Was the Belgium actions in the Congo genocide?

I had always seen it termed as much, but supposedly, it’s a lot more controversial than that.

The U.N. definition of genocide is :

quote:

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"any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such"

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The question is whether the Belgians attempted to in part destroy natives through a policy of killing natives who didn’t fulfil their daily work quotas. Colonial troops were to provide chopped off hands as proof that they had killed the natives (they were told they couldn’t shoot people because bullets were expensive).

But, the more hands that were turned in, the less time the colonial troops had to serve. So they went to great lengths to butcher people.

Some people argue that this is targeting a people for partial destruction.

The Belgian government to this day claims it was not genocide because they weren’t ethically targeted and that it was not in their best interest to kill off too much of its workforce.

Still, it is estimated that the population of the Congo declined by around 8 million people in the 23 years that the Congo was Leopold’s personal colony