This engrossing and shocking documentary by Englishman Peter Bate examines the exploitation of the Congo for rubber at the cost of an estimated 10 million lives by King Leopold II of Belgium over a forty year period beginning in 1885. The on-camera narrator is professor Elikia M'Bokolo (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris). Two other academics who offer their insights are Marc Reynebeau — a Belgian Congo specialist — and Maria Misra — a historian at Oxford University.
King Leopold II wanted to extend Belgium's glory and power in the world through a colony abroad. The explorer Henry Stanley plunged into the jungles of Africa in his trek across the continent, which brought the Congo into global view. Then a little while later, John Dunlop created the pneumatic tire and immediately rubber was needed for the tires of bicycles and cars.
King Leopold II cleverly hoodwinked other European nations to give him control of the Congo, and then set up phony treaties with African chiefs. He wanted the world to think that his intentions were to bring civilization to the dark continent, but his real goal was to make a lot of money. The end result was the exploitation of the Congo, which over a forty year period became a gigantic slave labor camp where whole villages were destroyed and millions were tortured and murdered by Leopold's army.
It was missionaries in the Congo that first noticed the torture of Africans, but the damaging exposure of the Belgian king's reign of terror was revealed by a Liverpool shipping clerk named Edmund Dene Morel who published photographs of the atrocities perpetrated on the flesh of men, women and children in the name of economic profit.
In this documentary, excerpts from Joseph Conrad's novel are read as further evidence of the nightmarish proportions of what was happening in the Congo because of Leopold's henchmen.
Director Peter Bate is most disturbed by the re-writing of history to make King Leopold look like a benevolent monarch who only wanted to bring civilization and Christianity to the poor people of the Congo. The mythology afoot today in Belgium and even among some Congolese is that Leopold II was a visionary leader who was able to create a money machine that greatly benefited his country.
Although he escaped punishment for his terrible crimes, this documentary has him stand trial and listen to all the violence and death that resulted from his colonial schemes. Perhaps the scariest scene in the film is the connection made between chopping off the hands of children for late deliveries of rubber and little chocolates in the form of hands sold in Belgium.
Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death reveals a staggering human rights violation and a vivid portrait of a cruel and amoral forerunner of the global corporations of today who are ravaging the economies of Third World countries and leaving the poor worse off than ever before.
