WAR CRIMES AND ATROCITIES (True Crime) (8 page)

Part Three: War Crimes And Atrocities 1600–1930

Black Hole Of Calcutta

1756

The Black Hole of Calcutta is memorable for being a singular atrocity, and little in either history or fiction can compare to the horrors that the survivors of that night described. The incident got its name from a small, airless dungeon at Fort William in Calcutta, which was led by the British East India Company.

ENGLISH PRESENCE IN INDIA

The British established their first trading post in India in 1614, and since then their presence has grown steadily. The East India Company was established by the British to consolidate their trading posts in India. It was an early example of privatization and was possibly the single, most powerful economic force of its time. It had been founded by the Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I, and it was given a group of knights and merchants from London to try to take over some of the East Indies spice trade from the Dutch. Although the company failed in this mission, it was successful in setting up trading posts in both Madras and Calcutta. Troops were hired by the company to protect their employees from the agitated natives and from other European powers. It wasn’t long before the East India Company was extremely rich and powerful, with branches all around the world and with its own private army.

INDIAN
 
HATRED

The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-Ud-Daulah, was not happy with the British interference, seeing them as a direct threat to his own rule. The 27-year-old ruler had a reputation for his harsh tactics and had been been described by Robert Clive, the young English warrior, as ‘a monster of vice, cruelty and depravity’.

When Dauley heard about the new fortifications being erected at Fort William, he demanded that they be demolished. His demands were ignored and the young Indian grew more and more angry at the British intervention and organized an army to lay siege to the fort. The fort’s commander got wind of the siege and decided to leave with the majority of his army. In their place, he left just a token force under the command of John Zephaniah Holwell, who was a civil servant with the East India Company. With further desertions, and so few people to hold Fort William, Dauley and his army quickly overcame the stronghold and indeed Calcutta itself, which was the centre of power for the East India Company.

At Fort William, Dauley’s warriors quickly gathered together the remaining group of 146 Europeans who had not managed to escape. He ordered his soldiers to march them into a cell, which was nicknamed the ‘Black Hole’. The cell itself was only 7.3 m (24 ft) wide by 5.4 m (18 ft long) and in the blazing heat of the Indian summer this was indeed a hellhole for one person, let alone 146. The prisoners were packed into the dungeon with no food or water, and little air came through the two small, barred windows. The room was packed so tightly, that the guards had a difficult job to shut he door, and fires in the courtyard outside made the air even more oppressive. It was Monday

21 June, 1756, and it was going to be a long and horrifying night for the captives.

The prisoners tried to bribe one of the guards stationed on the verandah outside the cell, offering him 1,000 rupees if he would move them to a larger room. He went away to ask permission, but came back and said it was impossible because the nawab was asleep and he was not allowed to wake him. The captives doubled their bribe, and the guard made another attempt at getting them moved, but again no one dared to wake the nawab.

By 9.00 p.m. several of the prisoners had died due to heat exhaustion, and many more were becoming delirious. Those strong enough to speak, pleaded desperately for water and a few water-skins were brought to the gratings. However, in their mad struggle to reach the water, many of the inmates were trampled to death, while the heartless guards simply held torches up to the gratings and mocked them for their frantic struggles. As the hours went by the screams and struggles died down, and all that could be heard were faint moans from those who were still conscious.

As the sun rose the next morning and the nawab awoke, he ordered the guards to open the door to the tiny cell. They were horrified at what they saw. The majority of the captives were dead, however, they were still standing, due to the crowded conditions of the room. Only 23 faint and weak people actually staggered out into the daylight. Although some were revived by being taken into the fresh air, others remained delirious and incoherent. Holwell, who was one of the survivors, and three others were taken as prisoners to Murshidabad, while the corpses were simply thrown into a ditch to rot.

ROBERT
 
CLIVE

Britain was horrified by what had taken place at Fort William and wanted revenge. They sent in Robert Clive, an ex-civil servant of the East India Company, who now worked for their military. Clive and his mighty army marched on Calcutta and by January 1757 they had taken control, flying the British flag proudly over the city.

Some 150 km (96 miles) away, the Nawab was waiting for Clive at Plassey with an army at least 20 times the size of the British. However, luck was on the side of Clive and his army because the majority the nawab’s army had deserted him, led by his own great-uncle, Mir Jafar. Clive and his army crossed the river and set up camp for the night. Unaware that the Indian army was now considerably depleted, Clive had a restless night, knowing too well the fearful odds that his army would have to face the next morning.

The battle started as soon as the dawn broke, but it had barely started when it was all over, with the nawab taking flight on the back of his camel. The remainder of what was once the great native army retreated in wild disorder. Clive stood triumphant in the middle of the battlefield at Plessey, with a loss of only 22 men. He had succeeded in defeating an army of almost 60,000 men. Not only was Clive the conqueror of Plassey, but far more importantly he had set the footings of a brand new empire for Great Britain.

