0:00:06 > 0:00:12Before you enter the forest it is respectful to seek permission.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09The peoples of the Congo basin have lived in a close relationship
0:01:09 > 0:01:13with their forests for thousands of years.
0:01:13 > 0:01:19But this relationship was to radically change with the arrival of the white explorers.
0:01:26 > 0:01:32From the beginning, they developed very different visions of the forest.
0:01:36 > 0:01:41They portrayed it as a land of savage chaos, the heart of darkness.
0:01:41 > 0:01:47They've been corrupted by the wealth of its resources and yet,
0:01:47 > 0:01:53at the same, time entranced by the sheer exuberance of its nature.
0:02:09 > 0:02:14The great swathe of forests that cover central Africa
0:02:14 > 0:02:21were not penetrated by European explorers until the second half of the 19th century.
0:02:21 > 0:02:26When they did eventually venture in beyond their settlements on the coast
0:02:26 > 0:02:29they were not to find it uninhabited.
0:02:29 > 0:02:33That was the perception of the Western European explorers
0:02:33 > 0:02:39who went down to central Africa, imagining it was a black hole.
0:02:39 > 0:02:46People have been living in central Africa, in the deep tropical forest, for centuries and centuries.
0:02:46 > 0:02:50And the nature that we see there has been formed by these peoples.
0:02:50 > 0:02:55It's a contrast between a lot of the conservationist discourse
0:02:55 > 0:03:01of trying to preserve this pristine space that resembles more the Garden of Eden.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04The people have formed these spaces.
0:03:04 > 0:03:09So what the Europeans found there was something that they discovered for themselves.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13They weren't bringing in anything new to the people there.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27For hundreds of years, the 2 million square kilometres of rainforest that
0:03:27 > 0:03:32cover the Congo Basin was merely a blank on the European map.
0:03:32 > 0:03:38It's a region bounded by the Atlantic to the west and a range of ancient volcanoes to the East.
0:03:40 > 0:03:48It's intersected by giant river systems that feed the river that eats all rivers - the Congo.
0:03:55 > 0:04:02On its way to the sea, the Congo also passes through swamps and savannah, great lakes and clearings.
0:04:02 > 0:04:08A variety of habitats that supports an extraordinary range of species,
0:04:08 > 0:04:13many of which were unknown to the early European explorers.
0:05:22 > 0:05:27It was in 1859 that a young Franco-American explorer
0:05:27 > 0:05:34returned from the African forest with thousands of animal specimens, many of them unknown to science.
0:05:36 > 0:05:42Although Paul Du Chaillu wrote about his experiences with cannibals and pygmies, it was his stories of
0:05:42 > 0:05:46a forest brimming with wildlife that captured the public's imagination.
0:05:46 > 0:05:51His encounter with one animal in particular, created a sensation.
0:05:53 > 0:05:58Du Chaillu's descriptions of the gorilla are quite incredible.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02He really ups the ante on the horrific.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05He really sells a very good story and his audiences lapped it up.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10He presents an image of a hostile jungle but particularly
0:06:10 > 0:06:14a hellish, beastly gorilla as the king of this jungle.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22"His eyes began to flash fierce fire as we stood motionless on the defensive.
0:06:22 > 0:06:29"And the crest of short hair which stands on his forehead began to twitch rapidly up and down,
0:06:29 > 0:06:34"His powerful fangs were shown as he sent forth a thunderous roar.
0:06:36 > 0:06:42"Now he reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream creature.
0:06:42 > 0:06:49"A being of that hideous order, half-man, half-beast, which we find pictured by old artists
0:06:49 > 0:06:53"in some representations of the infernal regions.
0:06:53 > 0:06:59"He advanced a few steps and then stopped to utter that hideous roar.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05"Advanced again, and finally stopped.
0:07:05 > 0:07:11"And here, just as he began another of his roars, beating his breast in rage...
0:07:11 > 0:07:14"We fired and killed him."
