Proposition 54K2952

Proposition de résolution concernant la ségration subie par les métis issus de la colonisation belge en Afrique.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Peter Luykx, Els Van Hoof
Ecolo Benoît Hellings
LE Georges Dallemagne
MR Olivier Maingain, Sybille de Coster-Bauchau
N-VA An Capoen
Open Vld Annemie Turtelboom
PS | SP Stéphane Crusnière
Vooruit Karin Temmerman

Submission date

Feb. 21, 2018

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

adoption of a child colonialism resolution of parliament nationality racial discrimination

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP DéFI ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 29, 2018 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr Miller, rapporteur, is speaking.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, I am honored to have been appointed as rapporteur for the proposal for a resolution on the segregation suffered by metis from the Belgian colonization in Africa. This draft resolution was submitted by Ms. de Coster-Bauchau and other members, as the President has just recalled.

This proposal concerns an even little known event in the history of colonial Belgium and for a reason, since this history of colonial Belgium has long been banned from school programs in our country. This event is the forced displacement and adoption of metis children during the decolonization of the Belgian Congo and Rwanda-Urundi.

These displacement operations were part of the right line of the segregation policy applied in the Belgian colonies and mandates of Africa. The authorities in fact placed the children born of a white father and a black mother in "ad hoc" institutions, the most famous of which is, you know, Save, where these children received, hold well, dear colleagues, an "adapted" education. Listen to this word. What does it mean? This means that it was a hybrid education, better than that for black children, but less good than that for white children. It was impressive when we worked in commission and that all these elements were brought to our knowledge.

During the wars of independence, Belgium, fearing retaliation against these children, decided with the help of the Church to gather some 800 children and send them to Europe, to be placed in institutions or in host families, in networks close to the ecclesiastical authorities.

These children were stripped from their biological mothers, and the vast majority of them were given new names. This explains the importance of problematic access to archives, so that these people can find their true identity, or even, where possible, their family members.

I will not detail the content of the resolution adopted by the committee, in order to leave the authors the care and pleasure of presenting this text which, as you have understood, is of very great importance to the people concerned.

It is imperative, on the occasion of this report, to recall a few excerpts from the hearings that were organized in the committee and to which we attended. These were moments of a lot of emotion and pain. You will read in the written report the details of these hearings, and in particular, I quote myself: "The draft of a Belgian colonial doctrine concerning metis and metissage."

I read a few passages of this doctrine. This is not the point of view of a few. It is important to understand it. This has been transformed into a real doctrine, a real state policy.

In 1913, Joseph Pholien, who will be prime minister, stated this: “By the very nature of things, the Metis benefit from the qualities and suffer the taras of the two races they represent. Influenced by the white element, they will have real contempt for the colored race. They will have hatred for the white race, into which they will never be admitted on an equal footing. Thus, despicing their mother and hating their father, they seem to justify the following stunt: 'God made the man white and the man black, the devil made the butterfly.'

Except for exceptions, the metis will therefore be unethical elements and therefore they are to be feared. Meat is therefore an element that can quickly become dangerous. It is important to try to reduce the number.”

I remind you that this is a quote from Joseph Pholien, who will one day be prime minister.

A year later, Father Arthur Vermeersch declared — this is also a quote that I allow myself to repeat: “To take a black concubine, one suffers a defeat. A few excuses can be added to color this capitulation. To color it, yes, but in what color? Isn’t it a shame to accept prevarication in order to get the temporal benefits? We do not deal with duty. The Christian honor is a military honor. He tells us to die rather than surrender to the enemy.”

The phrase is quite twisted, but it means that, for a white, it is not acceptable to take a black concubine.

There was a lack of a scientist. In 1930, the Pr. Pierre Nolf, who taught at the University of Liège and who was also Minister of Arts and Sciences, writes this: "A mulatre is the depository of juxtaposed white and black characters, but between which no fusion occurs. At no time during its individual existence, the paternal chromosomes contract with the maternal chromosomes other relationships than those of neighborhood. My inner conviction, drawn from the study of the laws of inheritance, is that it is important to discourage – or even prevent by all available means – white and black marriages in the Congo or in this country. These unions are usually not happy for those who contract them. They produce metis who, being of neither of the two races, form an unstable and dissatisfied social element. They are a serious threat to the future of the white race, which will only be able to fulfill the mission of civilization on condition of preserving the quality of its blood."

