On this day, 30 June 1960, Congo achieved independence from Belgium following decades of brutal colonial rule which killed 8-10 million people â half its population.
Belgian authorities used men for forced labour in the rubber industry, having the wives and children of workers who didn't meet their daily quotas dismembered, killed and even eaten.
Following independence, Belgium and other Western powers continued to maintain power and rob the country's rich natural resources. The first democratically elected Prime Minister, socialist Patrice Lumumba was arrested, tortured and murdered on the instructions of Belgium and the CIA, who then installed a brutal dictator.
Pictured is a Congolese man named Nsala, photographed in 1904 by Alice Harris. Cropped from this photo to the left is a hand and foot of his 5-year-old daughter. She was killed and eaten, as was his wife and son, by rubber industry guards as a punishment for Nsala not harvesting enough rubber.
This book gives a detailed history of colonialism in Congo: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/lord-leverhulme-s-ghosts-colonial-exploitation-in-the-congo-jules-marchal