Belgian Congo
Encyclopedia : B : BE : BEL : Belgian Congo
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| Capital | Léopoldville | ||||
| Government | Protectorate | ||||
| Created | 1908 | ||||
| Dissolved | 1960 | ||||
| Official language(s) | French, Dutch | ||||
The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between King Léopold II's formal relinquishment of personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, to the dawn of Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.
1908-1950s
Léopold gave up control of his personal property, the Congo Free State, mainly due to international outrage over the brutality of his reign. Annexation to Belgium was accomplished by means of the Treaty of November 28, 1907, approved by the Belgian Parliament in August and by the King in October of the following year. The colony was administered by a governor-general at Boma, assisted by several vice governors-general. In Brussels there was a colonial minister, who presided over the Colonial Council of 14 members, of whom 8 were appointed by the King and 3 chosen by the Senate and 3 by the Chamber of Deputies (lower chamber). The colony was divided into 15 administrative districts. The colonial budget was voted annually by the Belgian Parliament.When the Belgian Government took over the Congolese Administration from King Leopold II, the situation in the Congo improved dramatically. Economic and Social changes transformed the Congo into a "model colony". Hospitals, primary and high schools were built, and many Congolese had access to them. Even the ethnic languages were taught at school, a rare occurrence in colonial education. Doctors and medics achieved great victories against the sleeping disease (they managed to eradicate the disease). There was a medic post in every village, and in bigger cities, people had access to well equipped hospitals. The Administration continued with the economic reforms with the construction of railways, ports, roads, mines, plantations, industrial areas, etc. In the 1950s life expectancy was around 55 years, today it is 51. At the time, the Gross National Product was the highest in Africa.
But, the Belgian administration has been characterized as paternalistic colonialism. The educational system was dominated by the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches and the curricula reflected Christian and Western values. For example, in 1948 fully 99.6% of educational facilities were controlled by Christian missions. Native schooling was mainly religious and vocational. Children learned how to write and read, some mathematics, but that was all.
Political administration fell under the total and direct control of the mother country; there were no democratic institutions. The head of the state remained the King of the Belgians (who had, already at the time, no political influence any-more). The Belgian government controlled the country, but day-to-day operations were carried out by the governor general (see Colonial heads of Congo), who was appointed as a colonial administrator by the government.
Together with the paternalistic point-of-view of the Belgians, there was a kind of "Apartheid", as curfews for natives and other such restrictions were commonplace.
In 1952, Governor-General Petillon wrote to the Secretary of Colonies, saying that something had to be done in the Congo, and that if nothing was, Belgium would lose this rich colony. He wanted to give the native people more civil rights, even suffrage. The Belgian government was against this proposal, saying that "it would only destabilise the region". In Belgium, some progressive members of Parliament wanted to incorporate the Congo into the Belgian Kingdom. Native Congolese people would thus be Belgian citizens, and would therefore have full political rights.
However, Belgium was not very interested in its colony, as the government never had a strategic long-term vision about the Congo! Nevertheless, there were some internal political changes, but these were complicated by ethnic rivalries among the native population.
The Belgian Congo was one of the major exporters of uranium to the United States during World War II and the Cold War, particularly from the Shinkolobwe mine.
The Rise of Nationalism
| History of DR Congo
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In the early 1950s, these emerging nationalist movements put Belgium under increasing pressure to transform the Belgian Congo into a self-governing state. Belgium had ratified article 73 of the United Nations Charter, which advocated self-determination, and both superpowers put pressure on Belgium to reform their Congo policy. The Belgian government's response was largely dismissive. However, Belgian professor Antoine van Bilsen, in 1955, published a treatise called Thirty Year Plan for the Politcal Emancipation of Belgian Africa. The timetable called for gradual emancipation of the Congo over a thirty year period - the time Van Bilsen expected it would take to create an educated elite who could replace the Belgians in positions of power. The Belgian government and many of the évolués were suspicious of the plan — the former because it meant eventually giving up the Congo, and the latter because Belgium would still be ruling Congo for another 3 decades. A group of Catholic évolués responded positively to the plan with a manifesto in a Congolese journal called Conscience Africaine, with their only point of disagreement being the amount of native Congolese participation.
