All language subtitles for leopold.o.rei.da.bavaria.1080.AMZ

[Music]

BOKANGU, Chief- killed with
blows with butt of gun

MAGUNDWA, Chief- killed
with blows with butt of gun

EKUNJA, Chief-

MONJANGU, Man- killed by the gun
EKUMBA, Man- killed by the gun

GILI, Woman... killed by the gun
EKAYA, Man- killed by the gun

LEKOKA, Man, imprisoned and hung
himself

UMPOLOKO, Girl...
killed by the gun

VONTEMBE, Man- killed by the gun

[Continues listing names of
victims, voices overlapping]

"Persons who are
tempted to commit

unspeakable crimes must
be deterred by the

knowledge that one day,

they will be individually
called on to account..."

"It's been a long and
brutal war in the Congo..."

"There are old scores that
have been settled here,

creating new ones to be avenged

tomorrow, or the day after..."

"The wrongs which
we seek to condemn

and punish have been so
calculated, so malignant,

and so devastating,

that civilization cannot
tolerate their being ignored..."

"It seems unlikely
that the people of

Zaire will ever see
the money that

Mobutu stole and
kept in Switzerland

and other countries..."

"The United States has
supported and will

continue to support the
United Nations presence

in the
Congo..."

[Music swells]

In the heart of Africa lies a
country called The Democratic

Republic of the Congo.

The land is vast...
lush ...

full of life... and riches:
Ivory, Rubber, Timber; Copper,

Gold, Uranium;
Coffee, Diamonds, Coltan.

Natural resources,

which have inspired a
most unnatural history

of greed and violence.

[Music swells]

For decades it was called Zaire,

ruled by the notorious dictator
Mobutu Sese Seko,

who some remember as host
to the Rumble in the Jungle.

Others remember him as
a ruthless criminal,

who subverted
the hopes of his own nation.

The Congo should have been the
pride of Africa.

Over three times
the size of Texas,

with a river capable of
producing enough power

to light up the entire African
continent.

[Rushing water]

Instead, its people are among
the poorest in the world,

and many are likely to
die an unnatural death.

[Gunshots]

They have been the
victims of more

than 100 years of greed,
plunder, and terror.

The legacy of a man who had
never even gone "up river":

King Leopold II of Belgium.

For somebody like me having gone
through school in the Congo,

what we learned in the textbooks

was that Leopold
was the greatest

benefactor Congo ever had,

because he sacrificed
his fortune...

for the
Congolese.

I was in school
from '49 to '69 and

I never heard a
word related to the

injustices and constraints
of colonization.

This type of
colonization is part of

human history
everywhere and forever.

That doesn't excuse it, of
course...

Leopold ascended the throne of
Belgium in 1865.

He inherited a country not much
bigger than New Hampshire,

wedged between the old
world power of France,

and the rising might of a
new and unified Germany.

While across the English
Channel, Leopold's cousin,

Queen Victoria, a constitutional
monarch like himself,

reigned over Great Britain,

the most powerful
empire of the period.

In the middle of the nineteenth
century, King Leopold was

beleaguered by a Europe that was
confidently entering

the modern age.

A time of intense industrial
growth and personal enrichment,

for one in the appropriate
position...

King Leopold felt anxious
when monarchs and

profiteers had cut their deals
for colonies and fortunes.

What was left for
Leopold to cut?

Leopold II has a
primary obsession,

which is to provide
Belgium with a colony.

He wants grandiose cities with
large avenues, with London,

Paris and the other
major capitals

of Europe serving as a model,

and it's obvious
that a colony would

provide the means
to develop major cities.

But it's interesting to dig
deeper and to see -

at what price?

By 1838,

Great Britain had severed
the long chains of slavery

throughout her empire,
and by 1870,

most of the "unclaimed
territories"

around the world
had been colonized

by Leopold's European rivals.

It seemed only Africa
was "up for grabs."

At the start of the 1870s,

80 percent of Africa was still
under indigenous rule.

It was ripe for conquest,
or "Protection",

as Leopold learned to put it.

The event that
captured Leopold's

attention was
Stanley's crossing of

Africa from 1874 to 1877.

He followed Stanley's
activities in

the newspapers which he
had delivered every day.

Henry Morton Stanley, the most
famous explorer of his day,

became the first white man to
chart the Congo River's course.

The brutal expedition
took the lives of

his three white companions,

along with 246 of his
African porters,

who died of disease
and exhaustion.

We have attacked and
destroyed 28 large towns

and three or four
score villages.

I desire some generous and
opulent philanthropist,

who shall permit me to lead

a force for commerce
with Central Africa."

The "opulent philanthropist" was
waiting.

A colonial grab by Leopold

would require a cunning
"humanitarian" veneer.

To engineer a charade
of philanthropy,

he recruited Stanley,
and financed what,

to the world, was promoted
as a scientific expedition.

Stanley's contract
ran for five years,

at an annual salary
equal to a quarter

of a million in today's dollars.

Leopold had begun
to cut his deal.

Stanley's job was to create

at key points along
the Congo River a

series of stations that would
connect the east coast with the

west coast.

He built not only a chain of
trading stations but also a road

around the dangerous rapids of
the Congo River -

precursor to a railway line.

If you look at the
map of Congo today,

if you look at the
structure of transport,

it hasn't changed
since colonial rule.

You can see that
it's sort of heading

toward either the east
coast...

and then the west, Matadi.

So the entire infrastructure
was built, in a way,

to ship out things,

not to make the Congo a
first rate industrial power.

Stanley has been glamorized in
books and by Hollywood as

"an intrepid explorer", "a great
adventurer", "a great builder",

but he was no builder.

He arrived uninvited and
laid the foundation

for really what was
the destruction

of the societies
that were there.

Stanley was sent by King
Leopold to discover the Congo.

It's him that discovered us!

Our brothers that saw him first
also saw his soldiers...

How do you make people
into forced laborers?

Very easily. By force!

"The best punishment
is that of irons.

Because without wounding,

disfiguring or
torturing the body,

it inflicts shame and
discomfort on the workers."

Centuries of slave-hunting raids
had weakened

the indigenous tribal groups,

and there was no powerful state
or military obstacle to stop

Leopold.

[Elephant noise]

Ivory.

The coveted treasure of the era.
Exotic and expensive.

Leopold smelled profit and
demanded quantities of it.

I am desirous to
see you purchase

all the ivory which is to
be found in the Congo.

By now, Stanley had organized a
powerful private army;

the beginnings of the
notorious Force Publique,

equipped with a thousand
rifles and Krupp cannons.

