Belgium has a history of collaboration with inhuman and intolerant regimes. It began with king Leopold II’s private Congo colony which was a huge labour camp where millions of blacks perished. In the 1930’s, king Leopold III was the most despicable appeaser of Adolf Hitler. During the Cold War, queen Elisabeth often wrote to Joseph Stalin expressing her love and admiration for his ideals. King Albert II even visited the PR China last month, filled with sympathy and respect for the Chinese - rotten and dictatorial - regime. Together with France, Belgium is punishing to lift the EU ban on the delivery of arms to the PR China. The arms industry in Wallonia is eager to trade with the Chinese. The EU ban was imposed after the Tien-An-Men massacre, where thousands of innocent protesters — mostly students — were slaughtered by the military while clamouring for democracy and freedom. 2,000 students who surprisingly survived the massacre, are still lingering in prison today. To make it perfectly clear that Belgium does not give a dot about human rights, king Albert II emphasized the good relations between our two countries and our (weapon) trade. He also started his Chinese tour on Tien-An-Men square in Beijing, on the fourth of June, the exact date of the massacre.

Dit artikel van Guido Tastenhoye verscheen ook in The Free State en The Flemish Republic, alsook op een aantal weblogs.

Meer teksten van hem op www.theflemishrepublic.org.