He is a Belgian scientist, who will be Minister of Arts and Sciences, who held these statements, in the 1930s.

Despite the warnings I just read to you – and there are others I recommend you read in the report – the number of methic children has not ceased to grow. This is confirmed by one of the great thinkers of anti-colonialism, the author of the book The damned of the earth, Frantz Fanon. He writes this in Black Skin, White Masks: "White being the master and being more simply the male, he can pay for the luxury of sleeping with many women. This is true in all countries. This is far more true in colonies. That is why, without marriage or cohabitation between white and black, the number of metis is extraordinary. It’s that white men sleep with black servants.”

I owe the truth to point out that, in some cases, the children were recognized by their biological father and that marriages were contracted between white men and black women. But there were infinitely few. Furthermore, as you can read in the considerations of the draft resolution, some had entered into a customary marriage. But these marriages were never legalized by the Belgian colonial state when they should have been. I would also like to point out that on April 25, 2017, the Bishop of Antwerp apologized for the part taken by the Catholic Church in the suffering imposed on the metis.

Dear colleagues, the draft resolution, of which you see all the importance, has been the subject of extensive work by the Commissioners representing the different political groups of our assembly. The intention was to move forward in consensus. Two initially submitted resolution proposals were unified. The text has also been the subject of numerous amendments from both the majority and the opposition.

The draft resolution calling for the Belgian Government to publicly and solemnly acknowledge Belgium’s responsibility in this situation and to apologize, as amended and corrected, was adopted unanimously. I thank you for your attention.

Thank you for this excellent report, Mr. Miller.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen who are still present and who have waited, as the President said, for many hours, I thank you for your presence.

As a mother, the topic we are discussing today affects me ⁇ . For this is precisely what we are talking about: the suffering of mothers and fathers separated from their children and the suffering of children separated from their roots. This suffering was very noticeable during the commission, during the hearings and during the projection of a film. There was still an emotion among some of the participants.

I would also like to welcome the context in which this work was carried out with dignity and respect. The whole of the work (commissions, hearings, amendments) on the examination of this delicate, painful subject, and this, especially for those who have been the victims, was truly imprinted with respect for the situation experienced.

I would like to especially thank my colleagues, and Stéphane Crusnière, whose collaboration has been extremely active in the preparation of this text that we will vote just now and which was unanimously approved in the Committee on Foreign Relations.

A topic such as the one that was widely described in the report – and I thank Mr. Miller – indeed deserved the greatest consensus. Why Why ? It should be emphasized that this kind of recognition, in our country, is an act that has nothing anodical because of its rarity and its symbolic force. Therefore, the act we make today is a strong act, a rare act, and it deserves that we pay attention to it.

In a few words, I would like to give you back, but this has already been done, the context of the events in question. It should be remembered that Belgium, like other colonial powers, had implemented a policy of racial segregation within its overseas possessions. But apartheid was nevertheless not comparable to that which took place in South Africa or in British Rhodesia, or even in the United States until the 1960s in some states. This regime of segregation has often been described as “soft apartheid”, insofar as it creates intermediate categories in law and in prerogatives within the non-white populations, including the metis, and according to criteria that were not exclusively of race, but also of education.

The operation of the displacement of children from Africa to Belgium that is discussed in the proposal, since it is Save that is mainly discussed, took place in this context. My colleague told you, the colonial authorities had taken the habit of placing children born of a white father and a black mother – the opposite was much more rare – in particular institutions, including Save in Rwanda, where they received an education adapted to their status, that is, a hybrid between that offered to white people and that given to black children.

During the independence period, fearing for their safety and in an effort to offer them a quality education, Belgium, in collaboration with the Catholic Church, which managed the majority of the institutions in which they were placed, decides to gather at Save several hundred methic children who are from Rwanda, Rwanda-Urundi, Kivu, and send them to Europe to place them either in institutions or in host families often close to the ecclesiastical authorities.

In this process, what happens? Many children lose their identity papers, their birth certificates and this is often due to the fact that the Belgian authorities or their representatives act in the precipitation – voluntarily or not – leading to the fact that they lose their nationality of origin. And this "mistake", because we speak at the time of "mistake of identity" of these children, was used to forge them a new identity that obviously allowed to facilitate the adoption of these children by Belgian or European, or even American families.