The army swept through the
country, shooting elephants,

buying tusks from villagers...

or just taking them.

You should purchase as much land
as you will be able to obtain

without losing one minute, from
all the chiefs from the mouth of

the Congo to Stanley Falls.

I will send you more people
and more material...

perhaps
Chinese Coolies?

Leopold was adamant
that his colony-making

be perceived as philanthropic.

Leopold - the redeemer
of a savage people.

He organized his
interests under the

guise of charity
and benefactions.

Often employing deceptive and
misleading Association names.

He asks of Stanley:

"You will advance step
by step and every time

you run into an indigenous chief
you sign a treaty with him.

You'll be under the flag of the
Independent State.

Not the flag of Belgium."

To sign over one's
land was unthinkable.

But the Congo Chiefs,

with no written language, had no
idea what they were signing.

In return for cloth,
trinkets, beads and gin,

the Chiefs gave up
rights to all land,

waterways, game,
fishing, forestry, mining;

essentially everything.

And Stanley signed hundreds...

and hundreds... and
hundreds of treaties.

We have constituted
entire territories,

ceded by sovereign Chiefs,
into independent states.

The new Congo flag with the gold
star,

symbolizing the light
of civilization

in the darkness of Africa,

held sway over the lands
of 450 Congo Basin Chiefs,

a territory 76 times the
size of Belgium.

Over 900,000 square
miles had become

the private estate
of King Leopold.

There is no question
of granting the

slightest political
power to Negroes.

That would be absurd.

The white men, heads
of the stations,

retain all the powers.

[African drum music]

Leopold maintained a complete
monopoly -

even as he insisted that he was
opening up Africa to free trade,

and that his venture had
no commercial interest.

The 1880s, in general, were
prosperous times for

the United States.

A time of accelerated
productivity

and national industrialization.

America was moving
toward an economic

ascendancy that would exceed the
greatest of the European powers,

and launch America's own
colonial ambitions.

Leopold looked
across the Atlantic,

and extended the tactical range
of his public relations.

He developed a dazzling
campaign of misinformation.

It's called spin. And Leopold
was a master of spin control.

He could have taught
today's American tobacco

companies a thing or two
about public relations.

Leopold convinced a
number of American

politicians that
what he was really

doing in Africa was
stopping the slave trade!

And he convinced one of the more
forgettable American presidents.

The King's aim is to found
a chain of hospices,

both hospitable and scientific,

which should serve as a means of

information and
aid to travelers.

Sufficiently deluded,

by April 1884 the United
States was the first country

to recognize King Leopold's
claim on the Congo.

At a conference in Berlin
the following year,

other nations followed suit.

The delegates, outwitted by
effective public relations,

thought they were endorsing an
international free trade zone,

but ended up granting Leopold
virtually everything he wanted.

Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck
called it: "A swindle"

In May of 1885, Leopold named
his new private country:

"the Congo Free State."
No African was consulted.

Everything in the
Congo Free State

was the property of the King.

[Tree crashes to the ground]

The forests.

The animals.

The villagers' vegetables
harvested to feed his soldiers.

He held title to
life, to liberty.

Still, lacking the resources to

fully exploit the
entire territory,

Leopold was compelled
to create concessions

which attracted
private investment.

Leopold retained 50 percent
ownership and profited

even more from taxes
and processing fees.

Leopold II is very cunning.

And is always going
to find a way to

quickly summon his
banker friends,

various firms, the Rothschilds,

future large corporations,
UNILEVERS...

And he will grant
them concessions...

In other words,

land on which they
will carry out

their own economic exploitation.

Leopold II, meanwhile, kept
the central part for himself,

which became the infamous Crown
Fund, property of the crown.

The Berlin Conference members
helped promote a fund for a

railroad system that would
transport Leopold's

troops to fight the
'slave traders".

And Leopold struck a
deal with his parliament

for an enormous
development loan.

In return, he agreed
to leave the Congo

to Belgium at the
time of his death,

though he would
ultimately sell it back

to Belgium at an
inspirational profit.

He got his loan interest-free.

After Stanley arrived they
started the railway line -

Our ancestors died.

They died because
they were forced to

break the stones by hand.

They had to make
holes in the rocks.

They had to break it in order
to place explosives inside.

Stanley himself, using
a sledgehammer,

smashed boulders, causing the
natives to call him

"Bula Matadi," or
"Breaker of Rocks"...

a name which came to imply
something more sinister,

with time.

The construction of the
railway was very difficult.

Many people died,
especially the Congolese.

There were also a few
whites who died.

It is out of that experience
that Bula Matadi, which means

'rockbreaking', was used
to refer to the state,

but also to refer to
the breaking of all resistance.

On learning of the
benevolence of King Leopold,

George Washington Williams,
an American minister, lawyer,

and enterprising journalist,

proposed to recruit other black
Americans to work in the Congo.

He spent six months
on foot and by

steamer going up
the Congo River.

To his horror, he did not find
a colony under benign rule,

as described by Stanley and King
Leopold,

but a hell-hole of torture,
abuse, and murder.

In protest, he wrote a milestone
of investigative journalism:

I accuse Leopold's
officials of tyranny.

I accuse Leopold's government
of excessive cruelty.

Ox-chains eat into the
necks of prisoners

and produce sores about
which flies circle.

The courts are abortive,
unjust and delinquent.

Not one State official knows
the language of the natives.

Your Majesty's
Government is engaged

in slave trade
wholesale and retail.

The New York Herald devoted a
column to Williams' open letter,

causing a furor in Europe where
other newspapers picked up

Williams' accusations.

The United States has a special
responsibility,

because it introduced
this African

government to the
international arena.

Williams was the first
person to speak

out about what others
had witnessed,

but refused to admit.

In describing Leopold's
Congo State in action,

Williams used a phrase
which prefigures the

Nuremberg trials by more
than half a century:

Leopold's Congo State is guilty
of crimes against humanity.

Leopold dismissed the charges
with little difficulty.

[Music]

The Congo State is certainly
not a business.

If it gathers ivory on
certain of its lands,

that is only to
lessen its deficit.

In dealing with a
race composed of

cannibals for
thousands of years,

it is necessary to
use methods which

will best shake their idleness,

and make them realize
the sanctity of work.

I could never reconcile
to myself that...

Belgians came to
civilize, right?

To teach the Congolese
how to work

was part of the
civilizing mission.

Never mind the fact that, you
know, this was slave labor.

there was this notion that, and
it continues today:

"Africans are lazy"

People would make jokes -

if somebody wanted
to say that some

other white was
really working hard,

he would say well "that guy is
really working like a nigger."

