Coincidences in February 26th Berlin Conference, Congo talks

The owner of the prize called it “Congo Free State” a personal property then not yet a colony of his kingdom, Belgium. The other European colonisers upheld Leopold’s ownership of Congo and its contents including people.

The atrocities Leopold unleashed on Congo were unbelievable and included constructing a zoo in Belgium where he kept actual Congolese people to show off to his visitors.

In Congo itself, humans were the least valued commodity, at the mercy of the worst European failures that Leopold gathered and deployed to form the Congo army, public administration and even clergy—a weak priests who couldn’t stand celibacy could go Congo to marry not one but several women and freely do church work in the “free state”.

Accountability for ammunition was strict and “free state” soldiers who used bullets to hunt animals simply cut off African hands as proof of an errant African shot, then proceed to kill the handless African by other means.

Even by pre-World War I human rights standards, the perverted cruelty against the Congolese was so shocking that the Belgian government was forced to buy the real estate called Congo from its sadistic owner at the close of the first decade of the 20th century, and run it like a colony.

Soon after, two colonisers, again without involving the African owners of the land, signed the Kigali treaty, drawing a new border between “German Ruanda” and “Belgian Congo”.

This border placed the now topical Banyamulenge into Belgian Congo, separating them from their people in a diminished “Ruanda”.

And the rest became nasty history. Nasty because (now DR) Congo is one of the most miserable places on earth, despite being the richest country in natural resources on the planet.

The UN peace keeping mission in DR Congo is reportedly the most expensive, having consumed over $20 billion in as many years.

DR Congo citizens who have tried to seek redress for the inhuman enslavement of children decimated in mines for the benefit of multinational hi-tech firms have been thrown out of courts in the US.

Read: Belgian King admits colonial wrongs, but declines to apologise

DRC is also regarded as the most unsafe place to be a woman or girl. Meanwhile the victims—Banyamulenge and DR Congo army are busy fighting each other—no prizes for guessing who is benefits from this.

But there are ways out. One is for parties involved to enter serious negotiations without insincere posturing. There should be five parties to the negotiations (maybe more including witnesses) and these are: DRC, Rwanda, Banyamulenge, Germany and Belgium.

The latter two sowed the seeds the problem and should meet the cost of the process. The first two are carrying the problem and the Banyamulenge are the victims. The Second Congo Conference can open this February 26th in contrite Berlin.

Ultimately, a referendum should be held for the Banyamulenge to choose whether to belong to DRC, to Rwanda or to form their own state.

There can be a fourth option of designating an autonomous, Banyamulenge-administered region within DRC. (The 115 years has seen four or five generations of Banyamulenge inter-marrying with people of other ethnicities who live in their region and Banyamulenge living in other parts of DR Congo, so changing nationality could be a problem, though not as bad as having their existence criminalised. But this option should not be mixed with proposals to federate different regions of DRC—an intra-country process whose competent execution cannot be guaranteed.)

The East African Community should stop ‘tying itself’ on DRC, which isn’t keen on membership and threw out the peace force EAC had deployed to save Congolese lives. SADC troops and European mercenaries should also keep out.

The matter should be left to DRC, Rwanda, Germany, Belgium and Banyamulenge. There are of course other solutions, which include continued fighting so that more lives are lost while outsiders make more billions as DRC continues being a laughing stock.