Casement Report

The Casement Report was a 1904 document by British diplomat Roger Casement (1864-1916) detailing abuses in the Congo Free State which was under the private ownership of King Leopold II of Belgium. This report was instrumental in Leopold finally reliquishing his private holdings in Africa. Leopold had ownership of the Congolese state since 1885 (granted to him by the Berlin Conference) in which he exploited its natural resources (mostly rubber) for his own private wealth.

Publicity 1895-1903

For many years prior to the Casement Report there were reports from the Congo alleging widespread human rights abuses and outright genocide of the native population. In 1895 the situation was reported to Dr Henry Guinness, a missionary. He established a mission and was promised action by Leopold II in late 1895, but nothing changed. Guinness then set up the Congo Reform Association in London in March 1904. H.R. Fox-Bourne of the Aborigines' Protection Society had published "Civilisation in Congoland" in 1902. The journalist E. D. Morel who had written several articles about the atrocities in the Congo Free State. Casement had befriended Morel. Both men had spent some time in the Congo and witnessed the Congolese situation first hand, and they joined the Congo Reform Association. In 1903, after the British House of Commons passed a resolution about the Congo, Casement was charged to make a formal inquiry into the situation in the country.

The Report

The Casement Report comprises forty pages of the Parliamentary Papers, to which is appended another twenty pages of individual statements gathered by the Consul, including several detailing the grim tales of killings, mutilation, kidnapping and cruel beatings of the native population by soldiers of the Congo Administration of King Leopold. Copies of the Report were sent by the British government to the Belgian government as well as to nations who were signatories to the Berlin Agreement in 1885, under which much of Africa had been partitioned. The British Parliament demanded a meeting of the 14 signatory powers to review the 1885 Berlin Agreement. The Belgian Parliament, pushed by socialist leader Emile Vandervelde and other critics of the King's Congolese policy, forced a reluctant Léopold to set up an independent commission of enquiry. Its findings confirmed Casement's report in every damning detail. This led to the arrest and punishment of officials who had been responsible for murders during a rubber-collection expedition in 1903 (including one Belgian national who was given a five year sentence for causing the shooting of at least 122 Congolese natives}.

Reform by 1912

Despite these findings, Leopold managed to retain control of the Congo until 1908 when the Parliament of Belgium annexed the Congo Free State (Belgian Congo) and took over its administration. However the final push came from Leopold's successor King Albert I, and in 1912 the Congo Reform Association had the satisfaction of dissolving itself.

References

* Gondola, Didier Ch. The History of Congo. Greenwood Press: Westport, CT (2002)
* British Parliamentary Papers, 1904, LXII, Cd. 1933]

External links

* [http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~jobrien/reference/ob73.html Excerpts of the Casement Report]