0:07:17 > 0:07:23His descriptions were to perpetuate the savage image of the gorilla right through to the 20th century
0:07:23 > 0:07:27in literature and, eventually, on film.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53In particular, Du Chaillu was playing up
0:07:53 > 0:08:00to a public that was already fascinated by the idea of powerful, semi-human beasts
0:08:00 > 0:08:03with a high sex drive.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19SHE SCREAMS
0:08:23 > 0:08:26Du Chaillu's efforts went beyond the written word.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31He even doctored the specimens he brought back.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34Here's your terrifying, savage,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37brute gorilla.
0:08:37 > 0:08:43Du Chaillu actually cut the penises off his gorillas.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45Why?
0:08:45 > 0:08:49Because nobody would believe that a man-ape,
0:08:49 > 0:08:54an ape-man could possibly be pulling women off to...
0:08:54 > 0:08:57Because their penis, fully erect,
0:08:57 > 0:09:04is no more than one inch long. Which is why there are leaves over.
0:09:10 > 0:09:15And it's these stories that really set imaginations
0:09:15 > 0:09:21running riot with an idea of what might exist in Central Africa.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26He sets a stage for later explorers like Stanley but also later authors.
0:09:26 > 0:09:33If you think of Henty, Stables, Stephenson, Haggard, Kipling or Kingston.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38Writing these wonderful adventure narratives of a miscellaneous collection of
0:09:38 > 0:09:44Victorian explorers, pith-helmeted, bewhiskered, khaki-clad,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48drifting down river, discovering wild beasts.
0:09:48 > 0:09:53Fighting their way through jungles and discovering lost treasures.
0:09:55 > 0:10:01And it's the description of wilderness that enables this.
0:10:01 > 0:10:06The description of an African wilderness, albeit teeming with life
0:10:06 > 0:10:10and indigenous peoples, a wilderness that's challenging.
0:10:12 > 0:10:17Certainly in the imagination of British audiences was an environment
0:10:17 > 0:10:21that was ripe to be subjected, dominated and controlled.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24Part of that was through mapping,
0:10:24 > 0:10:29but obviously later through conquest and colonisation.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36Du Chaillu's gorilla specimens captured the imaginations of
0:10:36 > 0:10:43the cartoonists of the time, playing their part in the debates around Darwin's The Origin of Species.
0:10:43 > 0:10:45"Am I satyr or man?
0:10:45 > 0:10:50"Pray tell me who can and settle my place on the scale.
0:10:50 > 0:10:55"A man in ape's shape, an anthropoid ape or a monkey deprived of his tail?
0:10:55 > 0:11:00"Then Darwin set forth, in a book of much worth, the importance of nature's selection.
0:11:00 > 0:11:06"How the struggle for life is a laudable strife, and results in specific distinction."
0:11:06 > 0:11:11For a while, the gorilla was seen as the likely candidate for mankind's closest relative.
0:11:11 > 0:11:18"Then apes have no nose and thumbs for great toes, and a pelvis both narrow and slight.
0:11:18 > 0:11:24"They can't stand upright - unless to show fight with Du Chaillu, that chivalrous knight."
0:11:27 > 0:11:33Du Chaillu's vivid accounts of the Congo presented the idea of a place
0:11:33 > 0:11:39full of other human like ancestors, leading to speculation that this forest was rich with tribes of
0:11:39 > 0:11:45people further down the evolutionary tree than the European white male.
0:12:22 > 0:12:29So far, Du Chaillu had created the image of a great African Forest brimming with natural history
0:12:29 > 0:12:34specimens and as an exotic habitat for early prototypes of human kind.
0:12:36 > 0:12:41But soon an event occurred which was to utterly transform the European
0:12:41 > 0:12:47attitude to the Congo region and to dictate its destiny right up until the present day.
0:12:48 > 0:12:56On August the 9th 1877, Henry Morton Stanley, the man who discovered Livingstone, reached
0:12:56 > 0:13:02the mouth of the Congo having blazed a trail across the great uncharted centre of the continent.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06Basically, Stanley's journey,
0:13:06 > 0:13:10it started the sounding gun for the scramble for Africa.
0:13:10 > 0:13:1420 years of white man staking the interior of Africa.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17So it really was a massive turning point.
