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History is mocking the people of Congo. In early November they should have been celebrating a milestone in international human rights, one of the very first occasions that campaigners from around the world united to protest on a mass scale.
Exactly 100 years ago the behaviour of colonial agents of Belgian King Leopold II provoked just that. Then, Congo was “the issue,” igniting a publicity firestorm from Europe to the US that drew vast crowds to public debates to condemn the behaviour of Leopold’s representatives as they pillaged the Congo river basin for natural rubber. Today, history is repeating itself, with China, not Belgium, leading the exploitation of the country.
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