On Wednesday, the House will put a series of experts to work, who should have a first report ready by September on our colonial past in Congo. With the central question: should Belgium apologize for everything that has been done there? It is also striking that the special committee that will start in September will not only examine Congo, but also the former mandate areas of Rwanda and Burundi.
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A titanic job. This is how professor of colonial history Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven) describes the work that has to be done in parliament. “The investigative committee that investigated the murder of Patrice Lumumba has already taken two years to deal with one specific event. Now all colonial history is being looked at ”.
The Foreign Affairs Committee will indeed be examining today what the scope of the special committee that must see the light of day before the summer will start in September. The State Archives and the Museum for Central Africa delivered an opinion on this that the MPs will see on Wednesday. But according to committee chairman Els Van Hoof (CD&V), it is almost certain that the entire “Belgian period” – Congo Free State from 1880 to 1908 over Belgian Congo until independence in 1960 – will be investigated.
In fact, it is very likely that Rwanda and Burundi will also be included in the study of our colonial past. These two countries were added to Belgium as a mandate after WWI. They were previously in German hands. Not that great atrocities happened just like in Congo, but according to Professor Goddeeris the Rwandan genocide and the tensions between the Tutsis and the Hutus also have colonial roots. “For example, by enlarging differences between certain groups and putting them against each other.”
So it will be quite a sandwich for the special committee. There is unanimity among academics about the broad outline of historical facts, but the main question is how to deal with that past. All parties are positive that the king has expressed his regret, but according to Wetstraat it is only a first step. The big step must be taken by the parliamentary committee.
“I don’t think we realize enough that the whole world is watching now. Reference is always made to foreign examples, but the Netherlands, for example, has only apologized for the decolonization process, not for the entire colonial past. What we are going to do has never happened, ”says Van Hoof.
It will be the greens – Green or Ecolo – who will be given the hard task of making sure everything runs smoothly. This time they can deliver the chairman. It is not yet clear who it will be.
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