000. That is more than the shoah and the rwandan genocide combined. The tragedy inspired Joseph Conrad to write "Heart Of Darkness", describing the nightmarish condition in  which worse than Hitler had put millions. Others like Arthur Conan Doyle also raised voices to denounce atrocities commited by Leopold II, in the land ironically named Congo Free State. Doyle had to mention in his book The Crime Of The Congo what follows :"Finally Mr. Murphy says: "The rubber question is accountable for most of the horrors perpetrated in the Congo. It has reduced the people to a state of utter despair. Each town in the district is forced to bring a certain quantity to the headquarters of the Commissary every Sunday. It is collected by force; the soldiers drive the people into the bush, if they will not go they are shot down, their left hands being cut off and taken as trophies to the Commissary. The soldiers do not care whom they shoot down, and they most often shoot poor helpless women and harmless children. These hands -- the hands of men, women and children -- are placed in rows before the Commissary, who counts them to see the soldiers have not wasted the cartridges. The Commissary is paid a commission of about a penny per pound upon all the rubber he gets; it is, therefore, to his interest to get as much as he can." "

The Congo Reform Association and many others, came to realize that the humanitarian and philanthropic mission of Leopold II consisted of creating an industry of death in the heart of Africa. Human rights violations were denounced, and when Leopold II passed away, the Congo Free State fell under the control of Belgium. Fifty-two years had yet to pass before congolese snatched their independence. That period is not among the most glorious times of our history. Even though Leopold II was no more, the same colonial objective was being pursued by his successor, denying and violating human rights. Campaigners of civilization behaved savagely, showing a retarded behavior that natives met only in the jungle where there is no law.

No one hears about this genocide. There is no Yad Vashem to honor the memory of our victims. There is no international concern to remember that tragedy like in other cases. There is injustice in writing history. That is why we decide to take our pens to write. We decide to tell our stories. Passed are the times the gospel of news was delivered by the only ordained and consecrated medias. Passed are the times we all had to gather around the table to listen to a news bulletin. Comes the time we are all capable of bringing crowds to awareness of hidden realities that happened, that are about to happen in our lands. Comes the time we don't care about mainstream medias, whose role is nothing but excelling in manipulating and subjugating masses, forcing millions around the globe to swallow dirty matters of propaganda. Comes the time the memory of Leopold II victims has to be remembered, by all who have a sense of humanity in the current decaying condition of the world.