ABAKO
The ethnically Bakongo association ABAKO (or Association des Bakongo) spearheaded by future president Joseph Kasavubu, however, decided to distance themselves from the plan, in part because most of the Catholic évolués who wrote the Conscience Africaine manifesto were not from the Kongo ethnic group favoured by ABAKO, but also because ABAKO had decided to take a more radical, less gradualist approach to ending colonialism. ABAKO demanded immediate self-government for Congo. The organization gathered steam over the following few years, consolidating political control over much of the lower Congo and Léopoldville. By early 1959, much of the lower Congo was beyond the control of Belgian authorities. The Belgian authorities prohibited ABAKO from meeting and this caused widespread rioting in Léopoldville from January 4-7. On January 12 Kasavubu was arrested and the Belgians stated that he would be released on March 13 of the same year. On the following day, the Belgian government announced formally that they intended to carry out the process of making Congo an independent state quickly which ABAKO speedily denounced two days later.The MNC
Parallel to this was genesis of the Mouvement National Congolais (which was technically formed in 1956). The MNC was led by charismatic future prime minister Patrice Lumumba and supported the idea of complete unity for the Congo territory upon its independence. The party spread quickly after its formation to at least 4 provinces (there were six at the time). In 1959 an internal split was precipitated by Joseph Kalonji and other MNC leaders who favored a more moderate political stance (the splinter group was deemed Mouvement National Congolais-Kalonji. Despite the organizational divergence of the party, Lumbamba's leftist faction (now the Mouvement National Congolais-Lumumba) and the MNC collectively had established themselves as by the far the most important and influential party in the Belgian Congo. Belgium vehemently opposed Lumumba's leftist views and had grave concerns about the status of their financial interests should Lumumba's MNC gain power. However, the MNC gained a clear majority in the Congo's first independent elections and forced Belgium to acknowledge Lumumba as Prime Minister.Katanga
In addition to ethno-nationalism amongst the Bakongo and elsewhere, the most imminent threat the MNC faced was that of regional separatism in Katanga. Settler interests played a determining role in manipulating the regional balance of power to the advantage of secessionist forces.Because of its industrial base and comparatively large European population, Katanga differed in some essential ways from other regions. By 1956 it claimed a non-African population of approximately 34,000, about 31 percent of the total European population of the colony. Many Europeans became active members of the Union for the Colonization of Katanga (Union pour la Colonisation du Katanga--Ucol-Katanga), a settler organization founded in 1944 for the specific purpose of "securing for the white population of Katanga the liberties granted by the Belgian constitution, and to promote, by all available means, the growth of European colonization." Yet, as it became increasingly clear that self-government under settler rule was not a viable option, and as the extension of the vote to Africans in 1957 brought into existence a new constellation of political forces, settler politics took on a radically different objective. The aim was no longer to prevent Africans from gaining power, but to work toward a close political collaboration with those Africans who shared both the settlers' distrust of centralized control and their separatist goals.
The most likely catalyst for this collaborative partnership was the Confederation of Katanga Associations (Confédération des Associations du Katanga--Conakat), headed by Moïse Tshombe. Describing themselves as "authentic Katangese," Conakat supporters were essentially drawn from the Lunda and Yeke peoples of southern Katanga, that is, from those elements who were most resentful of the presence of Luba immigrants from Kasaï, many of whom found employment in the mining centers. The decisive victory scored by these "strangers" during the 1957 urban council elections sharply intensified the animus of Conakat leaders toward immigrants from Kasaï, while bringing into clearer focus the common aspirations of European settlers and "authentic Katangese."
As time went on, however, another threat to Conakat emerged from the north, not from Luba-Kasai but from Luba elements indigenous to northern Katanga. Led by Jason Sendwe, they eventually set up their own political organization, the Association of the Luba People of Katanga (Association des Baluba du Katanga-- Balubakat), soon to enter into an alliance with Lumumba's branch of the MNC. Despite strong cultural affinities between the two groups, the Luba-Kasai went their own way, directing their loyalties to the Federation of Kasai (Fédération Kasaïenne--Fédéka). Their political aloofness was in large part motivated by the rift in Kasaï between the MNC-Lumumba and the MNC-Kalonji, identified, respectively, with Lulua and Luba elements in the Kasaïan arena. Thus, the alliance of Balubakat with the MNC-Lumumba made it highly unlikely that a similar rapprochement would ever materialize between Balubakat and Fédéka. The split between Kasaian and Katangese Luba thus played directly into the hands of Conakat and its European partners.
The victory of the MNC-Lumumba in the May 1960 national legislative elections transformed the alliance between European settlers and Conakat into an increasingly close partnership, and Conakat's relationship with Balubakat into a protracted trial of strength. The conflict with Balubakat began with the provincial elections of May 1960, when Conakat won twenty-five seats, Balubakat twenty-two, and independents the remaining thirteen. Although Balubakat appealed the results, the Belgian magistrate rejected the appeal, and after the thirteen independents joined Conakat, the latter emerged with a solid majority in the Katangan provincial assembly. On June 1, the Balubakat deputies walked out of the assembly, depriving it of the necessary quorum to start its deliberations. At this point, the provincial governor, yielding to the urgings of European settlers, appealed to Brussels to promulgate an amendment to the constitution, the Fundamental Law (Loi Fondamentale), which had been enacted on May 19. On June 15, despite the prophetic warning of Balubakat that "the promulgation of (the amendment) would inevitably lead to civil war after June 30," the Belgian parliament nevertheless enacted the amendment, thus making it legally possible for Conakat to gain full control of the provincial institutions. On July 11, Tshombe would formally declare Katanga an independent state.
1959 and 1960: Accelerating Towards Independence
Following the Léopoldville riots and Kasavubu's encarceration, 1959 initially saw the legalization of all Congolese political parties, followed by general elections throughout the Congo. The electoral activity resulted in all kinds of maneuvers by Congolese parties from which three political alliances emerged: a coalition of the federalistic nationalists of which consisted of six separatist parties or organizations, two of which were ABAKO and the MNC - Kalonji, the MNC-Lumumba and finally that of the strong-man of Katanga, Moïse Tshombe, conscious of the economic vitality of its area and the business interests of the Mining Union (just like Kalonji with respect to the diamond exploitations in Kasaï). In 1960, the Round Table of Brussels was convened and occurred between January 20 and February 20. Congolese representatives and Belgians set the stage for nationwide elections later in the year. In May took place the legislative and provincial elections which marked new cleavages and alliances (the high vote-count for ABAKO) from which a compromise resulted: Joseph Kasavubu was elected President by the Parliament, Lumumba being a Prime Minister
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
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