All this took place in the denial of the rights of biological mothers remaining in Africa and whose identification remains, today, for some, a challenge. However, it should be noted that for some metis children, their father had recognized them when they came from a union with a Rwandan, Burundi or Congolese mother.

And today our assembly will acknowledge the facts.

We also request and instruct the Government to implement several actions allowing for at least partial – cannot be fully repaired – reparation for those who have suffered, in one way or another, the actions of these Belgian authorities, under the circumstances that have just been developed.

Belgium cannot free itself from its responsibility towards those who are now its citizens. As I said, some of these children were deprived of their Belgian nationality and had to face many administrative problems. It is therefore important, and this is part of their demands, that their situation be regulated so that they are fully recognized as legal members of the national community which is our and theirs.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that we cannot remain inactive in the face of this human drama that led to the family separation generated by this transfer to Europe. It is appropriate, both through the opening of the archives and through the intervention of our contacts in the Great Lakes region, to facilitate the identification of African biological mothers as well as the contact with their children of those who are still alive. This is especially important as time presses since independence dates back more than 60 years. The course of life did not wait for us and so we need to act quickly.

We would also like to remove, as far as possible, the remaining shadows about the available sources and testimonies. Therefore, we request that CEGESOMA be charged with conducting additional studies to those already conducted, in particular regarding the responsibility of our own authorities in these circumstances, in order to draw a picture as accurate as possible of a situation that cannot be reduced to the situation of Save, since we have learned that there were other places where such facts had occurred.

It is important for us that the Government can publicly and solemnly recognize the responsibility of Belgium in this situation and apologize for the failures that she and her representatives were able to demonstrate on this occasion. I believe our country will grow out of it if it looks at its past face-to-face. It is necessary to be able to tell foolish citizens that their long ignored aspirations and sufferings are heard today. This is the order of a reparative justice. And, in all these matters, the whole commission acted with empathy.

Of course, we must be careful and take into account the fact that the circumstances of the time were different from those of today. The reality was complex. No linear conclusions should be drawn from such a situation. Through this resolution, we have tried to give the most appropriate response to such a complicated situation.

Mr. Minister, I invite you to be our representative to the Government in the task that we entrust to it. Dear colleagues, I thank you for your massive support for this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, when I was eighteen and had to choose a course of study, I chose medicine. I found the idea of lifelong learning combined with science extremely interesting. A few years ago, as a miracle, I ended up in the Parliament and here too one can learn something every day. This resolution also taught me something, a piece of history that was unknown to me so far.

I am not proud to have learned this now. In the first place, I would like to thank Ms. de Coster-Bauchau as the initiator of the proposal for a resolution, who taught me this wise lesson of history.

The content is hallucinating. There are few words for. Fortunately, the rapporteur and the main rapporteur have already discussed the contents of the proposal in detail, so I can limit it.

Of course, in colonial times, children were born from Belgian fathers and African mothers. Those children were in many, not to say most cases taken away from their mothers and placed in institutions.

What is the Belgian State? As a mother, as a woman, as a human being, it is difficult to put that in place, but yet it has happened. At the time of independence, even a thousand children were brought to Belgium and offered here for adoption or accommodated in institutions.

For some reason, the Belgian State thought that these children were a threat and they were scared. That is hallucinating. It can be difficult to imagine now, but such practices occurred and were even organized by the State.

This had disastrous consequences. The children concerned, now sixties and seventy, lost almost everything, not only their roots, their family, but also their mother and father, whom they often never knew. In addition, they often lost their name, as it was modified when they were brought here. Their date of birth was also often unknown, let alone that they had the right papers, documents or acts.

The search for their roots, which they may find almost impossible, continues. They still feel the consequences of these practices. There are problems with nationality. Some even became stateless when they returned to their homeland in search of their family. There are also problems with missing birth records. This, of course, creates problems in a marriage, because they can not present the required documents.

We started with two proposals of resolutions. Eventually, the text was streamlined by hearings and numerous conversations with people from the association Metissen of Belgium, who are currently in the public. I thank them for being here, because it has taken a long time. The majority and the opposition have therefore jointly rewritten the draft resolution. It is good that there is a broad support for this, because the problem concerns us all.

The text tries to recognize the suffering that was caused in the past. I will limit myself to the main points from the whole row of questions to the government. For example, we want a procedure for the persistent problems with nationality and a solution to the problems with birth and marriage records. We also request the cooperation of the embassies and access to the colonial archives for the purpose of tracking parents and family members. If necessary, those archives should be declassified for that purpose. Contact with religious orders should also be established so that victims can also have access to those archives.