Which means to say,
that in fact,

it was known down
deep that, you know,

the Africans were really
pushed to work like slaves.

Pitiful walking beasts of burden
with thin monkey legs,

eyes fixed and round from
preoccupation with keeping

their balance and from
the daze of exhaustion.

What made it possible
for officials

to deal out all this
pain and terror?

Race. They saw the Africans
as less than human.

[Crack of a whip]

The tool of this sanctioned
terror was called the Chicotte -

a whip of raw, sun-dried
hippopotamus hide cut into long,

sharp-edged, corkscrew strips.

Its blows left scars,
but worse,

twenty-five lashes could
render the victim unconscious,

and a hundred blows
could be fatal.

The Chicotte became a symbol
of Leopold's white rule,

along with the steamboat
and the rifle.

That colonial system was
basically organized

and maintained through
military rule,

which the king was trying
to impose on the Congolese.

Leopold's army, the
Force Publique,

was nineteen-thousand strong
by the turn-of-the-century.

How could Congolese be
made to enforce this

brutal system against
their own people?

Leopold's private army
would take soldiers and

send them 500-600 miles
away from their own homes.

Nonetheless,

there were a lot of mutinies
inside this private army,

and there was a lot of local
resistance to the army.

Well, I still remembered
today, orally,

names of people who
led the rebellions.

Because people were literally
being driven like animals.

A local chief named
Nzansu led an uprising,

ambushing and killing
state agents

and destroying their posts.

Nzansu spared a benevolent
Swedish Baptist mission,

and even returned some
supplies his men had taken.

To control the population,

and suppress such rebellions,

Leopold would raise
an army of orphans,

devoid of loyalty to
anything but the state.

I believe we must set up three
children's colonies.

The aim of these colonies is,
above all,

to furnish us with soldiers.

It was unusual in tightly knit
African tribes for parentless

children to be sent away.

but many were orphaned
because the Force Publique

had killed their
parents.

These were the only
state-funded schools

for children in
Leopold's Africa.

Disease was rife, and
the death rate high.

Several of the little girls were
so sickly on their arrival,

that our good sisters
couldn't save them,

but all had the happiness
of receiving Holy Baptism.

They are now little
angels in Heaven

who are praying for
our great king.

At the turn of the century,

the worldwide rubber
boom exploded.

This is the time
when electricity

spreads throughout
the western world,

so rubber is essential, not just
for automobile tires but for

anything and everything that
had to do with electric wires,

and that explains why
rubber prices were so high.

Nowhere did the boom have a
greater impact

than in the Congo,

where rubber vines snaked
high into the rain forests,

that covered half of
Leopold's colony.

The king had gone into debt
with his Congo investments,

but the return on rubber would
surpass all his expectations.

Rubber was not the
most valuable product;

ivory was much more valuable -
but rubber was what mattered.

Leopold financed his colony
on the back of rubber.

We passed a man on the road
who had broken his back

by falling from a tree
while tapping some vines.

Rubber is a sap, which must be
congealed to be carried.

The only method the workers
typically had in the forest

was to spread it over their
bodies as they worked.

It caused excruciating pain
when it was peeled away.

People were afraid of this work.

Nobody would agree to take
this work on his own, no,

they were rather arresting them,

chasing them up to their home
and they would tie their

hands with chains and send
them on the rubber job.

The Red Rubber Terror began in
the 1890s.

Two horrifying decades followed
of murder and madness,

in return for profit.

Villages were assigned
exact rubber quotas.

Forced to meet
accelerating demands,

tappers scattered widely
through the jungle,

often climbing trees a
hundred feet off the ground.

They could make a small incision

at the base of the
vine to tap it,

or,

whack through the vine entirely.

This produced rubber quickly,
but killed the vine.

In a perverse reversal of
production management,

tappers were severely punished
for not making their quotas,

as well as for making their
quotas, but killing the vine.

The native doesn't like making
rubber,

he must be compelled to do it.

Soldiers arrive in a
village, start looting,

take all the chickens, grain,

goats and finally
they seize the women.

These women are
kept hostages until

the Chief brings in the required
number of kilograms of rubber.

Sometimes women were held
hostage, sometimes children...

Sometimes elders or chiefs.

The wives of villagers who
resisted were killed,

but often died anyway
in the stockades,

where food was scarce
and conditions harsh.

The women taken
during the last raid

are causing me no
end of trouble.

All the soldiers want one.

The sentries, who are
supposed to watch them,

unchain the prettiest
ones and rape them.

Luebo was the site of the first
Presbyterian mission,

started by Sheppard and Lapsley,

who were the first American
missionaries

to arrive here in Kasai.

Sheppard was a model of courage.

Sheppard loved the
Congolese people,

and especially the Kuba people.

He even learned their language.

They thought he was the spirit
of their chief's children,

come back from the dead.

Our parents were
living in suffering;

our parents were
living in death.

By the time the Sheppard party
arrived,

our parents did not have wives,
they did not have children.

The torments time
came, they tortured people,

others
were killed.

But when Sheppard
showed up,

our parents could at last take
wives and make children.

So if this village has been
able to prosper this way,

it is thanks to Sheppard.

He especially focused on the
notion of human rights.

He discovered that these
people were weakening,

because the men were
being taken and sent

into the forest to
extract the rubber.

And in the event the
men did not come

back with the required
amount of rubber,

they were beaten,

whipped, and sometimes
their hands were cut off.

[Music]

The chief conducted us to a
framework of sticks,

under which was burning a slow
fire and there they were,

the right hands, I
counted them, 81 in all.

Hands were smoked to preserve
them

until they could be tallied.

Sheppard learned
that if a village

refused to gather rubber,

the state troops would
shoot everyone in sight.

Some white officers
demanded proof that the

bullet had not been
wasted in hunting,

or worse, saved for a mutiny.

Occasionally the
soldiers would hunt.

And as a cover up,

they would cut a hand from
an innocent adult or child.

Sheppard responded to the
atrocities being committed by

King Leopold's agents,
by writing articles

to denounce these
crimes to the world.

Sheppard's horrifying findings
were reprinted widely -

in Europe, and in
the United States.

A Belgian parliamentarian
referred to

Leopold's Cinquantenaire
monument,

then being constructed
in Brussels from

Congo rubber profits,

as The Arch of Severed Hands.

28 miles north of the capital,

Antwerp serves as the center of
the world's diamond industry.