For the nawab, the fact that India now found itself completely under the administration of the triumphant East India Company was too much for him to bear. A few days later, his lifeless body was found floating down the river.

King Leopold And The Congo Atrocities

1880–1908

King Leopold II succeeded his father Leopold I to the Belgian throne in 1865, and he occupied this position until his death in 1909. Leopold II has been described as a man with exceptional greed who became obsessed with the idea of owning a colony. He believed that the key to a country’s greatness lay with the overseas colonies, and he strived hard to obtain a colonial territory for Belgian at any cost. Even though he didn’t have the backing of the Belgian people or government, Leopold eventually acquired the Congo Free State as his own private venture, which turned into one of the most infamous international scandals at the turn of the 19th century.

LEOPOLD AND SIR HENRY STANLEY

During the late 19th and early 20th century, Europe started to branch out and became aware of less developed countries. In these countries, they saw the perfect opportunity to colonize – that is to spread European civilization to native people in exchange for cheap labour and natural resources. Africa at this time was still called the ‘Dark Continent’ and the western districts had been virtually unexplored due to the difficulties of negotiating the massive system of rapids on the Congo River.

In 1876, Leopold set up a private holding company called the International African Society, which he camouflaged as an international scientific and philanthropic association. Under the auspices of this company, which strove for colonization and exploration of Africa, Leopold hired the already famous explorer, Sir Henry Stanley to try and acquire as much land as possible for him in the Congo Basin.

Stanley was able to gain control of an enormous region of the Congo – 2.344 million km2 (905,000 square miles) – by trading with the local chiefs through illicit treaties. The chiefs, who believed that they were signing friendship treaties, were in fact selling their land to Leopold II, and Stanley managed to get over 450 treaties over the next five years.

In 1884–85, the Berlin Conference took place for representatives of both Europe and the USA to discuss the even distribution of Africa. However, with the treaties that Stanley had been able to obtain, it meant that Leopold was legally able to lay claim to an exceptionally large region of Central African rainforest. Leopold became sole ruler to a population of over

30 million people and, without international intervention, he was left to do exactly as he pleased with his newly acquired colony.

REIGN OF TERROR

Pronouncing himself as sovereign of the Congo Free State, Leopold continued to use and finance the services of Stanley. Leopold wanted to develop the area due to the high concentration of natural resources, such as rubber, ivory, copper, diamonds and gold. He started to make plans to improve transport in the area so that he would be able to freely export these valuable goods. In fact, Leopold did anything he could to gain wealth out of the Congo, even if this meant the use of slave labour.

Leopold continued to strengthen his new realm with the construction of a new railway, which took a total of eight years to build, with the loss of many native lives. However, this was just a minor obstacle. The main hurdle Leopold had to overcome was the dissipation of Arab slave traders living along the Lualaba River, who also considered the Congo to be their rightful claim. Having lived in the area since the 1860s, the slavers were firmly established in the region and were unprepared to accept Leopold as their new sovereign. The slavers already felt threatened by the proposed abolition of Africa’s interior slave trade as laid down by the Berlin Conference, and the situation became tense.

To try and appease the predicament he found himself in, Leopold once again sent Stanley to approach the slavers. Stanley met with their leader, Tippu Tip, in an effort to try and get him to confine his activities to a smaller area upstream of Stanley Falls. Tippu, who had previously helped Stanley on one of his explorations, was outraged by the betrayal of an old associate. The result was that in 1886 the Arab slavers attacked Stanley Falls and killed the entire garrison stationed there.

Leopold, who knew that he did not have enough forces to overcome the slavers, relented and sent Stanley to meet Tippu again with a new proposition. This time Stanley offered the leader a compromise by taking control of the region under the protection of Leopold’s company. Tippu agreed to his new arrangement and three years later he was able to retire in comfort from the considerable profits he had acquired. However, this caused new problems for Leopold as the remaining slavers were not happy with the liaison with the king’s company.

Leopold knew that he would no longer be able to cooperate with the natives peaceably, and in 1889 called for an antislave congress. Despite the fact that the Berlin Conference was in favour of keeping the Congo as a free trade zone, Leopold was able to win enough support to enable him to start charging import taxes on any goods coming into the Congo. Using the income from these taxes, Leopold planned a campaign to end slave trading in the area and, by 1895, the Arab slavers had largely been driven out of the area.

Between the years 1885 and 1890, Leopold had spent an enormous amount of his own money on his project, totalling almost 20 million francs. As the problems rose, so did the cost of dealing with them, and Leopold was now desperate to start making a profit from his African colony. In 1889, he convinced the Belgian government to loan him 25 million francs, and with these new funds Leopold started to squeeze every bit of money he could out of his project, determined to recoup his losses at all costs.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Under the reign of Leopold II, the Congo Free State became the subject of a terror regime that included a long list of atrocities, the vindictiveness of which are almost too much to believe. Leopold’s prime interest in the Congo was its natural resources, and he relied heavily on the indigenous labour. Natives were required to provide State officials with a set amount of rubber and ivory at a fixed government-set price, provide food to the local outposts, and also to provide at least ten per cent of their men as full-time labourers.