0:13:29 > 0:13:35This unimaginably huge tract of Africa was suddenly open.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39A whole area of the map had been filled in.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50Stanley's achievement was considerable.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54His journey had been sponsored by the New York Herald
0:13:54 > 0:13:58in the United States and the London Daily Telegraph.
0:13:58 > 0:14:05His self-promoting articles, augmented by extensive lecturing tours presented his account of
0:14:05 > 0:14:08his voyage across what he called the Dark Continent.
0:14:10 > 0:14:13This massive bestseller, full of exaggeration,
0:14:13 > 0:14:19described an heroic journey down a river and through dense forests full of violent tribes.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27"To the ordinary white man, it was what may well be
0:14:27 > 0:14:31"termed impenetrable - except at constant peril of his life.
0:14:33 > 0:14:38"It was ravaged by cannibals, fierce warlike tribes and Arab slave raiders.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43"Every tribe barred the ingress of the travelling
0:14:43 > 0:14:50"and its frontier on all sides lay exposed to any white stranger who took the trouble to plant a flag."
0:14:55 > 0:14:57It was a bestseller.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02But, yes, it consigned this part of Africa to a stereotype, to an image.
0:15:02 > 0:15:08An Africa that was inherently brutal, almost irredeemably so.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10So, going from perhaps
0:15:10 > 0:15:16these voyages that were genuinely scientific or had at their heart
0:15:16 > 0:15:21a sort of perhaps enlightened goal of adding to knowledge,
0:15:21 > 0:15:26of scientific inquiry, to a mindset that was
0:15:26 > 0:15:33bristlingly Imperial and casting the African continent as something that was irredeemably savage.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36And, therefore, had to be saved by
0:15:36 > 0:15:39the enlightened knowledge of an Empire.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42Perhaps Stanley is responsible for setting
0:15:42 > 0:15:47Africa down that path of subjugation and colonial domination.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25There was going to be a new history.
0:16:25 > 0:16:29By demonstrating that the Congo was navigable, Stanley alerted
0:16:29 > 0:16:34European powers to the possibility that the entire Equatorial forest could be divided up.
0:16:39 > 0:16:45Within eight years of the publication of Through the Dark Continent, France, Germany, Spain,
0:16:45 > 0:16:49Portugal and Great Britain had carved out portions.
0:16:59 > 0:17:05And the King of one small nation had grabbed half of it as his own personal fiefdom.
0:17:16 > 0:17:21Leopold II, King of the Belgians, described the great swathe of
0:17:21 > 0:17:25African forest as, "This magnificent African cake."
0:17:28 > 0:17:33Never does he step one foot on Africa. And yet he holds an astonishing record.
0:17:33 > 0:17:39He is the man who has claimed as his own one piece of land larger than any other human ever has.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44He took that land as his plaything, his fiefdom, his private estate.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48It's astonishing, it's a million square miles
0:17:48 > 0:17:51of Equatorial forest, river system, savannah.
0:17:51 > 0:17:57And he regards it as a large cake from which he can derive whatever goods he can.
0:18:01 > 0:18:06Leopold's giant-size portion of cake was to prove very rich indeed.
0:18:08 > 0:18:14The abundance of animals and plants were no longer merely objects of scientific interest.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17They'd help him finance an empire.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24His initial source of income came from forest elephants.
0:18:24 > 0:18:29Though smaller than their relatives in East Africa, they still packed a lot of ivory.
0:18:31 > 0:18:37The export of ivory was so lucrative that the animals were driven close to extinction.
0:18:39 > 0:18:44But soon another, more lucrative example of the region's abundance
0:18:44 > 0:18:48was to change the King's fortunes and the forest itself.
0:18:51 > 0:18:57Leopold was looking to the Congo to exploit its mineral wealth,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00rubber particularly, at this point.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04Rubber being used for automobile tyres, but crucially being used
0:19:04 > 0:19:08for the insulation on electric cables, telephone and the telegraph.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12These modern technologies, dependent on rubber.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16It was a boom, immense wealth but it came at immense cost.
