[Quick setup: The Belgian King Leopold II had been running a slave state in the Congo while vehemently insisting to the world that he was working to improve the area and bring the light of civilization to its people. Thanks to eyewitness accounts and materials leaking out of the Congo, the international press started to get wind of what was really happening and had turned against the King. He tried to combat this by setting up what was supposed to be a rigged investigative commission. He quickly lost control of the proceedings under the weight of the atrocities coming to light.]
A parade of witnesses offered horrifying testimony. One of the most impressive was Chief Lontulu of Bolima, who had been flogged with the chicotte, held hostage, and sent to work in chains. When his turn came to testify, Lontulu laid 110 twigs on the commission’s table, each representing one of his people killed in the quest for rubber. He divided the twigs into four piles: tribal nobles, men, women, children. Twig by twig, he named the dead.
Word about the testimony quickly got back to Brussels, but Leopold did not realize what effect it was having on the commissioners. Then, in March 1905, from the Congo’s capital at Boma came a curious warning signal that all might not turn out well for the king. Paul Costermans, the territory’s acting governor general and, to the extent possible for a person high up in such a system, a man of personal integrity, was briefed on the commission’s findings. He then alarmed his aides by plunging into a deep depression. Some two weeks later, after writing a series of farewell letters, he slit his throat with a razor.
Another bad omen for Leopold was the news that one of the judges, while listening to a succession of witnesses with atrocity stories, had [publicly] broken down and wept.
[It’s worth noting that, according to Wikipedia, Paul Costermans committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, not slitting his own throat. So there is some discrepancy there. I haven’t had the time to compare the sources listed by Wikipedia, but I would encourage you to do so if you get curious.]
Source:
Hochschild, Adam. "Journalists Won't Give You Receipts" King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. 250, 251. Print.
Further Reading:
État indépendant du Congo (Independent State of the Congo) / Congo Free State)
This amused me.
Overall, that is a brutal story but also somewhat heartening that even the stooges in the commission were swayed.