cruel, ruthless, genocidal
Explanation:
Leopold II, who reigned in Belgium between 1865 and 1909, sought to turn his small country into an imperial power for which he led efforts to develop the Congo River basin.
Arguing his desire to bring the benefits of Christianity, Western civilization and commerce to African natives, the monarch convinced the Eurasian powers to allow him to take control of that vast region through an organization he called the International African Association and that In 1885 he transformed into the Free State of Congo.
This private institution was not linked to the Belgian state but depended directly on the monarch, who presented himself as his "owner." It was the only private colony in the world.
But behind the philanthropic discourse of Leopold II there was a great interest in seizing the great wealth of the territory.
First, of ivory, which was immensely appreciated at the time.
Thus arose most of the wealth obtained by the monarch during the first years of the Free State of Congo.
Gradually, interest in ivory was displaced by rubber fever, when in the 1890s its use skyrocketed to produce bicycle and car wheels.
There are also many stories about the crudeness with which this material was exploited in the territories controlled by Leopold II.
He turned his 'Free State of the Congo' into a massive labor camp, made a fortune for himself by collecting rubber and contributed greatly to the death of perhaps 10 million innocents.
In 1998, the American historian Adam Hochschild published a book in which Leopold II was designated as responsible for a kind of African holocaust, which would exceed the number of dead Jews by Nazi Germany in number of victims.
What there is a coincidence among scholars was in the brutal methods used by the representatives of Leopold II to force the native population to exploit the rubber.
The method to force Congolese to work was as follows: they entered a village by force, took women and girls hostage and ordered men to enter the jungle to collect a certain quota of rubber.
While the men fulfilled the task imposed to save their wives and daughters, they starved or were subjected to sexual abuse.
In addition, those who were not able to complete the quota that had been imposed on them were threatened with the amputation of one of their hands or those of one of their children.
Is it enough to qualify Leopold II as a genocidal?
