Belgian Colonialism In The Congo

The night was chilly, that 17th of January 1961 in Katanga, the rich copper province of the former Belgian Congo. The recent breakaway from the independent state of the Congo had been financed by Belgian capital. An open patch in the dark savannah is illuminated by the head-lamps of police cars. A Belgian police officer takes Patrice Lumumba, formerly the elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, by the arm and leads him to a big tree. The Prime Minister walks wearily, he has been tortured for hours, even days now. A four man execution squad armed with Belgian FAL and Vigneron guns stands by, while about 20 soldiers, policemen, Belgian officers and Katangese ministers watch silently. A Belgian captain gives the order to fire and a rain of bullets mows down Lumumba and two or his former ministers.

Forty years later a Belgian parliamentary commission has started an investigation into this very dark chapter of Belgian colonial history. The commission has one year to elucidate on the matter. This investigation serves a double purpose: on the one hand it serves to restore the reputation of Belgium abroad, a reputation which has suffered severely due the huge amount of scandals that have shaken the country over the past five years (from the corruption scandals in arms contracts where Socialist Party leaders played a prominent role, to the sexual abuse and murder of young children, to the dioxin contamination of foodstuffs, to mention only the most important). This is a bad situation for a tiny country that exports more than three quarters of its production in goods and services abroad.

In an attempt to clean up its image, the new Belgian Socialist-Liberal-Green government has been taking the lead in juridical procedures against Pinochet and former Iranian president Rafsanjani, in ...