e "Congo Free State" was under the terrible confines of Belgian Rule. Though owned by King Leopold II, it was personally maintained and run by the English explorer Henry Stanley. The Congo was established for the purpose of becoming a distinct financial entity, generating no liabilities but only profits in the favor of Leopold and his country. Within the colony itself, European commercial companies generally adopted policies that favored short-term earnings over costly capital investments in long-term development schemes. (Nelson, 195) The people in this area, at the time, were ruthlessly handled and sometimes brutally murdered for things as simple as not following prescribed directions correctly.While under the rule of Leopold the "Congo Free State" was stripped of its natural resources, namely the most precious of metals. One might wondered why no one knew of the tragedy going on in the Congo, well there was complete isolation of the Congo. One of the ways the Belgians managed the task of isolation was to discourage the settlement of whites within the Congo; this resulted in the minimization of contacts the Congolese could make with other nationals, either European or African. (Merriam, 34)Notwithstanding the fact that the Congo Free State was run as a closed operation, yet during World War 1, Congolese troops aide the Allied causes in Africa. In 1940 Germany invaded and occupied Belgium, which was heavily bombed during World War II. Mines in Katanga (now Shaba) supplied Copper, tin, cobalt, and other minerals to the nations fighting against Germany. (Lerner, 35) Congolese soldiers provided a hand in this war as well, fighting German forces in Libya and Ethiopia. Following this experience, the African troops returned home with a renewed way of thinking. In 1956 a group of evolutes headed by Joseph Ileo proposed a long-range program of political reform. A rival association- the Alliance of Kongo People (ABAKO) was in support o...
