Democratic Republic of the Congo

[Profileid]

Here's some info I found while browsing a travel article about it. Pretty interesting.

Although the Democratic Republic of the Congo is no longer considered as risky as it used to be, it remains a destination for only the most seasoned, hardcore African traveller. It is not a country for the casual "tourist": the average backpacker, holidaymaker, and especially those seeking luxury safaris or organized cultural experiences. The DRC remains one of the least developed countries in Africa; its GDP per capita is the fifteenth lowest in the world. Largely covered by lush, tropical rainforest, the heart of the DRC is comparable to the Amazon (the only larger rainforest on Earth). The mighty Congo River forms the backbone of the country, carrying barges overflowing with Congolese (and the occasional adventurous Westerner) and merchants bringing their large pirogues laden with goods, fruit, and local bushmeat out to sell to those on the barges.

The country has faced a tragic, tumultuous history since colonization. It was plundered by Belgium's King Leopold II for rubber and palm oil, collected forcibly from the Congolese by extremely brutal means. The country and its central government fell apart just weeks after independence in 1960. Future leaders spent far more time fighting rebels and trying to keep the country together. As such, they failed to build modern infrastructure, failed to improve education, failed to improve healthcare and failed to do anything else to improve the lives of the Congolese people. Between 1994 and 2003, the bloodiest conflict since the end of World War II played out in the country's eastern jungles, with sporadic violence ongoing ever since. Millions of people have been displaced in the past 20 years, fleeing murder and mass rape carried out by rebels and hundreds of thousands remain in refugee camps to this day, sheltered by the largest UN peacekeeping mission (MONUC) in the world.

Those who do brave the elements to travel here are in for quite the adventure. In the east, volcanic peaks rise thousands of meters above the surrounding rainforest, often shrouded in mist. Hikers can climb up Mount Nyiragongo, looming above Goma, and spend the night on the rim above an active lava lake (one of just four worldwide!). In the jungles nearby, a small number of tourists each day are permitted to trek to families of gorillas. Along the mighty Congo River, a handful of travellers each year spend weeks floating hundreds of kilometres on barges loaded with cargo and Congolese. And don't forget to pick up masks and other handicrafts in lively markets across the country.

On the atrocities of the Belgians

The government's Force Publique enforced these quotas through imprisonment, torture, flogging, and the raping and burning of disobedient/rebellious villages. The most heinous act of the FP, however, was the taking of hands. The punishment for failing to meet rubber quotas was death. Concerned that the soldiers were using their precious bullets on sport hunting, the command required soldiers to submit one hand for every bullet used as proof they had used the bullet to kill someone. Entire villages would be surrounded and inhabitants murdered with baskets of severed hands being returned to commanders. Soldiers could get bonuses and return home early for returning more hands than others, while some villages faced with unrealistic rubber quotas would raid neighbouring villages to collect hands to present to the FP in order to avoid the same fate. Rubber prices boomed in the 1890s, bringing great wealth to Leopold and the whites of Congo, but eventually low-cost rubber from the Americas and Asia decreased prices and the operation in the CFS became unprofitable.

By the turn of the century, reports of these atrocities reached Europe. After a few years of successfully convincing the public that these reports were isolated incidents and slander, other European nations began investigating the activities of Leopold in the Congo Free State. Publications by noteworthy journalists and authors (like Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Doyle's The Crime of the Congo) brought the issue to the European public. Embarrassed, the government of Belgium finally annexed the Congo Free State, took over Leopold's holdings, and renamed the state Belgian Congo (to differentiate from French Congo, now Republic of the Congo). No census was ever taken, but historians estimate around half of the Congo's population, up to 10 million people, was killed between 1885-1908.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Democratic_...c_of_the_Congo

[ЛыSSый]

ueropens aren't guilty, wild negroes murdered each other.

[Profileid]

ueropens aren't guilty, wild negroes murdered each other.

You're a dumbass. As a people used to being fucked over by superior powers, I would think you'd have a little sympathy.

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

It's like asking if you should treat dogs nice, even though they are inferior beings, of course.

These are horrible atrocities. Though it does not make them equal to us.

[zhaoyun]

Yeah, I read about the Belgian led atrocities in the Congo a hundred years ago. Up to this day, that country is a mess. There's a ton of tribes in there who have no business being in the same country.

[Profileid]

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s vast tropical rainforest is a true natural treasure, home to over a thousand species of plants and hundreds of species of mammals,birds, reptiles, and amphibians. The tropical rainforest of the CongoBasin is the world’s second largest, after South America’s Amazon Rainforest. Situated in the heart of the African tropics, the DRC is home to the greatest expanse of rainforestin all of Africa. Tropical rainforest covers 58.9% of the DRC’s territory –over 515,000 square miles in total. Unfortunately, the trend toward tropical deforestation has not left this region untouched. In the decade from 1990 to 2000 alone, over 20,000 square miles of the DRC’s forests was wiped away. In the current decade, the DRC’s rainforest has been shrinking, on average, by 319,000 hectares
(over 1200 square miles) annually.
http://friendsofthecongo.org/pdf/congo_rainforest.pdf





http://www.worldwildlife.org/photos/...unga-mountains

[Dr. Robotnik the Subbotnik]

Yeah, I read about the Belgian led atrocities in the Congo a hundred years ago. Up to this day, that country is a mess. There's a ton of tribes in there who have no business being in the same country.

kinda funny how when whites arrived in southern Africa they didn't even have the wheel lol

[ЛыSSый]

You're a dumbass. As a people used to being fucked over by superior powers, I would think you'd have a little sympathy.

the main feature which differentiates intelligent people from others is ability to feel slim kinds of humour like irony, sarcasm etc. Wish you sucsessfuly evolitionize.

[Profileid]

Yeah, I read about the Belgian led atrocities in the Congo a hundred years ago. Up to this day, that country is a mess. There's a ton of tribes in there who have no business being in the same country.

I knew of it,but didn't realize it killed half of their population until I checked this out. It's a shame a place with so much to offer in terms of tourism and natural resources is such a fucked up place to be. Then you have Mobutu...

Well it's good to know he got style

[zhaoyun]

kinda funny how when whites arrived in southern Africa they didn't even have the wheel lol

Well, that's not justification to treat people badly. Anyways, there is no doubt that the Belgians were pretty cruel to the Congolese, it's well documented. They got fucked over by their own leaders as well. Most of the tribes in the rainforest would've probably just been better off not having been contacted by the outside world.