0:19:22 > 0:19:27Great numbers of rubber trees grew wild in the forest's interior.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30There was no idea of plantations at this time
0:19:30 > 0:19:36and so tapping them would need to rely on the local knowledge and labour of the forest's inhabitants.
0:19:36 > 0:19:43And this was to be a primary example of how the region's riches would become associated with misery.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48Leopold now owned their forest
0:19:48 > 0:19:53and his ruthless drive to extract rubber from the inhabitants
0:19:53 > 0:19:59radically altered their perception of the landscape they'd inhabited for thousands of years.
0:20:55 > 0:21:02When a village failed to produce its quota of rubber, selected people had their hands chopped off.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04Frequently it was the children.
0:21:06 > 0:21:11The image of the abundant Congo was supplanted with the image of the state of terror.
0:21:18 > 0:21:23Frankly, it was the first genocide of the modern era.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28Between 1885 to 1908 between 4 and 10 million people died.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31These are numbing figures.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38It happened because white man thought that he could do this to Africa.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41And that really is, that's where the association
0:21:41 > 0:21:46of Central of the Congo River Basin with darkness comes from.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53The adjective darkness was to become indelibly attached to the Western imaginings of the Congo
0:21:53 > 0:21:57with the publication of Conrad's novella in 1899.
0:21:58 > 0:22:05"Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10"When vegetation rioted on the Earth and big trees were kings.
0:22:10 > 0:22:16"An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20"The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24"There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine.
0:22:24 > 0:22:30"The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35"We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness."
0:22:38 > 0:22:45Joseph Conrad had travelled in Leopold's so called Congo Free State in the 1890s.
0:22:45 > 0:22:51Like many white men, he'd suffered from chronic dysentery and malaria.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55His physical degeneration was coupled with a deep disillusion
0:22:55 > 0:22:59with the way Leopold's regime exploited the land and its people.
0:23:01 > 0:23:06And what he saw, the behaviour of the white men, scarred him so much
0:23:06 > 0:23:08it sat in his soul for eight years.
0:23:08 > 0:23:14Eight years later, in three hectic months, he produced The Heart Of Darkness.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18"They were dying slowly, it was very clear.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"They were not enemies, they were not criminals.
0:23:21 > 0:23:26"They were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30"Lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.
0:23:30 > 0:23:36"Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts.
0:23:36 > 0:23:42"Lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food,
0:23:42 > 0:23:48"they sickened, became inefficient and were then allowed to crawl away and rest."
0:23:50 > 0:23:54And there were very many layers of darkness.
0:23:54 > 0:24:01One of the layers of darkness was the darkness of a colonial project and the hypocrisy at its heart.
0:24:01 > 0:24:06That it was pretending to be about uplifting the native, and introducing him to civilization,
0:24:06 > 0:24:10but in fact, it was about profit at any cost.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15The other darkness was the darkness of a white man, a western,
0:24:15 > 0:24:24supposedly civilised man who goes to Africa, enjoyed supreme absolute power and loses his moral bearings.
0:24:24 > 0:24:28The model for Kurtz, the station agent who goes crazy
0:24:28 > 0:24:35in the middle of the forest, was probably Leon Rom who was a Belgian member of the Force Publique.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39And this was the man who's famous in the Congo for decorating
0:24:39 > 0:24:42his palisades with the heads of the local Congolese.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47"His was an impenetrable darkness.
0:24:47 > 0:24:52"I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent.
0:24:52 > 0:24:57"I saw on that ivory face an expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power,
0:24:57 > 0:25:00"of craven terror.
0:25:00 > 0:25:03"Of an intense and hopeless despair.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10"He cried out twice. A cry that was no more than a breath.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13"The horror. The horror."
0:25:20 > 0:25:25And then the last darkness is the use now that
0:25:25 > 0:25:30we always think of when we use that phrase, "heart of darkness."
0:25:30 > 0:25:33Which is the savagery of primeval Africa.
0:25:33 > 0:25:39And it's very interesting that that use is the only one now that we see in the media today.
0:25:42 > 0:25:46At the time of its publication, Conrad's book was just the opening
0:25:46 > 0:25:52salvo in what eventually amounted to a barrage of criticism of Leopold's Congo.