To make sure that the officials received their full quota of rubber, the
Force Publique
(FP) was formed. The FP was an army whose sole purpose was to terrorize the local natives. The officers were white agents of the State, while the soldiers were local black natives, many of whom were cannibals from the fiercest tribes in the Upper Congo. Many of them had been kidnapped as children from their own villages and raised by Catholoc missions, where they received harsh military training in appalling conditions.

The soldiers were armed with modern weapons and the
chicotte
, which was a bull whip made out of hippopotamus hide. This whip was frequently used as a means of punishing anyone who violated the State, and it quickly became a feared symbol of Leopold’s administration. It was quite usual for workers to literally be beaten to death with this whip, with 90 lashes being considered the normal punishment.

The
Force Publique
frequently took and tortured hostages, mainly women, who were flogged and raped. Whole villages were burnt without warning, and its people were rounded off. The men were sent off into the forests, while their women were tied up and used as helpless targets of abuse until their husbands returned with the required amount of rubber to satisfy the agents. Men who failed to bring enough rubber to the agents were killed, but perhaps the most atrocious activity of all was the mutilation, which became common practise. It was quite normal for the soldiers to take trophies of human hands or ears back to their white officers to prove that they had not been wasting their time. The severed hands became a sort of currency, and it is purported that the soldiers of the
Force Publique
were paid their bonuses on how many trophies they had collected.

One soldier described a raid to punish a village:

. . . ordered us to cut of the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, also their sexual members, and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross.

John Harris, a missionary who had travelled to the Congo, was so shocked by what he had encountered, that he felt compelled to write a letter to Leopold’s chief agent:

. . . I have just returned from a journey inland to the village of Insongo Mboyo. The abject misery and utter abandon is positively indescribable. I was so moved, your Excellency, by the people’s stories that I took the liberty of promising them that in future you will only kill them for the crimes they commit . . .

Some of the brave survivors of this period said they had managed to live through the massacre by pretending that they were dead. Unbelievably, they did not dare to move even when their hand was severed. They had to lay motionless until the soldiers left, at which time they could cry for help. Estimates of the death toll range from 5 million to 15 million and historians have compared the atrocities to actual genocide.

THE
 
SECRET
 
WAS
 
OUT

Leopold managed to suppress the rumours of the atrocities for more than a decade, and in this period he managed to reap fantastic personal gains from the exploitation of the natives of the Congo. The horrors of what was happening remained a secret for so long because the country was difficult to visit. Even missionaries were only allowed there on sufferance, and mostly only if they were Belgian Catholics who Leopold had vowed to silence.

Eventually, the most damning evidence came from an unexpected source – the secret was out – but few were prepared to believe it. Edmund Dene Morel, a clerk for a major shipping office based in Liverpool, became curious when ships carrying large loads of rubber from the Congo returned to the country full of guns and ammunition for the
Force Publique
. In an effort to gain more information, Morel left his job and became a full-time journalist.

With the support of merchants who wanted to break Leopold’s monopoly, and the financial support of the chocolate millionaire, William Cadbury, Morel started to publish details of the atrocities. In 1902, Joseph Conrad’s novel
Heart of Darkness
was published, which was based on his own experiences as a steamer captain on the Congo River a few years before. The book confirmed the public’s suspicions of what was happening under Leopold’s reign of the Congo. The following year, Morel, with the support of the House of Commons, succeeded in passing a resolution that called for the British government to carry out a full-scale inquiry. In 1904, the British Consul, Roger Casement, delivered a long and detailed eye-witness account, which was made available to the public. Morel, with Casement’s support, founded the British Congo Reform Association, who immediately demanded action. The USA and other European nations quickly followed suit and the Belgian Parliament forced Leopold to set up an independent inquiry. Despite the king’s efforts to cover up, Casement’s earlier report was soon confirmed in all its incriminating detail.

Even though Leopold promised to implement reform to his regime, the public were unprepared to take his word seriously, and every nation was in agreement that his reign must be terminated as early as possible.

THE
 
AFTERMATH

After much debate as to who would take over control of the Congo, finally on 15 November, 1908, four years after the Casement Report, the Belgian Parliament annexed the Congo Free State and took over its administration. A debt of around 250 million francs was transferred from Leopold to the Belgian government, who in turn offset the debt against the population of the Congo. Having been squeezed of every bit of its wealth for the past decade, the Congo now found itself shackled even further by this enormous debt.

The Congo continued to remain under Belgian rule and their recovery was incredibly slow. The State took over Leopold’s private colony, but the rubber boom was past its peak, and the natives relied on the influences of the missionaries to improve their way of life. In the 1950s, a more modern-thinking world started to urge for a free Congolese republic, which was created in the 1960s following an intense period of civil war.