All the ivory, rubber,
and other riches

flowing into Belgium from
Leopold's Congo were,

stored in warehouses
on its docks.

Medieval tradition
has it that a giant

once controlled
Antwerp's harbor,

and demanded exorbitant tolls

from the ships
needing anchorage.

If a captain refused to pay,

the giant cut off his hand
and flung it in the water.

One day a brave Roman soldier
fought and killed the giant,

cutting off his hand, and
throwing it in the river.

So the city's name came from
the phrase "Hantwerpen",

meaning "hand tossing".

Hands are still in
evidence everywhere.

[Intense drumming music]

Like most people in Europe,

the writer Joseph
Conrad also believed

Leopold's mission in the Congo
was a noble and civilizing one.

But after six months
as a steamboat

captain on the Congo River,

Conrad returned to
Europe so horrified

by the brutality he witnessed,

that his view of human nature
was permanently changed.

He later transformed his
experience into the most

widely reprinted short novel
in the English language.

Marlow, Joseph
Conrad's alter ego,

is hired by an ivory
trading company

to sail a steamboat upriver.

His destination is a post where
the company's brilliant,

ambitious star agent, Mr.
Kurtz, is stationed.

[Thunder]

The most talked about exhibit
at the 1897 World's Fair

that Leopold secured for
Belgium was a Living Tableau.

267 black men,
women and children

imported from the
Congo 'Free State'

were placed in villages
constructed in a park.

Here, one could see replications
of a river village,

a forest village,

and a 'civilized' village,

which included ninety
Force Publique soldiers.

When Leopold heard that some
of them were getting sick

because of candy
they were eating

that was tossed
them by the crowd,

he put up the
equivalent of a

"Don't Feed the
Animals" sign at a zoo,

saying:

"The blacks are fed by
the organizing committee"

The Scramble for Africa included
looting of great quantities of

Congolese art that ended up in
private collections and museums

around the world.

Also on exhibit
at the Fair were samples of

products streaming in from the
Congo.

By the end of the 19th century,

the Belgian port of
Antwerp was one of

the busiest ports in Europe.

Edmund Dene Morel was a clerk

working in Liverpool for
an British Shipping Line,

which had a major shipping
contract to and from the Congo.

On the docks of Antwerp,

Morel discovered a
stunning fraud:

Rich loads of ivory and
rubber came

from the Congo and into Belgium,

but very few trade goods
were shipped back -

except for huge amounts
of weapons and military goods.

And someone was skimming
huge profits off the top.

The figures told
their own story.

Forced labor of a terrible and

continuous kind could alone
explain such profits...

It must be bad enough to
stumble upon a murder -

I stumbled upon a secret
society of murderers!

With a flash of insight from a
modest shipping clerk,

King Leopold had attracted,
in Edmund Morel,

his most dangerous opponent.

Once he began to unravel
Leopold's web of deceptions,

Morel would become one of the
great investigative journalists

of his day.

I was filled with
determination -

to do my best to
expose and destroy

what I then knew to be
a legalized infamy...

responsible for a vast
destruction of human life.

One of the rubber concessions,
ABIR,

the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber
and Exploration Company,

sold raw rubber at a
700-precent profit.

Harvesting wild rubber required
virtually no investment,

except backbreaking labor.

Their books listed forty-seven
thousand gatherers.

When they were beating them,

they
received up to twenty lashes.

They had no right to eat,

and they were not
allowed to drink water.

Many people died following
this treatment.

Their words when they
were lashing people,

they were explaining that they
came to put an end to our

suffering and that they brought
us better civilization.

That's what
the Belgians were saying.

In high-rubber districts,

villagers were forced to
wear numbered metal tags

so company agents could
keep track of their quotas.

At just one collection point,

a missionary counted four
hundred people with baskets.

The state, or concession
companies,

paid villagers with a piece of
cloth, a few spoonfuls of salt,

a knife, or nothing at all.

In 1903, the British Parliament
passed a protest resolution

condemning Belgium's failure to
live up to Leopold's promises

about fair trade and his
treatment of the natives.

The British Government orders
His Majesty's Britannic Consul

in the Congo, Roger Casement,
who happened to be Irish,

to investigate and
report back immediately.

Even though he was
employed by the

leading colonial
power of the day,

Casement developed an
eye for injustice,

and witnessed more brutality
in Africa than most.

On Sunday evening,

natives brought me a mutilated
lad whose right hand

had been hacked off quite
recently.

The culprit was a sentry of Lalu
Langa,

a Belgian "trading" Society.

When I asked why they had not
appealed to their Commissaire,

I heard from them; "Why
it is the Commissaire -

it is the Bula Matadi who
does these things to us."

One of the rare testimonies
recorded,

was documented by an American
Swahili-speaking State Agent,

Edgar Canisius,

who was moved by a "woman
of great intelligence,"

named Ilanga.

We were all busy in the fields,

for it was the rainy
season and all

the weeds sprang up quickly...

a large band of soldiers
came into the village.

We were dragged into the
road and tied together with

cords about our necks.

The soldiers beat us and
compelled us to march to

the camp where the
soldiers brought

baskets of food for us to carry,

some of which
was smoked, human flesh.

Katinga had her
baby in her arms,

and was not compelled
to carry a basket;

but my husband was made to
carry a goat.

We marched until the afternoon,

when we camped near a stream
where we were glad to drink,

for we were much athirst.

The soldiers took my sister's
baby and threw it in the grass,

leaving it to die.

On the sixth day,

we became very weak
from lack of food,

and my husband with
the goat could not

stand up longer.

And so he sat down and
refused to walk more.

Then,

one of them struck him on the
head with the end of his gun.

One of the soldiers
caught the goat,

while two others stuck
their long knives they

put on the ends of their guns
into my husband.

I saw the blood spurt out,

then saw him no more...

for we passed over the
brow of the hill,

and he was out of sight.

After marching ten days we
came to the great water,

and were taken in
canoes across to the white man's

slave town of Nyangwe.

Leopold pronounced himself
shocked at reports

of misdeeds in his domain.

Again,

he put to work an early example
of public relations expertise.

In a cunning counter campaign,
he used the newspapers to

plant shocking stories of abuses
by other colonialist countries,

and news of peace and
prosperity in the Congo.

Those in power don't react
much, they cover-up,

so there's little talk about the
fact that behind all that money,

how was it
obtained?

All that stays quiet.

Leopold II has sole
power over the

Independent State of the Congo.

The practice of forced
labor will continue,

the colony will continue
to be pumped dry.

