Statue of Congo's hated colonial king comes down after one day

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- A statue of the late King Leopold II, whose Belgian government was responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese, was mysteriously taken down Thursday, a day after it was re-erected to remind people of the horrors of colonial rule.

The 20 foot statue went up late Wednesday in downtown Kinshasa after being hauled from a garbage dump. Monique Pikinini, Congo's general secretary in the Ministry of Arts and Culture, said it's not clear what happened to the statue, though she believes it was taken down by the government.

Several people within the government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said President Joseph Kabila ordered the statue taken down.

Earlier in the day, cultural minister Chris Muzungu said the statue had been re-erected to remind Congo's people of the country's horrific colonial past, so "it never happens again." He said a plaque was to be added later to explain Leopold's legacy.

Leopold, who took control of Congo in 1885 and died in 1909, enslaved much of its people to collect rubber, which helped fuel the Industrial Revolution in the West. In Congo's interior, Belgian and Congolese colonial troops often burned and massacred entire villages that didn't comply with Leopold's work decrees, or simply didn't collect enough rubber.

Late Wednesday, the statue of Leopold on a horse was put up in a traffic circle at one end of Kinshasa's June 30 Boulevard -- the street named for named for the date of Congo's independence from Belgium.

Muzungu said the government had pulled the statue from a garbage dump where it had been discarded in 1967, seven years after independence, by Mobutu Sese Seko, Congo's longtime dictator. Mobutu, overthrown in 1997, saw the statue as a reminder of Leopold's legacy.

Thursday night, a group of homeless street-kids practiced dance where the statue had been re-erected.