Cape Town - Belgium’s King Philippe conveyed his “deepest regrets” to the Democratic Republic of Congo for the “wounds of the past” caused by his country in an address to government officials and parliamentarians on Wednesday in the capital Kinshasa.
Belgian king's visit to Democratic Republic of Congo seeks to heal "wounds of the past".
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 8, 2022
King Philippe's ancestor King Leopold II had brutally ruled the central African country, treating it as his personal propertyhttps://t.co/P8trsXAznL pic.twitter.com/7eIUdAaDj0
Short of an apology, the Belgian King and his government is seeking to write a new chapter in relations with the former colony.
The Central African nation acquired independence from Belgium in 1960.
According to the Brussels Times, the speech in front of the Congolese parliament was the most eagerly awaited part of the week-long state visit by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, on his maiden visit to the central African country.
"This regime was one of unequal relations, unjustifiable in itself, marked by paternalism, discrimination and racism," he said.
King Philippe is on a week-long visit to DR Congo at the invitation of President Félix Tshisekedi, according to the Congolese presidency.
Further to this, King Philippe said that colonialism gave rise to abuses and humiliations.
Belgium's King Philippe returned a traditional mask to Democratic Republic of Congo on his first visit to the former colony. The initiation mask of the Suku people has been held for decades at Belgium's Royal Museum for Central Africa https://t.co/gNy5hB2Mt8 pic.twitter.com/XtaPW4mh49
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 8, 2022
“On the occasion of my first trip to the Congo, here in the face of the Congolese people and those who still suffer today, I wish to reaffirm my deepest regret for these wounds of the past,” he said.
Belgium’s colonisation as the Belgian Congo has been described by historians as one of the harshest European rules in Africa in the late 19th and 20th centuries, for which Philippe in 2020 wrote a letter to President Tshisekedi, expressing his "deepest regrets" for the "wounds of the past."
IOL