0:25:52 > 0:25:59The first human rights campaign of the 20th Century, it was also to be the first to use photographs.
0:25:59 > 0:26:05Taken by British missionaries, they provided the evidence and produced outrage.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09Supported by Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle,
0:26:09 > 0:26:15journalist Edmund Morel made the Red Rubber Campaign one of the dominant political issues of the age.
0:26:15 > 0:26:26The Red Rubber Campaign, or the campaign that Morel led, became a huge public affair
0:26:26 > 0:26:32both in England, in Europe and in the United States.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36And it became a mass protest,
0:26:36 > 0:26:40with all sorts of political ramifications.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44And eventually, I suppose,
0:26:44 > 0:26:51you can say that it led to the dismemberment of Leopold's...
0:26:53 > 0:27:00..private franchise and the Belgian state taking over the Congo.
0:27:00 > 0:27:07In 1908, Leopold handed his Congo Free State over to the Belgian nation.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11The extreme abuses of the past slowly began to diminish.
0:27:13 > 0:27:20But among all the colonising nations the idea of the civilising mission to the benighted forest colonies
0:27:20 > 0:27:25was to be perpetuated for another half century.
0:27:25 > 0:27:32It is Leopold's museum outside Brussels that exemplifies this propaganda more than any other.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36Financed from the profits of his rubber trade, he built a stately
0:27:36 > 0:27:43memorial to himself and his image of Western Civilisation in the Congo.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45He died before it was completed.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54Although its new administration has plans to update it,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58the Royal Museum of Central Africa still displays the image
0:27:58 > 0:28:05of the white man's mission, stimulating an ambiguous response from Congolese visitors.
0:29:12 > 0:29:18There was a positive side to the presentations of the colonial museums.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23They were also availing themselves of the cultural wealth of the forest people.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28Figurines and masks from unknown sculptors of the forests were
0:29:28 > 0:29:33a revelation to artists like Derain, Vlaminck, Modigliani and Picasso.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41Picasso incorporated Congolese sculpture
0:29:41 > 0:29:46into one of the most influential paintings of the 20th Century.
0:29:50 > 0:29:55On visiting an exhibition of African art in Paris, he wrote:
0:29:55 > 0:29:59"I experienced my greatest artistic emotion when I suddenly discovered
0:29:59 > 0:30:02"the sublime beauty of sculptures
0:30:02 > 0:30:05"executed by the anonymous artists from Africa.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09"These passionate and rigorously logical religious works are what
0:30:09 > 0:30:16"the human imagination has produced as most potent and most beautiful.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19"At that moment I realised what painting was all about."
0:30:25 > 0:30:29Of course it released him from all academic art.
0:30:29 > 0:30:32I think it was the power in these things.
0:30:32 > 0:30:34I mean, just looking at them.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39They just have this power and any artist is going to feel...
0:30:41 > 0:30:44..proud of that, pleased of that. He's part of this tradition.
0:30:45 > 0:30:50The region's natural riches were also being collected in great numbers.
0:30:50 > 0:30:54Museums all over the world enticed their publics with vast displays
0:30:54 > 0:30:57of the forest's flora and fauna.
0:30:59 > 0:31:02Hunters and naturalists combed the forest for more and more
0:31:02 > 0:31:08exotic species in what was still seen as a primeval forest.
0:31:08 > 0:31:09There were rumours
0:31:09 > 0:31:12that the forest harboured survivors from the dinosaur era.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Sadly, no dinosaurs were discovered.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23But the zoological world was rocked with other discoveries.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30One came from the mountains on the Eastern edge of the Congo Forest.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14The American zoologist Carl Akeley was commissioned
0:32:14 > 0:32:18to collect specimens for the American Museum of Natural History
0:32:18 > 0:32:21and he saw the forest in a new light.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50But Akeley began not only to reassess the image of the gorilla
0:32:50 > 0:32:54but he brought a new concept to the region, conservation.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Akeley's exertions resulted in the creation
0:33:33 > 0:33:36of Africa's first National Park.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11Albert National Park was the first of many.
