Greed Disguised as Humanitarianism:

The Story of the Congo Reform Movement 

William Tyler Grove

  
Appalachian Spring Conference in World History and Economics
 
March 20, 2010
• “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the
Congo,”
– Sharon Sliwinski argues that the Congo Reform effort can
be regarded as a forerunner of present-day humanitarian
groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International
• This paper disagrees with this premise.
– This effort was not a precursor to Amnesty International.
• The reasons for the movement seem to be four-fold:
– Some wanted change for financial motives, religious motives
– Scapegoating (Leopold) and philanthropic interests.
– Some simply wanted someone else to blame for the conditions of European Imperialism
– Members of the Congo Reform Association (CRA) may not have consciously realized their
true motivations for joining the group, but ultimately they were not driven primarily by
humanitarian aims..
 The Congo Free State
1885
• 80 times the size of Belgium
• All unoccupied land was made
property of State
• Organized Congo state to extract
wealth from local populations
– Destroyed traditional economy
– forces natives to work only for the
state or concessionaries.
 Raw Materials
• Ivory: Belgian Monopoly
• Rubber: 1887- The inflatable bicycle tire was invented
and spawned, along with the car tire, a worldwide
rubber boom.
 Force Publique

• Leopold’s 19,000 man private army

• Compared to Hitlers’ SS for its brutality
 Early Reform Efforts:
• George Washington Williams

• Leopold blunted criticism of Williams and

missionaries through the formation of
Commission for the Protection of Natives (1895)
The Missionaries
• Present in Congo from founding
– Part of Civilizing Native Populations
• Protestant and Catholic Missionaries
were stations throughout the Congo and
provided first-hand accounts of the
atrocities
• Played a key companion to Morel and
the Congo Reform Association.
• Impact of Lantern Lectures
Examples of
‘civilizing’ the native
populations
 Congo Reform
Association
• 1904 - The CRA was born in
England following return of
Roger Casement from the
Congo.
• Casement had reported on
the conditions for the British
Government
• Modeled on other
movements including
abolition:
– Deployed knowledge,
observers with local
experiences and
photographs, to legitimate
accusation of exploitation.
 E.D. Morel
• Edmund Dene Morel (28) quit his
London shipping line job 1901     
• Worked for Elder Dempster Company
which is responsible from transit from
Antwerp to Congo
• Published anonymous articles about the
atrocities the Congo in 1900
• International concern over reports of
atrocities: Human rights campaign led
by journalist British
• began a full time campaign to expose
the barbarities in the Congo under
Leopold II.
– He started his own publication, "The
West African Mail," an illustrated weekly
journal in 1903 as a forum on West and
Central African Questions.
– funded by millionaire William Cadbury
The War of Words a sample of documents
• Anti-Leopold
– Mark Twain King Leopold’s
Soliloquy 1905
–  E.D. Morel wrote Red
Rubber: the Story of the
Rubber Slave Trade
Flourishing on the Congo in
the year of Grace 1906
– Arthur Conan Doyle Le Crime
Du Congo 1905
• Pro- Leopold
– La Vérité sur le Congo journal
1904-1908
– Henry Wellington Wack The
Story of the Congo Free State
1905
The Incorruptible Kodak
• Armed with modern weapons and the chicotte — a bull whip made of
hippopotamus hide — the Belgian army routinely took and tortured hostages
(mostly women), flogged, and raped the natives.
 • The Force Publique took
human hands as trophies
on the orders of white
officers to show that
bullets hadn't been
wasted.
• Some of the Victims lived.

Two youths of the Equator district. The hands of Mola, seated,

have been destroyed by gangrene after being tied too tightly by
soldier. The right hand of Yoka, standing, was cut off by soldiers
wanting to claim him as killed.
“The baskets of severed hands, set down at the
feet of the European post commanders,
became the symbol of the Congo Free State…”
 Hands collected …