The N-VA Group supports this proposal for a resolution and will fully approve it.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, this text illustrates, if necessary, that the work of memory of our country on many issues is far from completed. This work must be carried out with conviction and voluntarism.

In view of its skills, its past and its scientific resources in particular, the federal state has a real role of lance iron to play. It is in particular the purpose of this text that comes to conclude the substantive work we have carried out, like several federal parliaments that launched the movement, a movement that I wanted to continue at the federal level by depositing, with several colleagues from the opposition, a first text in May 2017, before joining, several months later, by the majority.

The important thing is that these texts have enabled us to initiate a debate and hold substantive hearings within our committee. These hearings allowed to identify concrete problems and equally concrete answers that could, which even had to be adopted in the first place by the federal authority but also by the federal authorities in good intelligence.

I would therefore like to once again greet my colleague Sybille de Coster-Bauchau, with whom I was able to work to reach a new common text incorporating the specifics of our two texts but also the amendments submitted by several colleagues as well as the conclusions of our hearings.

I would also like to congratulate the services and the chairman of the committee for their speedy writing which allowed us to accelerate our work. Finally, I would like to especially thank the Métis Association of Belgium for their constructive collaboration in drafting this resolution, as well as all other organizations and individuals who intervened during the hearings.

Such a memorial question requires gathering the greatest possible political support well beyond the classical cessation between majority and opposition. It is therefore this common text of consensus co-signed by both the majority and the opposition that is, today, on our banks. On this basis and without wanting to repeat my colleague’s excellent contextual intervention, I would like to return to the substance of this text and the concrete actions we will charge the government with.

The unacceptable discrimination that methis from the Belgian colonization of Africa suffered was often considered a taboo subject in Belgium. A taboo that has led to many open wounds, both in the head of parents and children concerned, as hearings have shown.

Nevertheless, thousands of children are mentioned here, metis born from the union of white men in office in the Congo and Rwanda-Urundi, and mothers from Rwanda, Burundi or Congo. At the time, these children were known as “Mulâtres”. A phenomenon of such a magnitude as the colonial authorities as well as the Belgian state saw it as a real problem, or even a threat, and addressed it specifically. The decision was then made: these children would be systematically taken from their mothers and raised by Belgian monks in orphanages or pensions, generally away from whites and blacks. Thus, the Marist Brothers Pension for the “Mulâtres” in Byimana, and Save’s institution for the “Mulâtres” of the Catholic Mission of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, (“the White Sisters”), are striking examples at the origin of many testimonies.

In 1959, just before independence, the Belgian state organized the sending of a large number of these children to Belgium, where they were placed under custody, placed in hostels, homes, or adopted by Belgian families. This is the story of hundreds of children stripped from their mothers, separated fraternities, but also loss of identity due to different names, names and even date of birth. It is also an unknown story that has come back to life thanks to the engagement of the metis and their descendants, the work of researchers and the engagement of certain policymakers.

I think thus of the various resolutions that were adopted in the Council of the French Community Commission, the Senate, the Parliament of the French Community, and the public apologies of the Flemish Parliament, which were presented to the victims of forced adoptions, with the complicity of the Catholic Church between 1960 and 1980.

Faced with this terrible story, it will never be possible to cover up all the wounds, but unfortunately, this is not a reason to justify any status quo. Time passes, and it presses for political, scientific, symbolic and administrative actions to be undertaken. These should be coordinated actions, especially in a federal Belgium where several powers are divided between the different levels of power.

While progress has been made in these adoption skills, ⁇ in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, it is essential that each competent level of power addresses specifically the essential issue with regard to memory work.

I would like to conclude with the most prominent elements of the text. It contains an important request: to examine the possibility, within the framework of Belgian legislation, to establish a procedure for granting or returning Belgian nationality to methys persons, as well as to take the necessary measures to resolve the remaining problems related to their birth and marriage certificates. It is also crucial for metis to be able to count on the collaboration of the Belgian diplomatic posts in order to identify their biological parents. In the same order of ideas, access to archives is primary. It would be desirable to devote more resources to archiving and research, as the hearings clearly showed.

I insist on this element when you see how much this government puts federal, yet precious, scientific resources at risk, both in budgetary and structural terms. I will be especially attentive to this point.