Leopold continued his lavish
lifestyle,

accumulating properties
in Belgium and

villas in the south
of France where,

it was
rumoured,

he entertained
pretty young girls,

preferably virgins, between
ten and fifteen years of age.

And Morel continued to write,

combining controlled fury with
meticulous accuracy.

The more he published,

the more insiders came forward
with stories of horror.

Force Publique officers,
missionaries,

concession company employees -

all sent reports.

Secret crown orders,

confidential memoranda, casualty
lists, journals...

And most important,

photographs were delivered
to Morel's doorstep.

[Music]

In 1887,

I spent several months
on the Upper Congo,

and traveled over some
of the ground I am now

revisiting after an
absence of ten years.

The country was thickly
populated...

Frequent and populous towns.

But many of the inhabitants have
been killed by the Government,

men and women...

Casement put the official report
together

on his return to England.

But the British Ambassador urged
suppression of the report,

and its' graphic detail
was watered down.

Leopold's staff
attacked Casement

by saying he had really
only seen "individuals"

suffering from
cancer of the hands,

which had to be cut off in
simple surgical procedures.

I saw those hunted women,

the blood flowing as the whip
struck and struck again,

the savage soldiers
amid burning villages.

Casement told me he had
been amazed to find that I,

five thousand miles away,

had come to
conclusions identical

with his in every respect.

An immense weight
passed from me.

[Music]

Of the persistent mutilation
by Government soldiers,

there can be no shadow of doubt.

Should the system maintain
forced labor on this scale,

I believe the entire population
will be extinct in thirty years!

Infamous! Infamous,
shameful system!

Finally, after years of
conspiracy and silence,

public opinion was galvanized
throughout Europe.

The 'Congo Question' was debated
in the British House of Commons,

and in 1904, the Congo Reform
Association was formed.

At each protest meeting,

a lantern slide show
of photographs,

taken by missionaries,

presented grisly evidence

that public relations
could not refute.

In response to all the
bad press,

Leopold sent to the Congo a sham
commission of judges to "clear"

allegations against him. But
this time, his plan backfired.

The commission heard many native

witnesses offer
horrifying testimonies.

One judge
broke down and wept...

Chief Lontulu of Bolima laid 100
twigs on the table,

each representing
one of his people

killed in the quest for rubber.

Tribal nobles, men, women, and
children.

It is in the pages of this
unedited record of testimony,

and other documents still not
authorized for public viewing,

that King Leopold's rule of
terror is truly exposed.

This international
explosion of bad

publicity was a turning point.

Leopold needed to rid himself
of the trouble of the Congo.

But he would not give it away.
He would sell it.

And Belgium, the buyer,
would pay dearly for it!

Leopold demanded that
the nation assume

110 million francs
worth of debt,

much of it in the form of bonds.

Additionally,

Belgium had to pay 45 and a
half million francs toward

the king's building projects.

And Leopold himself was to
receive fifty million francs

"as a mark of gratitude
for his great sacrifices

for the Congo."

When the
king made public his will,

it was backdated so that his
bequest of the Congo to Belgium

looked like an act of generosity
instead of a financial deal.

His Congo fortune was hidden in
anonymous foundations,

in secret corporations, in
shares of concessions in Africa,

in fifty eight pieces of real
estate in Brussels alone,

and in multiple properties
on the French Riviera.

In return,

his legacy to Belgium would
be to erase from memory the

horrors perpetrated
in the Congo.

He burned the entire Congo State
Archives in Belgian furnaces...

and in fires
throughout the Congo.

I will give them my Congo.

But they have no right to
know what I did there.

In December 1909,

a year after negotiations of
the Congo were completed,

King Leopold II of Belgium died
of an intestinal blockage.

Ironically, Leopold's open
disdain for his wife,

his dislike of his daughters
and sexual practices,

cost him more popularity
in Belgium than any

of the cruelties he
perpetrated in Africa.

He died possessing one of
Europe's largest fortunes.

The wealth he stole
from the Congo

that investigators
could uncover,

was estimated at more than 1.1
billion dollars

in today's currency.

Leopold never set
foot in the Congo.

Savagery against the workers
subsided somewhat

with the Belgian
takeover in 1908,

but the taxes
imposed by Brussels forced the

Congolese back into
grinding work on a land

they could never own.

There was a new
kind of enslavement

of the Congolese people.

It was impossible
to be independent,

in no domain: political,
economical or religious.

Everything must be
controlled by Europeans,

and by preference, by Belgians.

History is complicated.

It's never one single thing.

But what Leopold did was
to establish government as

a system of organized plunder.

This was continued
after him by the

Belgian colonial government, and
it is still continued today.

The vast Congo state

was proving to be one of
the richest in Africa.

The different resources
of each province

promised immense wealth to
those who could extract it.

During the World Wars,

western demand for rubber and
other minerals increased.

Laborers were recruited with the

same tactics used
in Leopold's time.

A recruiter went
around with soldiers

or police to the village chiefs,

assigned them a
quota of recruits,

usually double what was
actually needed because half

of them would run away the
first chance they got,

and then the chief would
round up those whom he liked

the least and send them
off roped together

or in chains to the
district capital,

and from there they would be

eventually transported
to the mines.

For this the chief received
ten francs for each recruit.

In 1920 it was still legal for
management to use the Chicotte

And it was in use
as late as 1959.

Every morning,

we called the people
in the village,

and then the prisoners
came before me.

These people got whipped
in front of everybody.

The whip was being used to tell
these people;

"Look, if you do
not do what I say,

if you will not pick the cotton,

if you will not do
maintenance on the roads,

you will be whipped as
well, do you understand?"

That was the system
that is based on fear.

One could say that Congo
was made with the whip.

How many people died
during the Leopold

period and its
immediate aftermath?

Nobody was counting.

But, in 1919,

an official body of the
Belgian colonial government,

the Permanent Commission for
the Protection of the Natives,

estimated that in
a 40-year period,

half the territory's
population had been lost.

The question is what that
half of the population meant.

I mean it is an estimate.

The count of the population in
1921 was about ten million.

So half of the total would
have been ten million, too.

A large part of it is due to the
beginning of the colonial state,

and especially to
the rubber regime.

Father Edmond Boelaert arrived
in the Congo in 1931.

He was shocked by the
consequences of colonization.

He recorded the
names of people who

were victims of the Red Rubber.

Some of these groups were
completely exterminated.

So, the following people from
the Ikansa clan were killed:

Bagonso, who was killed by an
arrow, killed in this war,

Lekoka, imprisoned
and subsequently hung himself;

Efoloko, Etale,
killed in this war;

Dua, his daughter, taken
away at gunpoint...

