'Reparations Owed': Experts Deliver Special Report on Belgium's Colonial Past

05/11/2021

Ten experts tasked with examining Belgium's colonial past from different points of view have delivered their final report, which includes a suggestion that the country pay reparations to the Congo. 

The commission behind the report was instructed to take stock of the knowledge about Belgium's colonial past, namely and most infamously its involvement in the Congo, and to examine how that past still affects people today. 

Anne Wetsi Mpoma, an art historian and representative of the diaspora movement, said, "The damage suffered is impossible to quantify, but it must be made good through financial compensation."

Member of Parliament Tomas Roggeman reacted, "If we have to pay rent for the occupied territories in Congo, as is suggested, we ourselves have a lot of historical accounts to settle with just about every other European country." 

Read more here