It should also be considered how the metis concerned can obtain moral and administrative compensation for the injustices they have been victims of. Furthermore, the draft resolution calls for a commemorative stele to be erected, in recognition of the suffering of the metis. It is also the responsibility of the federal authority to ensure the coordination of all necessary initiatives, including those of federal entities, in order to ensure coherence and to music all goodwill and initiatives in order to remove the concrete obstacles highlighted by our hearings. They cannot stay.

Finally – and I might have had to begin with that – by adopting our text, our assembly will make a strong act by formally recognizing the targeted segregation of the metis under the colonial administration of the Belgian Congo and Rwanda-Urundi until 1962 and following the decolonization, as well as the related policy of forced abductions.

If we obviously cannot be content with the symbols – and it is in this sense that a series of concrete demands are made to the government, which has the lever – I think that their weight should not be underestimated either. These same symbols must play a driving role in finally allowing our country, in all its components, to dare to open and bring about an indispensable work of memory on some dark pages of our history. Dark pages that have often led to many human suffering and scratches.

Let us never forget that this memory is a wealth that must guide our civil and political actions so that the “no more this” finds an echo when, inexorably, time passes and we forget. It threatens our lives and threatens our lives together.

I thank you for your attention and, I hope, for your support.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the present resolution deals with a topic that is still very sensitive for many stakeholders. In all of us who have participated in the hearings and discussions, it has released the necessary emotions. It is our moral duty to acknowledge that what the metis experienced during the colonial period was inhumane. Think of the various stories we have heard about the extensive segregation, in which meticulous children were picked out of their environment, separated from their mother, brothers and sisters, forcibly adopted or isolated, and that because – we can hardly imagine – they represented a threat. Also our group wants to expressly join the apologies expressed for the suffering that the metis have had to suffer.

It is precisely because of the great sensitivity of this topic that we have continuously made efforts to reach a resolution carried by the association of metis. Respect and recognition for their suffering for our party were once again central, both in the Senate and in the Chamber. Does not everyone want to be seen, heard and known as a full-fledged human being, and to have the opportunity to find all the puzzle pieces of his identity together?

The text that now lies before you not only requires understanding and recognition for the metits and their families, but also requires to actually be able to reconstruct the personal history of each of those victims. This is our desire, so that they will receive recognition and recovery. The great strength of this resolution, which we all have worked on, is that we have reached a consensus across all factions. This resolution is the closing piece of all regional parliaments and of the Senate. For us, it is important that we offer the victims one global, personal, legal, material and historical solution.

CD&V submitted a whole series of amendments at the time and they were accepted everywhere. I will point out the most important, which we find in the questions to the government. It is a comprehensive historical study of the role of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in the treatment of the metis during the colonial period in the Belgian Congo and in Rwanda-Burundi.

In addition, we, as CD&V, in our questions to the government emphasized the importance of an inventory of all personal files of the metis. In this case, it is necessary to be able to establish interconnections, especially when one is dealing with numerous name changes or incorrect spelling of names.

Furthermore, CD&V in the questions addressed to the Government urges the Government to establish the necessary contacts to ensure that the archives of religious congregations or other associations located in Rome are made accessible. In this way, children can access their personal files.

Finally, I would like to say that this resolution, of course, receives our full support. For CD&V, this is only a successful example of co-creation when it does not remain a dead letter. From this resolution, the federal government must take concrete actions to provide the appropriate recovery to the children of the colonization or the metits. We will monitor this closely from our group.

Thank you for the good cooperation. We hope that action will come from the federal government.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Minister, representatives of the Metis community, I welcome you to the hemisphere.

Colleagues, the present resolution identifies an important historical debt of the Belgian State and society, namely the manner in which the children of metis have been treated and the way in which they continue to bear the consequences thereof.

The children born from relationships between African women and white men in the former Belgian colonies were seen by the Belgian government as a shame and a problem. African women who had a traditional African marriage with a white man were not recognized as a full-fledged family. The fathers who continued and wanted to raise their children as part of the family, were acidified by the colonial government. The children were considered illegitimate and narrowly called half-blooded, mulats, and children of sin. These are names that still bring a lot of pain to the metiss community.