Even though he had
worked for years

as a colonial official
in the Congo,

Jules Marchal did
not learn of the

rubber terror until the 1970s,

when he stumbled on
it in a Liberian newspaper.

There I read about the ten
million black people that

we had killed in the time
of Leopold the Second.

I was scandalized.

I asked for documentation
from the Foreign Office

in order to defend the
honor of my country.

And I get no documentation.

Then I started to
think about it all...

because I never knew about
these things back then,

just as much as
the Belgian people now.

There was a rule
in the archives.

They were not obliged
to show every piece

that was bad for the
reputation of Belgium.

Every piece was bad for the
reputation of Belgium.

So they showed nothing.

In 1983,

Marchal was finally allowed
to see a revealing judicial

record that had escaped King
Leopold's fires.

Like Morel before him, Marchal
published his discoveries,

which were met with denial
and disbelief in Belgium.

[African music]

The Congo was, at the
end of the fifties,

very much dependent on the
international economic market.

You had no important
improvements in

political life
inside the colony.

Belgium didn't
introduce reforms,

didn't introduce
political space for

the Congolese themselves
to take over.

So there was no
Congolese partner who

was there to take
over political power.

As the Congo neared Independence
in the 1960s,

Patrice Lumumba was a leading
voice of Congo outrage.

A charismatic
nationalist, Lumumba

advocated for a unified Congo.

He battled the ghosts
of Leopold's legacy,

which continued to take
the form of concessions and

corporations owned by outsiders.

It was for them very clear that
if Lumumba could manage to get a

complete decolonization
of his country,

this would be a
powerful example for people,

from Katanga up to South
Africa and that's why hardcore

colonialists in Belgium
establishment,

they didn't want to
give up the Congo.

The Belgians imposed a five-year

plan leading toward
independence,

which militant Congolese
denounced as a stalling tactic.

Anger consumed the country.

The demand for self-rule
placed pressure on Belgium.

[Dramatic music]

In 1960, Lumumba, who
had been imprisoned

for his anti-colonialist
activity,

was released and
sent to Brussels,

where he joined negotiations for
Congo independence,

at the Brussels
Roundtable Conference.

The resulting
democratic election was

the only one the
Congo had ever had.

Lumumba was elected
Coalition Prime Minister

of the new
government.

In June of 1960 King
Baudouin of Belgium

arrived in Leopoldville to
grant the Congo its freedom.

Can you imagine?

Here are thousands of
Congolese celebrating

their long awaited independence,

and they are listening
to the King of Belgium

making this insulting,

condescending,
patronizing speech.

The independence of the Congo
is the crowning of the

work conceived by the
genius of King Leopold II.

Undertaken by him with
courage,

and continued by Belgium with
perseverance....

On that Lumumba reacted,

he was outraged by the
paternalistic tone

of that speech and he decided to
put the record straight.

Men and women of the Congo.

Victorious fighters for
independence, today victorious.

I greet you in the name of
the Congolese Government.

We have known
ironies, insults...

blows to the head that
we endured morning,

noon and evening,

because we are Negroes...

In his speech he was explaining
what was the essence of

Belgian Colonialism, and
this was certainly something

which the Belgians
didn't want to hear.

We have seen that the
law was not the same

for a white and for a black,

accommodating for the first,

cruel and inhuman for the other.

In his reply, Lumumba alarmed
Western capitals.

He believed that it
was not enough to

free Africa from
its colonial past;

it must cease to be an
economic colony as well.

My father was a man who was a
Nationalist,

who loved his
country,

and who became a martyr
when very young.

Although Lumumba
understood that he

had to accommodate
Belgian interests,

he did not understand
that his nationalism,

in the Cold War, was
perceived as, close to,

you know, Communism.

No, he was not a Communist.

I am not a Communist.

It is plainly a matter
of information.

This certainly confirmed their
fears that Lumumba would be a

guy who was thinking and
speaking for his people and

wouldn't be manipulated into
some kind of neo-colonial sheep.

Lumumba was a guy
who wasn't prepared

to sell the interests
of his people.

When he said for example;

"I want to work with everybody,

with everybody who is
prepared to accept

the real independence
of the country,

and if it is the
United States, OK.

But if it is the Soviet Union,
that's for me also OK."

And that was, of course,
something for which

Eisenhower was much afraid.

No single country, even
one so powerful as ours,

can alone defend the
liberty of all nations

threatened by communist
aggression from without,

or subversion within.

Mutual security means
effective mutual cooperation.

When Eisenhower ordered
killing Lumumba,

the Belgian Prime
Minister gave an order

to organize a coup
against Lumumba,

so in a sense the two came
to the same conclusion.

Western powers worried that
Lumumba would not allow

them to continue exploiting
the Congo's resources.

I do not subscribe to the thesis
that it is Lumumba's speech at

Independence which
sealed his fate.

I think his fate was
decided before that.

It was decided that he
should not stay in power.

And sure enough, within a few
days of Independence,

there was a mutiny of the army.

By then Mobutu had already
been working for some time

with Belgian and U.S. Security.

The CIA was trying to kill
Lumumba but in an indirect way.

The Americans were
much afraid of being

linked to an assassination
attempt of Lumumba

and that's why they tried
to organize some Congolese of

doing the dirty job for them.

The CIA found an accomplice in
Lumumba's one-time supporter,

the Congo Army's Chief
Joseph Désiré Mobutu,

who built an alliance
with the west

in order to gain and hold power.

The Belgian and the American
Secret Services who worked

closely together in
tracking down Lumumba,

and he was captured by
Mobutu's soldiers.

It is important to know that
the UN played a heavy role

into this capture of Lumumba.

The UN presence in the Congo was
also due to the threat

of secession by the
province of Katanga,

rich in resources
vital to the West.

A threat instigated
by the Belgians

and endorsed by the
United States.

But Lumumba's troops and
nationalists in Katanga were

winning that civil tug of war.

The blue helmets were
sent to the Congo

to protect law and order,

and Lumumba was the legal prime
minister of the country,

had parliamentary majority,

but it was the United
Nations who closed the

airport so that Lumumba couldn't
appeal to soldiers loyal

to him to come to his aid,

and secondly it was the UN
who closed the radio station,

so that Lumumba
couldn't appeal to

the population to
come to his help.

Lumumba was sent to
Katanga together with two other

leaders of the nationalist
movement,

and after several hours of being

beaten and tortured they were
executed.

It were two Belgian Police
officers who got the

task of eliminating the
bodies altogether.

