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portant one, have a very soft character. This tremendous territory, which is very fertile, is being exploited under a joint agreement of robbery by the imperialist companies, Lever Brothers; the Companies du Kasai, the Intertropical Compina and the firm of Madil-alves E[[?]]re[[?]]as. Palm kernels and oil are the chief products of this district. It is necessary to see the centres of Kikurt-Bulunga, Leverville, in order to get a picture of the richness of products stored away in the compounds and warehouses of these capitalist companies.
The territorial administration is controlled by these same firms. These companies are the real rulers and absolute master in the Kwango. What their officials say is law. 
When the company which owns the sugar plantations of Moabeke wanted to  
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build a railway, they employed forced labor to such an extent, that the entire male population of this district was worked to death, added to which was the terrible effects of the sleeping disease. But even up to that time the natives did not protest. 
But today, through economic crisis, the prices of the agricultural products are falling. Immediately the companies are lowering the prices for which they buy, and no matter how hard the Negroes work, they cannot get enough to buy food. In agreement with the Belgian authorities the firms are recruiting the natives for forced labor. These who do not want to work are being imprisoned. So at last the workers are protesting. They see their conditions of existence getting worse and worse daily. So they are being repressed all the more. Hundreds are being thrown into prison. When this fails to break their spirit, the whip is being applied. Under the protection of armed soldiers the government officials and the white agents of the companies go about the villages committing drunken orgies and raping the wives and daughters of the natives who are in jail. 
So one day, the Negroes of the Kwango, driven to desperation, by these continuous outrages refuse to work. They decide a general strike. They leave the plantations and retire into the forest. 
A territorial agent, an official of the Government, is being sent out to punish them. He is attacked and killed by the natives. The entire country rises in revolt. The garrisons of Hebo are being sent on the scene. Reinforcement is being asked for. The garrison of Leopoldville is also sent, with all its machine guns. Those soldiers who are natives of the Kwango, have been taken out of these military units before the others are sent. Speculating, as usual, on the old hatred of the tribes between each other, the white officials are exploiting this hatred and are sending soldiers to the Kwango district, who come from other parts of the Congo, and who for centuries carried on war with each other. (It is the old policy of "divid and rule", Ed.)
After the troops have been landed in Kikwit, the operations begin. 
For the imperialists it was no easy fight. Although the natives were only armed with lances and other primitive weapons; while they had machine guns and pieces of field artillery. They even threatened to use airplanes in order to put down the uprising. 
Then began one of the biggest slaughter, which has destroyed, once and for all, the prestige of the whites, in the eyes of the natives. Whole tribes, which did not know the deadly effects of modern guns, were killed in a most cowardly manner. They died like rats are they attacked the soldiers almost empty handed. The natives fell by the thousands. The natives are now once more experiencing the terror of the times of the first occupation of Leopold. The prisoners that have been made, have been shot without trial, in front of the women and children as an exemplary measure that blacks must never make rebellion against their white masters. 
At present the revolt of the Kwango has been suppressed. Down these thousands of corpses are bleaching in the sun. Many villages have been distroyed [[destroyed]], but the revolutionary spirit of the Congo people will never be crushed. 
The natives in the district who escaped the slaughter are once more being rounded up and despatched [[dispatched]] to the plantations to do forced labour. 
But in the communiqu[[?]]s and in the Belgian capitalist newspapers one can read that "peace" is ruling everywhere, even in the burnt down villages and among those thousands that were killed. Such are the "blessings" of white imperialist rule in the lands of the blacks. 
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