The Belgian government yesterday (Tuesday) presented a roadmap for listing the objects illegally acquired in the Congo from 1885 to 1960. A global approach to preparing potential refunds without waiting for a formal request from the Congolese authorities.
Belgium currently has in its federal collections about 85,000 objects from the current Democratic Republic of Congo. These are figurines, masks and many everyday tools, mainly collected at the Africa Museum in Tervuren near Brussels.
Of these approximately 85,000 objects, explains Thomas Dermine, State Secretary for Recovery and Strategic Investment, responsible for Belgian scientific policy and author of the proposal, about one percent can already be placed in the “illegally acquired” category. “Because we have sufficiently solid historical evidence to say that they were acquired during looting, massacres, violence. The innovative nature of our proposal is to divide the issue of material repayment and the issue of repayment of legal property ”.
Without waiting for a formal request from the Congolese authorities and the organization of a possible return to the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is a matter of removing these objects from the public domain. They will therefore no longer be considered the property of the Belgian State, but belong to the Congolese State, even though they will originally be kept on Belgian territory.
A colossal job
Then Thomas Dermine continues, “there are 60% of the items in the Belgian collections, on the contrary, there is relatively little doubt that they were acquired legitimately, in circumstances of donation or balanced trade.”
Therefore, about 40% of the items “for which there is a real need to accelerate descent studies” remain. And this is the second axis of the roadmap presented on Tuesday. “We want to start diplomatic work with Congo in the coming months to move forward with the legal organization, to set up a joint Belgian-Congolese commission.”
Scientific collaboration between Belgian and Congolese researchers is already in place, but the scale of the data is enormous. Guido Gryseels, Director General of AfrikaMuseum, estimates that an investment of at least EUR 5 million and EUR 2.5 million is required to determine the origin of all objects whose acquisition conditions are still uncertain. According to him, there is also the question of the definition of the illegal nature of the conditions for the acquisition of certain objects, which could be obtained without violence, but within the framework of an unbalanced transaction.
“The goal is to move forward without further delay,” adds Thomas Dermine. This is a very strong topic in Belgium after the Black Lives Matter movement, the 60th anniversary of Congolese independence (June 30, 1960), general apology from King Philippe for the humiliations and suffering inflicted on Congo (last year). ”
The Secretary of State wants to be able to present progress next year, while the conclusions of Parliament’s Committee on Truth and Reconciliation on the Belgian colonial past in Congo are expected next year.
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