They cut the bodies
into pieces and

got them dissolved
in sulphuric acid.

I can only have a
vision of what would

have happened if
he had not died.

He fought for democracy,
for social justice,

for the real political
and economic development

of the country.

And it must not
be forgotten that

it was the only elected
government until today,

43 years later.

Thus we lived with the
consequences.

Democracy was assassinated
in this country.

Lumumba's death sparked
demonstrations

in countries around the world.

In Belgium, there were
hundreds of arrests.

But the outrage had little
effect in the Congo,

where the new ruler
was busy imitating

those who had preceded him.

Mobutu seized power and
used ruthless violence,

employing deadly mercenaries,

with the aid of the
United States,

to counter rebellions.

We have no choice -
we must forge ahead,

even bargain with the devil,

to rebuild the Congo.

The Congo will remain
one and indivisible!

The period from 1960
to 1968 and later,

concentrated basically
on how to really

make sure that Mobutu
stays in power.

That period coincided with a
period of incredible massacres.

[Music]

Mobutu and his entourage helped
themselves to state revenues so

freely that the Congolese
government ceased to function.

For thirty years,

Mobutu was funded by the
US with catastrophic

consequences for the Congo
and the rest of Africa.

For well over a billion dollars,

the US got a reliably
anti-communist regime

during the Cold War,

and a staging area for CIA and
French military operations.

All that Mobutu gave the
Congo was a new name.

Zaire is among America's oldest
friends, and its President,

President Mobutu,

one of our most valued
friends...

in the entire
continent of Africa.

And we are proud and
very,

very pleased to have
you with us today.

Thank you, Sir.

The assassination of Lumumba was

basically the western
powers doing

away with independent
civil alternative

to the military
rule of Leopold II.

Now once this had been done,

they had to look for a military

dictator to keep the
country together

and go on with the
exploitation of

the country like
they did before,

and this is what
happened up until '97

when Mobutu was
deposed of and the

consequences of this tragedy are
going on until today.

In 1997,

the rebel leader Laurent
Kabila swept into Kinshasa

and declared himself
head of state.

Mobutu's palaces were looted,

and his soldiers were executed.

Mobutu escaped with stolen
riches,

large overseas bank accounts,

and title to many of his
33 known properties all

around the world.

When he died in Morocco
of prostate cancer,

his personal wealth,
accounting for inflation,

was estimated at 4
billion dollars.

His villa in the South
of France is only

half a mile from
Leopold's chateau.

From one cape, you
can see the other.

We are in Shinkolobwe.

This is the plant that
manufactured the first

atomic bombs used by Americans
during World War II.

Just after World War
II, it was shut down.

Today, no one is
permitted to come here,

because of the radiation
from the uranium.

That mine, when it was started,

the concentration of uranium was
so big,

that literally the ore was taken
out of the ground and shipped

without hardly any processing.

More than 80 percent of the
world's supply of uranium

used in the Hiroshima
and Nagasaki

atomic bombs came
from the Congo.

As military power was now
derived from nuclear weapons,

Shinkolobwe's value increased.

Just before the Congo was
declared formally independent,

the Belgians poured cement
into the mine and flooded it -

the Congolese would
have no access to it.

Officially,

Shinkolobwe is closed but
undercover,

it is still exploited.

You've got all these VIP rich
people,

buying products coming
from Shinkolobwe.

Even if they don't exploit
it directly they are

encouraging young people
to the exploitation.

Thousands of illegal
miners swarm

over the radioactive zone,

packing sacks with soil called
heterogenite,

rich in uranium 235.

The material is smuggled
over the borders,

and sold on the world market,

particularly to China
and North Korea.

I see trucks and trucks going
through Zambia

with these materials
to South Africa.

We have guys claiming to be
from the presidential family.

They can pass through the border
anything without being searched.

These are the ones mostly
involved in the uranium traffic.

We ask ourselves:

if the President's family stand
for the construction

of the Congo or the
destruction of the Congo.

In order to understand
this conflict,

that some people say has now
come to an end, but it hasn't,

it's important to understand the
role of

commercial activity
in the Congo.

This is a war over loot.

It's a mercenaries' war.

Although Laurent
Kabila had pledged

changes when he took power,

he failed his people, growing
secretive and distant.

Elections he had promised,
never took place.

Rwanda and Uganda
attempted to depose him,

triggering what became known
as the African World War,

when neighboring countries
came to his aid.

At some point there were about
six different national armies

roaming around the Congo.

They're not so sure who they
were fighting, I don't think.

Everyone knew that Zimbabwe,
Angola, Namibia

and the Congo were fighting
Rwanda, Burundi and so on.

But I don't think
that the soldiers

were very concerned
about it either

because, in brief, they began
to pillage and plunder.

In the 1980s and '90s,

local Congolese began to
have to fend their own way,

setting up basically their
own local governments.

They began by smuggling, they
began by exploiting gold,

exploiting coffee even,

crossing the boundaries to
Uganda or to Rwanda with it...

These ragtag armies began
to maraud the countryside.

Villages were then displaced,

these displaced villages escaped
and formed their own militias,

and by 2002 every little guy
over 12 years old had a gun.

It was the most remarkable
example that I've ever seen,

and I've seen a bit,

of the complete
militarization of a society.

Laurent Kabila was
assassinated by

one of his bodyguards
in January, 2001.

The ensuing chaos provided cover
for the world's ruling powers.

You see, in sense this is again
like Leopold's time!

It is again exploiting
without any control!

Today,

nothing fuels pillage more
than the scramble for Coltan,

short for columbite-tantalite,

a metallic ore found
mainly in the eastern Congo.

Increasingly vital to all
aspects of modern life,

coltan is a key component in
cell phones and computer chips,

and absolutely essential
to global communications,

transportation and defense.

Seventy-three percent of the
world's reserves

are in the Congo.

From 1994 onwards

Coltan became quite
important in the west.

This led to an unbridled rush
for Coltan by all armed groups

on all sides but mainly by
the Ugandans and Rwandans.

Ironically,

miners are collecting a
mineral they have no use for.

Officially, it is moderately
radioactive.

Local workers are warned against
carrying a day's collection

in their pockets lest it result
in sterility or cancers.

Birth defects appear
in children of

miners who store sack loads of
the mineral in their homes.

In the west,

most people remain indifferent
to the effects that

modern economic exploitation
has on global populations.

[music]

One knows that about three
million people died

in Kivu and in Equateur,

either directly from military
operations or indirectly

from famine and malnutrition,
plus famine combined.