Colleagues, who were given children in the colonies had no chance of a normal life. They were banned from schools, removed from their mother, forced in institutions and transferred on the eve of independence to Belgium or to other parts of Europe, to families and pensions but also to orphanages, internships and institutions for difficult children. Often brothers and sisters were separated from each other and all contact with, or even knowledge of their parents was made impossible.

The recognition of the historic injustice inflicted on these children has neglected the Belgian state for too long. The rights these children had or the rights of their African mothers were irrelevant. In the eyes of the colonial state, these children were just a problem to treat, a shame to hide.

This historic injustice has had an unbearable impact on the lives of hundreds of people. Families were torn apart and did not find each other to this day. These children, as adults, sixty years after date, have found their backs and their pride. They are now speaking to us to think about the consequences of colonization for the entire community.

I think it is very important that we listen to those involved. During the hearing, the metesses in Belgium with roots in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, and who are closely connected with Belgian society and history, were able to testify in the House and the Senate about their lives. These were deeply personal testimonies that did not leave any faction untouched.

This resolution, supported by Chamberbreed and drafted jointly by the opposition and the majority, is a moral duty for the Belgian State to correct the mistakes of the past.

No matter how positive the recognition of this historical injustice is, it is important that we do not limit ourselves to a symbolic gesture. It is up to the government to work as quickly as possible to actively support further research that can bring broken families together before it’s too late.

Colleagues, the time has come to embrace the metiss community, apologize and heal their wounds. It is now up to us to work with them to correctly deal with the past.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, I will first address the public who has been listening to us for about six hours. This is proof that, once it is a colonial past, it takes time to find solutions. You have experienced it today. I sincerely regret this.

During this debate, we heard the expression of tremendous pain as well as the evocation of many horrors – as Mr. Miller reminded, I will not return to it. It is a fact: today, all Belgians, and we are its representatives, still do not assume their colonial past, which is the subject of a rejection. Tonight we will take a first step. As announced by Ms. de Coster, who took the initiative of this resolution proposal with Mr. Crusnière, we will assume a very small part of shadow.

The metis are the incarnation, in the first sense of the term, of the Belgian colonization. In fact, by their bodies, by their history, they illustrate our colonial past in Africa. Today, we recognize the responsibility of Belgium and its various authorities, whether state, religious or economic, in your suffering. It is through a resolution proposal that will be voted unanimously, I am sure, that we will solemnly recognize it, just as we will recognize the responsibility of Belgium, as the heir to the colonial state, in your sufferings.

I would like to tell you that we are sorry, even if, individually, we have nothing to do as representatives of the Belgian people with the executions of the past. However, we are the heirs of this colonial state, including the independent state of Congo, and we have a responsibility that we assume here before you.

In practice, this means that the Belgian State will have to implement everything from tomorrow to make you accessible to the national, but also foreign archives, which contain data especially essential to know the journey of your parents.

In particular, I think of the archives of the White Fathers and White Sisters not yet cited by the colleagues and which have been long discussed in the committee. The archives are now in Rome. We will, I think, intervene with our Minister of Foreign Affairs so that he acts with our representatives, our diplomats in Rome with the Italian State but also with the Vatican, so that these archives crucial to know the past of your parents can be accessible to you.

It seems to me that we must also make an effort in Belgium to not only give the government the task of opening these archives, but also to make the essential part between the important respect for privacy – I fight this tribune for that – and the solemn declaration of your right to know your origins; this prevails over privacy, in this case here it is a matter of files dating back more than 57 years!

Your stories, your stories of metis, 57 years after the independence of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, make you think of other stories of colonization such as, for example, human remains stored in federal scientific institutions. We also think of this current debate in our communes and, in particular, in the City of Brussels and in the Brussels communes on the place to be given to Leopold II for what he represents in the history of the Belgian colonies. I also think of other topics, such as the tragic, still unclear, death of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld.

The common point between all these stories is our colonial past. But three things are common to all these colonial stories. The first is the issue of archives. Today, in your case, you metis, and in all other files, we see the wrong will of the State when it comes to opening archives on files as essential as our colonial past.

In all the files I cited, the archives are made difficult to access. There will be a lot of work needed to make these archives accessible.

Secondly, it is very difficult to clearly translate what really happened. Today, 57 years after the independence of our former colonies, we cannot consult a history written on thousands of pages about what really happened in Central Africa, under the domination of the Belgian authorities, whether it be the colonial state or the financial, industrial enterprises such as the General of Belgium or the Mine Union.

