War rages on in the Congo as the Rwandan backed M23 group fights through the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo(DRC), but where did it all start? And what does Belgian have to do with it?

The Scramble for Africa and the Congo ‘Free’ State

In 1885, 14 countries met in Berlin to divide Africa into colonies under the pretence of civilising its people. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Russia, the Ottomans, Denmark, Sweden-Norway, the USA, the Netherlands and King Leopold II. Leopold was the King of Belgium but didn’t hold any actual powers in Belgium, only ceremonial ones like King Charles III today. He went to Berlin not to represent Belgium but himself. He promised to liberate the region around the Congo River Basin; doing humanitarian and philanthropic work and not taxing trade of its lucrative rubber reserves. He would rule over his new possession as a separate kingdom from Belgium in an arrangement known as a personal union(one King rules over two kingdoms) and so had absolute control over the land. Liberation was not in mind.

The African holocaust, in 1885

As many as ten million Congolese murdered in what could be the biggest genocide in human history. Leopold used the entire Congo as his own private rubber farm with absolute rule and zero regard for the population who were enslaved en masse. Leopold’s colonial army known as the ‘Force Publique‘ would force locals from villages into slavery as a form of taxation. These slaves were used by private companies who would rent out the land to rule over with virtually no restrictions in order to harvest natural resources like rubber to sell to European markets. If someone refused to work or be enslaved, they would be beaten and whipped and have people they knew taken hostage to encourage them to meet harsh quotas. If a village refused it would be burned down, a certain group of the Force was even known for cannibalism. The Force Publique were made up of recruits from across Africa as well as specific ethnic groups from the Congo.

The Force were given bullets and guns to shoot slaves who did not meet the quotas, but the government wanted to ensure the bullets were not used for hunting or stockpiled for a rebellion. This led to the most infamous of atrocities from the Congo Free State, the mutilation of hands. The Force were required to cut off the hands of dead slaves as evidence that they had punished them for not meeting the quotas. The Force was eventually paid for how many hands they brought their employees as an excuse for not having the right amount of rubber, accounts say they would harvest these hands instead of even trying to get rubber from the farms. Soldiers of the Force could also shorten their service by bringing hands and many began to only cut off hands and leave the live slave to bleed out in order to save bullets. Leopold actually disapproved of this practice as he saw it as inefficient to cut off hands that could otherwise be harvesting rubber

The remnants of Belgian rule: genocide in Rwanda

Before World War One, Rwanda and Burundi were part of German East Africa, but when the Germans invaded Belgium in the war, Belgium invaded the German colony from their Congo colony, which had been taken from Leopold following his atrocities coming to light in 1908. After the war they were given a mandate over Rwanda-Urundi, which in theory meant they would govern till the locals were ready for independence but in reality was just a colony. They favoured the minority ethnic Tutsi to rule over the majority Hutu due to the belief that the Tutsi were part Jewish and so superior to their purely African neighbours the Hutus, though no such connection was actually true.

This culminated in a deeply rooted hatred of the Tutsis amongst the Hutus post independence, forcing some 340,000 Tutsi into refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees went to Uganda and formed the Rwanda Patriotic Front(RPF) and in 1990 they invaded Rwanda to overthrow the oppressive Hutu regime. During this civil war, 800,000 Tutsi were murdered by government forces and 500,000 women raped. This became known as the Rwandan genocide.

After the civil war, the RPF took over and began encouraging reconciliation between the Tutsi and Hutu as well as trying genocide perpetrators, but a group of radical Hutu fled into the Congo and formed the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda(FDLR). Since 2012, Rwanda has been backing a rival rebel group in the Eastern Congo called the M23 movement to fight the FDLR and other Hutu groups in the Congo, which brings us to today. The M23 group is making advances in the east with government forces withdrawing.

One notable consequence was a jailbreak in Goma. As M23 rebels advanced and government forces withdrew, male inmates of a prison managed to break out. They raped 167 women, most of whom later died when the inmates set fire to the prison after escaping.

Worries loom in the international community over what might come of this recent offensive. The Congo is one of the most unstable countries in the world, and its likely no coincidence as they are also the most rich in natural resources. The UN in resolution 2773 demanded that the M23 cease hostilities and withdraw completely from the Congo, that both sides ceasefire and that Rwanda ceases its funding of the M23 group. It remains to be seen if the UN can effectively prevent this conflict from continuing before any more life is lost.