Belgian Congo Quotes
This is a common rejoinder of third world country leaders to accusations of Western democracies about corruption. And doubtless it is true. However temptation has never been a good defense of improper behavior.
The human rights abuses in the Belgian Congo were horrible. Natives who refused to work for the low wages were murdered or had their hands chopped off. The indigenous population was markedly reduced. Word of the atrocities started leaking out to Europe. It is not known whether the King really wanted any reform or just sent the instructions to cover himself. The instructions were not followed; the atrocities continued, and Leopold never took any steps to discipline his agents and minions. The Belgian Congo had the worst atrocities in the world until WWII.
Mobutu with Amerucan CIA and French assistance deposed Lumumba, murdered him, and seized power.
Corruption was rife in the Congo before the French or Belgians ever arrived there. However, it is the case that French business and diplomatic culture is much more tolerant of third world corruption than most other industrial democracies and actively engage in bribery efforts to a degree that other nations do not.
At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. Congress was outraged over the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, the Russian pogroms against the Jews, and the Belgian atrocities against the Blacks in the Congo. However, the State Department was then more interested in maintaining relations for our corporations than the moral aspects of mass murder within a country.
The Ottoman Turks were slaughtering Armenians; the Russians had pogroms against the Jews, and the Blacks were being tortured or killed if they would not work for the Belgians in the Congo. TR was in favor of interventionism to protect populations and human rights. However, the then President, Woodrow Wilson, was far more timid. See {620612}
The Belgian soldiers attempted to terrorize and intimidate the natives into working on the rubber plantations. The practice of cutting off hands thus leaving the victim to intimidate others which was so prevalent in Sierra Leone and other parts of Africa in 2000 was also practiced by the Whites at the turn of the last century.
