King Philippe of Belgium who is currently on a state visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo with his wife, Queen Mathilde, has apologized to African countries who were colonized by his country, especially the racism meted out to the people of the DRC under the colonial rule of his ancestors.
King Philippe who is on a week-long visit to the country at the invitation of President Félix Tshisekedi, admitted that his country had committed a lot of demeaning atrocities in the DRC and asked the people forgive his forebears.
“This regime was one of unequal relations, unjustifiable in itself, marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism,” the King said.
“On the occasion of my first trip to Congo, here, in front of the Congolese people and those who still suffer from it today, I wish to reaffirm my deepest regrets for these wounds of the past,” the 62-year-old monarch added.
On the first day of the historic visit on Wednesday, King Philippe had handed over a giant Congolese mask to Tshisekedi, one of about 84,000 artefacts stolen by the Belgian colonial masters which Belgium has agreed to return.
The mask, called Kakungu, which was previously exhibited at Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa, was used during healing ceremonies by the Suku community, from the south-west of the country.
“I wanted, during our visit at the National Museum and in your presence, to return to you this exceptional work in order to allow Congolese to discover and admire it.
“It marks the symbolic beginning of the reinforcement of the cultural collaboration between Belgium and Congo,” he said.
According to the King, many more artefacts are to be returned from the Belgium Royal Museum for Central Africa, nearly 70% of whose art objects were seized during the colonial period.
Till date, Belgium’s colonial record in the DR Congo stands as one of the bloodiest in Africa as the European country did everything and used every force to subdue the Congolese and consolidate its control on the vast, mineral-rich central African country, which is 77 times its size, from the 19th Century until independence in 1960, with the entire country declared to be the personal property of King Leopold II.
During the bloody reign of King Leopold, more than 10 million Africans are thought to have died from diseases, abuses, and while working on plantations for him, it was reported that authorities would chop off the limbs of enslaved people when they did not meet quotas of materials such as rubber demanded by the crownline.