Why blame belgians for the civil war in Congo?

Question

Why did the Portuguese introduce the Prazo system in Congo? Did it succed in serving the intrests of the Portuguese?

Answer 1

As far as I know Belgians is blamed for the first and biggest genocide of 20th century in Congo, for the bloody regime of King Leopold II in the Congo Free State, a regime of slavery and genocide, full of torture and mutilations.



There isn’t an agreed figure about human toll but even the minimum estimation is more than the Jews killed by Nazi regime. In general, average estimation is about 10 million people. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica the population was declined from 30 million to 8 million.



On the other hand, Portugues is blamed for genocide in Angola, Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique during colonial years.



I don't know the relation between Portugues and Congo and between Belgians and the Civil War.

Answer 2

Who's blaming the Belgians? Despite Belgium's long history as a colonial power in the area, the recent civil wars in the Congo could hardly be ascribed to them.



Take a look at the 1994 Rwandan genocide and what happened in the immediate aftermath; the génocidiares fled Rwanda to the Congo and threatened Rwanda's new regime. Rwanda retaliated, along came Uganda and the Congolese rebel leader Laurent Kabila suddenly had strong allies in his effort to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko, the then Zaire's president. Since 1997, there have been at least three wars, and at least 11 countries have been involved.



The blame? Sese Seko was a bastard and a dictator, Uganda had no good reason to be there (except stealing diamonds), neither did Rwanda from 1997, and Tanzania and the rest? Their involvement is as justified as a certain war in Iraq ... It's a classical struggle for power and resources, not a colonial legacy!



(The Prazo system was a success in Mozambique, not in the Congo!)

Answer 3

The seeds of Congo's post-independence woes were sown in the emergence in the 1950s of two markedly different forms of nationalism. The nationalist movement which the Belgian authorities, to some degree turned a blind eye to, promoted territorial nationalism wherein the Belgian Congo would become one politically united state after independence. In opposition to this, was the ethno-religious and regional nationalism that took hold in the Bakongo territories of the west coast, Kasaï, and Katanga.

In the early 1950s, these emerging nationalist movements put Belgium under increasing pressure to transform the Belgian Congo into a self-governing state. Belgium had ratified article 73 of the United Nations Charter, which advocated self-determination, and both superpowers put pressure on Belgium to reform their Congo policy. The Belgian government's response was largely dismissive. However, Belgian professor Antoine van Bilsen, in 1955, published a treatise called Thirty Year Plan for the Politcal Emancipation of Belgian Africa. The timetable called for gradual emancipation of the Congo over a thirty year period - the time Van Bilsen expected it would take to create an educated elite who could replace the Belgians in positions of power. The Belgian government and many of the évolués were suspicious of the plan — the former because it meant eventually giving up the Congo, and the latter because Belgium would still be ruling Congo for another 3 decades. A group of Catholic évolués responded positively to the plan with a manifesto in a Congolese journal called Conscience Africaine, with their only point of disagreement being the amount of native Congolese participation.