Due to the fact that Leopold II (1865-1909) used to be the second king of the Belgian kingdom a lot of big streets were granted with his name. However Leopold II was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project undertaken on his own behalf. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the native inhabitants. Leopold ignored these conditions and ran the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory, initially by the collection of ivory, and after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber. He used great sums of the money from this exploitation for public and private construction projects in Belgium during this period. He donated the private buildings to the state before his death, to preserve them for Belgium.

Leopold's administration of the Congo was characterised by murder, torture, and atrocities, resulting from notorious systematic brutality. The hands of men, women, and children were amputated when the quota of rubber was not met. These and other facts were established at the time by eyewitness testimony and on-site inspection by an international Commission of Inquiry (1904). Millions of the Congolese people died: modern estimates range from 1 million to 15 million deaths, with a consensus growing around 10 million. Reports of deaths and abuse led to a major international scandal in the early 20th century, and Leopold was forced by the Belgian government to relinquish control of the colony to the civil administration in 1908.

With this petition we want to alert the Belgian Government and city councils to the fact that still a lot of streets are bearing the name of a truly awful king and slave-holder. We demand with urgency that the Belgian Government takes a stand and demands his cities to take action in the matter and to change the name to a more appropriate version, like Afrikalaan (street of Afrika) or Kinshasa-laan (which has already been suggested by some people in Brussels, https://www.bruzz.be/brussel-kiest-2019/brussel-kiest-vlaams-parlement/maak-van-leopold-ii-laan-de-afrikalaan-2019-05-14

(Foto by © Alan De Bruyne | De verschillende alternatieven in beeld.)