This literally meant that Leopold took the lands and wealth of a people and obliged them to work on their own land as slaves.
The rubber industry in Europe was booming and he had to meet the demands of the market. As punishment for not fulfilling the quota they cut-off of your limb or get murdered.
Leopold II had an army which consisted of about 19,000 european mercenaries, called Publique Force. The military aggressively recruited Africans into its lower ranks as well. These Africans were press-ganged into service and they were executed if they resisted.
The European officials were so ruthless and based on their rubber hatred and targeting that they created a rule for soldiers to cut off and deliver the hands of any of the Congolese citizens killed for failing to fulfill their quota.
The source began to decline thus becoming slightly scarce . It was then more difficult to obtain the rubber, as many individuals had to climb tall trees to reach the vines. People may often drop from the trees and fall to their deaths.
In addition to the shooting and maiming, disease was another factor that caused millions to die. The wellbeing of the workers was not taken into account by the Belgians, who fed them with unhealthy meat and vegetables, and starved them most of the time.
However, this did not make the Belgians stop. For the commercial benefit of their resources, they continued the slavery and enslavement of the people of the Congo.
The burning of their villages was one of the painful accounts of the genocide of the Congolese. The commissioners and their officers also gave a certain quota to a whole village to fulfill and if they failed their villages and inhabitants were burnt down.
Diplomatic talks and pressure from many quarters would later lead Leopold II to renounce his rule over the Free State of the Congo and then hand it over to the Belgian Government, and then the Congo to be named the Belgian Congo.
To this day, the Congo is still the property of the Europeans and has been held in constant conflict by European powers trying to seize their wealth while keeping the citizens divided.
Congo is going through a silent holocaust. Millions of people are being killed so that the western world can benefit from its natural resources.
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