The Belgian Imperialism: The Colonization Of The Congo Free State

The Belgians first imperialized the Congo Free State, situated in the middle of Africa, in 1877. Prior to the colonization there was the Luba, Lunda and the Kongo Empire who were all ruled by a king. The Luba Empire was the largest of the kingdoms. Before the colonization by the Belgians, the territory’s land was largely untouched and was rich in natural resources [1] [2] [3]. The Luba army was very small due to the lack of threats from other empires; the kingdoms additionally developed in size through quiet bargains and advantages to small villages. However, in 1884 there was the Berlin conference [4] where the major european powers of france, germany, the UK, spain and belgium split up africa and were all given a share of the continent.
The Congo was completely unjustified because they were solely interested in their own benefits, as they wanted to reign over the entire region and they wanted to explore an area that had so much unmapped wealth not even caring about the situation about human
King Leopold’s forced would kidnap able-bodied kids from villages and turn them into child soldiers. After they kidnapped them the kids would be sent to a military academy, they were brainwashed and after they graduated they would become junior officers and would be sent into villages and terrorise the people living there led by senior belgian officers of his private army.[10] Even after the Belgians left the Congo the repressive rule led to acts of human rights violations after the coup d etat on 1965 of the Democratic Republic of Congo that lasted til 1997. Public workers unpaid for a considerable length of time at once, and with little venture or upkeep. Likewise Zaire's infrastructure had kept on breaking down. Also there was a lot of corruption, blackmail, extortion, and embezzlement. A lot of people lost their lives in the midst of the January military uprising, both as an eventual outcome of the revolting and in the midst of the camouflage of the pillaging by loyal sections of the military.Here we see that Zaire and the congo free state had very similar government styles. There were enormous human rights infringement by the Zaire Government in blocking law based change. It utilized an assortment of fierce procedures, including death and unlawful confinement, to hit at resistance government officials, work authorities, writers, and human