For the first time in Belgium’s history, a reigning king expressed regret Tuesday for the violence carried out by the former colonial power when it ruled over what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In a letter to the president of the DRC, Felix Tshisekedi, which was published on the 60th anniversary of the African country’s independence, Belgium’s King Philippe conveyed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” and the “suffering and humiliation” inflicted on Belgian Congo.
Philippe’s letter was sent amid growing demands that Belgium reassess its colonial past.
In the wake of the protests against racial inequality triggered by the May 25 death of George Floyd in the United States, several statues of King Leopold II, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s colonial rule, have been vandalized.
At the time of the independent State of the Congo, acts of violence and cruelty were committed that still weigh on our collective memory,” Philippe wrote, referring to the period when the country was privately ruled by Leopold II from 1885 to 1908.