You, the Metis, have been especially victims of religious, Catholic and Protestant authorities. We, MEPs, representatives of the Belgian people today, are responsible for this colonial past embodied by the Belgian State and by all the institutions that played a role in the colonization of Central Africa.

Third, Belgium does not assume and does not yet recognize the content of all these files. This is why, together with a few colleagues, we worked on the establishment of a resolution calling for Belgium to begin a work of recognition of what happened and what was the colonial process as a whole, in its economic, industrial and political dimensions.

Mr. Richard Miller recalled quite long, citing statements that have sometimes been held here, how far colonial ideology constitutes an exclusive process that may explain what racism is today.

We are now at the first stage and, although I am aware that the ratio of political forces will not lead us to vote one day on a comprehensive resolution aimed at recognizing the responsibility of Belgium after a thorough and properly funded scientific process, I think that we have worked correctly, majority and opposition, all political groups represented. That’s why it worked because, as soon as it comes to recognizing a past, the majority and the opposition must work together, in a consensual way.

Otherwise, you may be right on one side of your bench, but the result is not there. The result, which can be welcomed today, is to say that Belgium recognizes its responsibility in the situation of the metis in particular. I wish one day that we could make the same conclusion and that the whole hemisphere could recognize the responsibility of Belgium in the colonial process.

Today, you, the Metis, are the first step in this great process that is just beginning.

I would like to welcome, together with my colleagues, the adoption of this resolution. I would also like to congratulate the representatives of the Association of Metis of Belgium because it is the fruit of a long work, which they started years ago with various parliaments, deputies and groups, notably the Senate and the Brussels Parliament. It was necessary to carry out this work in the various assemblies to raise awareness of this story and to ensure that everyone, at different levels of responsibility, can accompany the recommendations of this resolution.

This resolution is, first of all, a work of memory in relation to a history that was very little known, if not unknown, in relation to a history that was hidden, a “shameful” history, a history of racism, a history of segregation, a history of discrimination. It was, first of all, this work that was indispensable: to be able to reveal this history, to be able to know it better, even though, in the end, we still know little about it. There is therefore an accompanying work by the CEGESOMA that will be very important to continue this memory work and this report that we have requested for later.

Then, this resolution is a promise that is made to this community that we will have the heart to investigate in the different places where there are still today information elements that will allow to find the mothers and other family members, to find those stories and ⁇ find families that will be able to renew ties.

It is also a promise of reparation, in particular through the acquisition of citizenship and by other means. It is also important because it is about repairing an injustice that has been created through the treatment that these metis, these people, have experienced.

So this is a parliamentary achievement, I would say, but at the same time the beginning of a history of support, accompaniment and recognition, of reparation in relation to this community. I would like to congratulate my colleagues on the work done, the indispensable follow-up and the support that this resolution will deserve in the months and years to come. I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, it is true that the political history of a country forges the consciences of citizens, but if History has its advances, it also has its shortcomings and its injustices. At this point, it is the consciences that must be questioned!

The more a state assumes its responsibilities and those of its history, the more he can grow out of it. This is the message of this proposal for a resolution which I have had the pleasure to co-sign with my colleagues and for which I thank Mr. Crusnière and Mrs. de Coster-Bauchau for taking the initiative of a common text that brought together all the political groups of this assembly.

Following other parliamentary assemblies and other institutions – the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the Senate, the Flemish Parliament, the Joint Community Commission – we must have the will to take on these dark pages of history when – as our colleague Richard Miller so correctly reminded by quoting statements that today scandalize us even more – the political will of the leaders of the time was to conduct segregation policies with the complicity of a number of environments and forces of society, including the Churches. These segregation policies were organized in our colonies, at the time, in the Congo and Rwanda-Urundi, with regard to hundreds of metis children from the union of African mothers and Belgian citizens coming from the country.

I must admit that I had not taken the full measure of the gravity of this moment of history. It happens that I had read a wonderful book by Didier Daeninckx, Galadio, which relates the terrible fate of methic children born in Germany, after the First World War, of the union of German occupation soldiers after the Treaty of Versailles with Germans, and the terrible fate reserved for these children at the time of the rise of the Nazi regime. It is a very interpellant live.

I think with emotion of this reading as I discover the extent of the segregation carried out by our country during its colonial period in the countries from which the metis children come. Our story is also terrible and interpellant.

