by Tony Hemrix

History is cruel, and its darkest pages are often ignored. Yet some truths, as unbearable as they may be, deserve to be remembered. They should not only haunt history books but also be engraved in collective consciousness.

At the turn of the 20th century, under the rule of King Leopold II, the Congo was a vast open-air prison, a human slaughterhouse where blood lubricated the colonial economy. This was not a colony in the traditional sense. No, it was far worse: a private estate, a domain owned by a single man—a greedy and insatiable monarch who proclaimed himself the absolute ruler of a territory 76 times the size of his own country.

Nsala, a devastated Congolese man, sits with a vacant stare. Before him, a hand and a foot rest on a mat. They belonged to his daughter, Boali. The child failed to meet the rubber quota imposed by the so-called Independent State of the Congo (EIC). As punishment, she was mutilated, murdered, and, in a final act of horror, devoured by soldiers in the service of the Belgian king.

These executioners, often cannibal mercenaries, were employed to terrorize the population. Their mission was simple: collect vast amounts of rubber and eliminate anyone who resisted. But to prove they had carried out their grim task, they had to bring back a severed hand for each person killed.

Very quickly, this monstrosity turned into a parallel economy: severed hands became currency. When rubber harvests were insufficient, hands took their place. The horror escalated, and the massacre became industrialized.

A Genocide That Took 10 Million Lives

Leopold II, portrayed as an enlightened monarch in Europe, was, in reality, one of the greatest criminals in modern history. Under his rule, over 10 million Congolese were exterminated. Enslavement, mutilations, mass executions, entire villages burned to the ground—the Congo became nothing more than a vast, open-air cemetery.

In plantations and mines, Congolese men, women, and children were treated like beasts of burden. The rubber quotas were inhuman, and punishments were merciless. The worst atrocities were committed under the complicit gaze of European officers, sometimes photographed beside baskets filled with severed hands, the grim symbol of a state that had nothing “independent” about it.

The Cover-Up of a Crime Against Humanity

Even today, Europe evades this memory. In Brussels, statues of Leopold II still stand proudly, and few truly understand the full extent of his crimes. Yet the face of the Belgian king is one of shame. His reign was built on blood. His enormous fortune, amassed through the trade of red rubber, rests on the corpses of millions of Congolese.

And yet—where is the official recognition of this genocide? Where is Belgium’s apology? Where is justice for the victims and their descendants?

History cannot be erased, and the world must stop looking away.

Remembering to Never Repeat

Silence is the accomplice of crime. It is imperative that this tragedy be taught, that this history be engraved in our memories, and that justice finally be served.

Leopold II was not a benefactor. He was not a builder. He was an executioner.

An executioner whose name should be synonymous with horror, not with the grandeur of Belgian history.

Today, it is time to honor the victims of red rubber and acknowledge that this was not just a colonial episode but a crime against humanity.

Because forgetting is the executioner’s final victory.

Source: le vif