We are dealing
with the mortality

that is associated
with a system of

exploitation that is based on
unbridled capitalism.

Whatever happens, the only thing
that counts are the profits.

In June of 2003,

the UN appointed a
panel to investigate

the growing abuses
underway in the Congo.

I did serve as a member of the

United Nations'
Panel of Experts:

The Expert Panel on the
Exploitation

of Natural Resources and
other Forms of Wealth

in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.

It did imply by the name that it
was this issue,

the issue of
inappropriate commercial

activity with dire consequences

that was responsible for the

conflict for this
war essentially.

And I would like to
stress that the roots

of civil wars is in
economic issues.

I think there is some sort
of limit to greed and profit

and I think that is what the
UN panel report has shown.

You don't use war to make
profit when people suffer like,

in a country
like the Congo.

Now, who are these companies?

Some are, of course,

criminal operations and
we find this everywhere.

But there are also terrorist
organizations that are involved,

in business and the
line between...

Hezbollah,

and Hezbollah's
political and its

business operations
is pretty slim.

And then there are the military
regimes of neighboring

countries,

who have come to realize that
this is a much better way to

make money than through taxes
and through foreign aid.

And then finally, there are the
transnational corporations.

Who claim that they're
doing a great

deal of good for the Congolese.

But, on closer inspection their
role is nefarious.

And I'm delighted that the Panel
took the decision as it did,

to name the companies.

It named a hundred and
fifty seven of them;

and it started the ball rolling.

[dramatic music]

All these companies
that helped are

complicit in what's
happening in the Congo.

Banks may be among
them.

The lowering of costs
of production...

came by the use of violence,

and that's getting
diamonds and gold

much easier than
paying the cost of

labor of their production.

Its the economics that drive so
many of the conflicts with which

we're grappling today.

These are not going to
be settled by peace

accords and by political
reconciliation.

These are going to
be settled by some

mechanism which is able
to hold businesses,

international corporations,
mining companies,

trading companies, to account.

Joseph Kabila, in command of the
Congo's military,

succeeded his father
immediately after

Laurent Kabila was assassinated.

The new president is young but
embattled;

faced with a country suffering
from 32 years of war.

Unlike his father, he has
attempted to negotiate with

some of his father's enemies.

And each of them has
some personal particular

strongholds or relationships
with power in this country.

Jean Pierre Bemba is Congolese,

comes from the Mobutu clan,

but he was also a warlord
and he may be accused

by the International
Court at some point.

It's no secret, that the rich
resources of this country have

never benefited the Congolese
people,

instead they have benefited
either those in power

or foreign political and
financial groups...

In January 1999,
Jean-Pierre Bemba,

leader of the Movement for
the Liberation of the Congo,

along with the Ugandan Major
General James Kazini,

organized a looting of
coffee beans so vast,

that it bankrupted the
Congolaise Société Du Café,

the largest owner of coffee
stocks in the northeast.

[Singing]

There was little to profit
from in the area I controlled

because it was in the forest.

There were no resources
from which we could profit.

The UN Panel Report reveals
that in Equateur Province,

where Bemba is in control,

he instructed his soldiers
to systematically

empty banks once a
town was captured.

It was in the United Nations'
report, actually.

It mentions 5 billion dollars
that were embezzled.

[Singing, drumming]

In an effort to
stabilize his country,

Joseph Kabila has sought debt
cancellation from

the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund,

the U.S., France, and Belgium.

Four main rebel leaders now
serve as vice presidents

in a powersharing
government designed

to end the country's civil war.

I think the situation
here is so terrible,

that people don't really...

give a lot of importance to the
legitimacy of these different

political leaders.

What people want now is
just some sort of economic

development, some sort of
peace so they are ready to

to support Joseph Kabila if
he provides this.

Joseph Kabila promised elections
for 2005,

which did not take place.

The four Vice Presidents will

compete with Kabila
for the presidency.

I think it's also in the
hands of the local people to

fight for their rights.

People haven't really yet
realized that it's perhaps the

right time for them to march and
take to the streets.

The Congo is simply too rich to
be left alone,

to be left by itself and to be

governed by the
Congolese themselves.

There are too many forces
who have big stakes

into getting their
hands onto those huge

wealths which are there into the
Congo.

And this was so
during the time of

Leopold the II and it
is the same today.

Armed conflict, disease, forced
labor, starvation:

the legacy of Leopold's time
still haunts the Congo today.

The 3.4 million to 4 million
people who died as a result

of the conflict errs
on the low side.

And I think it's probably worth
making the same point for

King Leopold's time because
the causes of high

mortality rates are
pretty much the same.

The people who are the victims
are forced to bear the

provisioning of the armies
who are their victimizers.

A child who was born
in some of these areas

has about a seventy
percent chance of dying.

There's been so much violence
that the newly created

International Criminal Court
in the Hague has chosen

to focus on the Congo as
its first investigation.

I was heading to the bathroom
around 5 pm.

I met Shabani.

He sent a boy to catch
me and bring me to him.

He forced me into a
room. I was screaming.

He pulled my clothes off
after taking off his own.

He bound my hands. And
then he...

he...raped me.

More than 65 percent
of our population

is younger than 15 years old,

so even those who are 30 today
were not around in the '60s,

did not study it in school.

Most people know
the names,

but when you ask them what
happened,

most people do not know.

I do not know if
Belgium has offered

apologies for the
rubber tragedy but,

I know they
apologized concerning

the assassination
of Lumumba to the

people of the Congo,
and to my family.

The royal family is a strange
subject in Belgium,

quite untouchable;

one that hides and protects
itself and that never

appears in public debate.

I believe that it's really
up to the democratic system,

and up to the parliament to shed
some light - it's much stronger.

But it must be done with
a balanced approach,

so as not to give the impression
that there were only injustices,

that there was only killing.

There were many other
things as well.

And that is often forgotten
in debates that are sometimes

partisan to one side or another.

It has been very difficult,

and has been very
long and laborious

to put the country
back on track.

But if we, the Congolese,

ourselves do not believe in
it, I do not know who will.

And I believe that in this
country there is not only wealth

- right it does exist -

but there are
especially people,

there are human
resources that are

extraordinary and I
believe in that.

And we know, we have to
work to make it come true.

[Water splashing]

[music]

Biembaka, killed by the gun.

Etaleaoso, his brother-
killed by the gun.

Efolokozambeyo, Man-
killed by the gun.

Lekoka, Boy- killed by the gun.

Majangu, Man- killed by the gun.

Ifeka, Girl- killed by the gun.

Akaba, Man- killed by the gun.