In short, what has always founded the colonial ambitions of a number of States is the supposed "superior interest of the State", which is the falsehood of history, the false excuse of all those who never wanted to assume responsibility for their acts and the rulers of the time.

It is true that one can always question the meaning of memorial laws. It is known that there are historians to challenge its relevance, and that there are also historians to challenge the initiatives of parliamentary assemblies that want to remind what the political responsibilities of the time were. I do not share the point of view of those who want to limit the determination of the responsibilities of the policies carried out at the time to the sole scientific analysis of history.

I am one of those who think that even if history makes a judgment on responsibilities, the ultimate judgment must belong to the citizens and the elected of the people when facts of such gravity have been the responsibility of politicians. This is what makes the honor of a democratic assembly: it is not to take refuge behind the study of history for the sole reason of justification of the abandonment of this period in the collective memory.

It is true, we have a duty of memory towards these metis, their children and grandchildren, who still remain today in search of their roots, their history, their itinerary of life, not yet completed, because the superior interest of the State has denied their existence. And the political decision that is taken today is to consider that the superior interest of the state was simply the false excuse of those who did not want to assume their responsibilities.

We must therefore, today, recognize the targeted segregation, the metis of which were victims under the colonial administration of the Belgian Congo and Rwanda-Burundi, as well as the policy of forced abduction that accompanied it. Not only must we condemn the derivatives of the so-called and false civilizing action of colonial action with its corrosion of accusations, segregations, discriminations, suffering, injuries, racist propaganda, wealth exploitation, violence, inhuman and degrading treatment of crimes, but above all we have a duty of fraternity to assume towards these victims.

That is why, along with the other groups, we ask the government to grant not only moral but also legal compensation to the victims by establishing a procedure for granting or recovering the nationality from which they are originating by helping them identify their biological parents or by ensuring, indeed, this work of reconstruction of memory through the exploitation of all the archives available and which are still today hidden or obscured by state will.

It is therefore by consistency with the democratic ideals that have always founded our political commitment and our work in this assembly that my group will obviously support this indispensable proposal for a resolution, for which I thank, once again, the authors.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, dear visitors, the PTB will support this motion which clearly goes in the right direction. At the time of the colonial conquest, racist theories were the dominant ideology in Europe. In order to justify colonialism, some thinkers divided the world into lower and higher races.

The Belgian Congo was built on a racist model. The most powerful Congolese leader had no value in colonial society compared to a white living in the Congo.

Society is structured like this. No Congolese could access a position with responsibilities, do politics, study.

The fact that colonial society takes away methic children from their black parents shows, however, that there was a vision with a hierarchy of races, considering that the black mother could not take care of half-white children.

As Mr Assumani explained during the hearings, the transfer of metis to Europe is not Belgium’s responsibility, since France also transferred Eurasian metis to France. But, unlike Belgium, France will grant, by decree of 4 November 1928, French citizenship to all metis born in Indochina, whether they are recognized or not. This decree will later be applied to the other French colonies. The legal status of methic children born in the colonies of legally unknown parents had been fixed: in French West Africa by decree of 5 September 1930, in the colony of Madagascar and its dependencies by decree of 21 July 1931, in New Caledonia by decree of 20 May 1933 and in French Equatorial Africa by decree of 15 September 1936.

Mr Assumani indicates that Belgium will refuse, on the other hand, to grant Belgian citizenship under various pretexts, with the exception of recognized metis. Unrecognized metis were generally considered indigenous.

This text is not just a struggle for better recognition of the injustice of children abducted from their parents. It is also the symbol of a struggle against racism that served to justify colonization and, even today, neo-colonialism.

This initiative could never have existed without the struggle carried out for many years and still carried out, in particular by the Association of Metis for the recognition of the offenses committed. The fact that Belgium has taken so long to recognize an element as simple as access to archives to find their parents shows the extent of the obstacles to face.

Belgium has therefore taken steps forward on the issue of racism and its colonial attitude. It can be cited the fact that the government acknowledged, in 2001, its responsibility for the murder of Patrice Lumumba and, today, Belgium acknowledges the injustice done to the metis. This goes in the right direction, even though there is still a long way to go in the face of this denunciation of racism and the crimes of colonization. One day, it will be necessary to recognize Belgium’s support for this disgusting dictatorship of Mobutu, which, together with the colonial heritage, led to the situation that Congo still experiences today.