• In practice, soldiers sometimes "cheated" by simply cutting off the hand and leaving
the victim to live or die. More than a few survivors later said that they had lived
through a massacre by acting dead, not moving even when their hand was severed,
and waiting till the soldiers left before seeking help.
Public Opinion in Media:
• 1908  
– King Leopold II turned the Congo over to Belgium
for 150m francs.
1909
– Leopold II dies, booed at his funereal parade.
– “The most hated man in Europe”
• The philanthropic
intentions :
– simply a politically
convenient story for their
true ambitions.
• Economics
• Safe Target
– Blame Leopold
• Greed and Competition
• Ignore other colonies:
– Death Toll
 Results:
• Leopold’s rule resulted in the torture and
murder of an estimated 10 million Congolese
between 1888 and 1908.
• Reduced the population by half.
 Congo Today
• 4 million people have
been killed since 1998
• Exploitation Continues:
– Gold, Diamonds
• During the 1990s the
U.S. supplied more than
$125 million in arms
and training to 6 of the
7 states who have had
troops fighting on
several sides in Congo
Civil War
Questions?
Other Information:

Questions?
 Why?
• 1876: Leopold organizes a meeting in Brussels to
discuss his plan:
– “to open to civilization the only part of our globe
where Christianity has not yet penetrated and to
pierce the darkness which envelops the whole
population”
• 1877: Henry Morton Stanley
– “There are 40 million naked people on the other
side of the rapids, and the cotton-spinners of
Manchester are waiting to clothe them...
Birmingham's factories are glowing with the red
metal that shall presently be made into ironwork in
every fashion and shape for them... and the
ministers of Christ are zealous to bring them, the
poor benighted heathen, into the Christian fold.”
– Hired by Leopold to explore and secure the Congo
 Leopold II: Early Life
• Belgium founded in 1830
– Leopold I- father
• Leopold II was cousin of Queen
Victoria.
• Leopold believed that Belgium
needed colonies to ensure its
prosperity
• Tried to buy the Philippines in
1875.
• Knew Belgian People would
not support his affairs, he
worked as a private individual.
 Classroom Questions:

• How did technology influence the Congo?

• What effect do you think Nationalism played
in the Congo?
 The Second Wave of Imperialism
The Land Grab in Africa
– In 1870 roughly 80% of sub-Saharan Africa was living
under indigenous rulers
– by 1910 virtually all of it was European Colonies or
white settler regimes. It was the fastest land grab in
history.
 Berlin Conference 1884
• Bismarck calls European
powers for a conference
that leads for the Scramble
for Africa.
• Leopold is given complete
control over the Congo Free
State; in return he
guarantees
– free trade rights
– no monopolies
– no taxes and tariffs
– no restriction on trade.
 Government Action in Britain
• May 1903-  The House of Commons passed a
resolution urging that Congo natives be
governed with humanity.
– Sent Consul Roger Casement, to report on the
conditions in the Congo
• Jun 1903- The British government officially
protested Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
 Casement Report, 1903
• The single most important factor in
exposing the atrocities in The Congo.
• “I have returned from the Upper Congo
today with convincing evidence of
shocking misgovernment and
wholesale oppression.”
• “It is an extraordinary thing that the
conscience of Europe which seventy
years ago …put down the slave trade on
humanitarian grounds tolerates the
Congo state today.”
Heart of Darkness
• 1902 Joseph Conrad's novel
• Based on his 1890 trip to the Congo as
a Boat Captain.
– Conrad saw some of the most shocking
and depraved examples of human
corruption he’d ever witnessed. He was
disgusted by the ill treatment of the
natives, the scrabble for loot, the terrible
heat and the lack of water.
• Marlow on Leopold’s colonialism:
– “The conquest of the earth, which
mostly means the taking it away from
those who have a different complexion
or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is
not a pretty thing when you look into it
too much.”
• Patrice Lumumba
– Freely elected Prime Minister (1960)
– Assassinated Jan, 1961
– CIA involvement in Lumumba’s
assassination
• Mobutu Dictatorship
– 1960 – 1997
– Initiated first coup in September 1960
– Reign marked by Kleptocracy
– Cold War Patron of the West
– Destruction of the country
– Overthrown in May 1997
 Congo Today
• 4 million people have
been killed since 1998
• Exploitation Continues:
– Gold, Diamonds
• During the 1990s the
U.S. supplied more than
$125 million in arms
and training to 6 of the
7 states who have had
troops fighting on
several sides in Congo
Civil War