Belgium's city of Ghent has removed a bust of King Leopold II, who colonized Congo, as part of a year-long process by the city to begin 'decolonization.'
FILE - In this June 9, 2020 file photo, the bust of Belgium's King Leopold II is smeared with paint and graffiti on the grounds of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. With the protests sweeping the world in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, King Leopold II, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, is now increasingly seen as a stain on the nation.
In a letter to the Congolese president, Felix Tshisekedi, Philippe stopped short of issuing a formal apology, but proclaimed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” and the “suffering and humiliation” inflicted on Belgian Congo. Following a short ceremony punctuated by readings, Leopold's bust in Ghent was attached to a crane with a strap and taken away from the small park where it stood amid applause. It will be transferred to a warehouse of a Ghent city museum pending further decision from a city's commission in charge of decolonization projects.
Earlier this month, about 10,000 people gathered in Brussels despite the social distancing measures implemented to fight the spread of COVID-19, with many protesters chanting anti-colonialist slogans. After Leopold's claimed ownership of Congo ended in 1908, he handed it over to the Belgian state, which continued to rule over the colony 75 times Belgium’s size until the African nation became independent in 1960.
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