Tag: #TheCongoConference

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The Berlin Conference or as some call it the Congo Conference was held in Berlin, Germany between the 15th of November 1884 and it continued until the 26th of February 1885. It was organized by German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck and was held at his chancellery. The conference was attended by members from thirteen European countries and the United States who aimed to set agendas of territorial aggression on African land. There were no African representatives at the conference, nor was much thought placed into to the ethnic differences of the people whose lives were to be affected by these artificial borders being erected by these decisions. In order for no future disputes to develop between the colonizers; future rules for colonization and free trade were decided at the conference.

Congo Free State

Also during this infamous conference it was decided that the exclusive right to colonize the majority of the Congo, (under an imperialistic project given the name of “Congo Free State“) would be granted privately to King Leopold II of Belgium, while some minor portions of land, and waterways inside Congo remained neutral and open for commercial purposes, the majority of the country would fall under the king’s control. The book “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hochschild is very well written and is full of the stories of injustice and violence that took place in the “Congo Free State” between 1885-1908.

The story of King Leopold the second’s Congo is a story of human beings forced to work on rubber plantations and killed for choosing not to work, or for not working hard enough. It is a story of sickness and famine. It is a story of fathers watching their children mutilated by the Belgian king’s agents. It is a story of workplace quotas placed on the Congolese and if they weren’t met, than this would lead to horrendous maimings of a person’s hands or even feet. Another common tactic of the king’s agents was kidnap family members and hold them as ransom, until a certain amount of work was finished. It is said ten million people were murdered in the Congo under the reign of King Leopold II.

German Interests

Germany ended up colonizing the countries of Togo, Cameroon, German South East Africa (modern-day Burundi, Tanzania, and Rwanda), and an area they called German South West Africa (modern-day Namibia).Terrible atrocities can be read in all four territories. In German South West Africa alone the German colonizers committed what has been called the First Genocide of the Twentieth Century against the Nama and Herero people in which it is estimated as many as 100,000 people were killed. For anyone wishing to learn more on the subject I would recommend David Olusoga and Caspar W. Erichsen’s wonderful book entitled, “The Kaiser’s Holocaust.”

Repercussions and Aftermath

One cannot begin to imagine the suffering that this meeting paved the way for. The millions of dead human beings, and the millions more that survived, but were left with the pain and memories of brutality, rapes, mutilations, humiliation, exploitation, displacements, the traumas that could never be atoned. Although France, England, and Portugal had colonies in Africa prior to the meeting. This meeting gave future colonization in Africa the go ahead.

Then after decades of colonization came the decolonization struggles, the proxy wars. How many more lives were taken? And what can be said of the Civil Wars? What effect did carving up, lands and creating territories, disregarding the people of the land and their way of life have on those wars?

Sources:

Rosenberg, Matt. (2021, February 16). The Berlin Conference to Divide Africa. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/berlin-conference-1884-1885-divide-africa-1433556

The Berlin Conference 1884–1885 / Africa’s Great Civilizations. (n.d.). http://Www.Pbslearningmedia.Org. Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/6031c3a2-ada9-42b4-8045-52006e2a2b07/the-berlin-conference-of-1884-1885/