[War & Business] The Atrocities of Leopold II

On the 9th (local time), the bust of Leopold II located in front of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. It was vandalized with red paint by anti-racism protesters. Brussels (Belgium) = Reuters·Yonhap News Agency

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] As the racial discrimination protests in the United States spread to Europe, the statue of 19th-century Belgian King Leopold II has unexpectedly come under attack. His statue, defaced with red paint by racial discrimination protesters, is being removed in various places. The life story of Leopold II, who deceived all of Europe in the 19th century and carried out massacres of black people in Congo, has once again drawn attention and become a target of the racial discrimination protesters.

Leopold II's atrocities were so severe that even neighboring European countries, which were also engaged in brutal colonial rule during the imperialist era of the 19th century, condemned him. At the time, Danish King Christian X openly criticized him, saying, "If Leopold II is a man, then I am Jesus." Leopold II is known to have forced over 10 million black indigenous people in the Congo colony into forced labor and massacred them. In terms of the scale of the massacre alone, he caused the deaths of more indigenous people than Nazi Germany, which killed 6.5 million Jews.

Leopold II did not openly commit such atrocities from the beginning. In 1876, he established the International Congo Association and declared that he would help establish the Congo Free State, governed autonomously by the indigenous people, to humanely assist African blacks. At the time, major powers such as France, Britain, and Germany did not think that the Belgian king, from a minor European country, harbored other intentions. Rather, they welcomed the creation of an independent state in Congo as a buffer zone to prevent clashes between Britain and France in Africa.

However, it did not take long for it to become clear that this entire plan was a blatant lie. The Congo Free State became a colony directly under the king, and his private soldiers enthusiastically established large rubber plantations in Congo and exploited the indigenous people. Indigenous people who failed to meet the rubber quotas had their arms cut off, and those who resisted had their heads cut off. In less than a decade, the population of Congo was reduced by one-third.

His atrocities were reported by African missionaries and the press from various European countries. It was also revealed that all the money he earned from the blood of the Congo indigenous people was used to build lavish buildings to flaunt royal power or to buy luxury goods for prostitutes. Leopold II instantly became a disgrace to Belgium, and at his funeral in 1909, the crowd spat on his coffin.

In fact, modern Belgian citizens lived completely unaware of Leopold II's atrocities. After his death, the Belgian government launched a historical erasure campaign called 'The Great Forgetting,' claiming that his atrocities were merely the personal deviations of the king and that the Belgian government and citizens had nothing to do with it. Only now are his atrocities beginning to be properly revealed.