0:34:11 > 0:34:13The Congo was now perceived
0:34:13 > 0:34:17as a natural treasure to be preserved, not just exploited.
0:34:17 > 0:34:20However, this perception did not embrace
0:34:20 > 0:34:24the human populations who lived in and around it.
0:34:28 > 0:34:33People for whom the forest and its resources provided a livelihood
0:34:33 > 0:34:37and also was a well-spring for their spiritual life.
0:35:01 > 0:35:04Throughout the various colonies that partitioned the forest,
0:35:04 > 0:35:08attitudes to the local inhabitants varied.
0:35:08 > 0:35:13In the vast territory which was the Belgian Congo, it seemed that
0:35:13 > 0:35:17the rulers were still locked into a perception of the forest population
0:35:17 > 0:35:20that owed a great deal to the social Darwinians
0:35:20 > 0:35:23and the evolutionary hierarchy of mankind.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27Well, the Belgians had this incredibly patronising approach
0:35:27 > 0:35:30to the Congolese. There were several social distinctions
0:35:30 > 0:35:34in Congolese Cities. You had the African quarters,
0:35:34 > 0:35:39the popular quarters, and then you had the white quarters,
0:35:39 > 0:35:42which were...you know, were rather nicer. And then in between
0:35:42 > 0:35:46you had the areas where the 'Evolue' were allowed to live.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49And these were Africans, 'evolved Africans'
0:35:49 > 0:35:52who were deemed to be between the Africans and the whites.
0:35:53 > 0:35:57I think the word Evolue says everything. Evolved.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01You're in a transitory stage between being an African,
0:36:01 > 0:36:06ie not quite human, and a white person, who is fully human.
0:36:06 > 0:36:10VINTAGE VOICEOVER IN FRENCH
0:36:10 > 0:36:14The Belgian Congo began to promote itself
0:36:14 > 0:36:17as the best managed colony in the region.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21It was as if the forests had been tamed to provide
0:36:21 > 0:36:22the perfect tourist destination.
0:36:33 > 0:36:37Sustained by profits of its abundant mineral resources,
0:36:37 > 0:36:40airports were built, new railway lines created.
0:36:40 > 0:36:41A national system of roads
0:36:41 > 0:36:45was forged across thousands of miles of jungle.
0:36:45 > 0:36:50Primary education was provided for the local population
0:36:50 > 0:36:53and the colony had more hospital beds
0:36:53 > 0:36:55than all the rest of tropical Africa.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58Diseases like leprosy were almost eradicated.
0:36:58 > 0:37:02The colony was still situated on the 'dark continent'
0:37:02 > 0:37:06but it no longer seemed to be Conrad's Heart Of Darkness.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09AFRICAN VOCAL MUSIC
0:37:12 > 0:37:16The Congo was at its zenith in the 1950s, late 1950s.
0:37:16 > 0:37:19This was a time when it was integrated with the rest of the world.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22You could take a flight and land in the Congo quite happily
0:37:22 > 0:37:25and it would connect on. That was the point, it was connected.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28You could buy a railway ticket in what was then Rhodesia
0:37:28 > 0:37:29and travel into the Congo.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31I know this because my own mother did it in 1958.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33Just a young girl in her 20s,
0:37:33 > 0:37:36not a particularly adventurous traveller, by her own admission.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39She just went through the Congo because she was on a journey
0:37:39 > 0:37:42from Rhodesia to Kenya and it was the way to do it.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45And, for me, one of the tiny little examples
0:37:45 > 0:37:47is that Hollywood could send a big film crew,
0:37:47 > 0:37:50a big film crew with a producer, with a big fat cigar.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54John Huston, a colourful, amazing, want to shoot the elephants,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57kind of character as the director. Send those guys and 40 crew,
0:37:57 > 0:38:00with their sound men, and their gaffer boys,
0:38:00 > 0:38:02and their best boys and all of this up the Congo river.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06About as far as it's possible to go, all the way to Stanleyville.
0:38:06 > 0:38:09They went on the train, the Equator Express that cuts across the equator.
0:38:09 > 0:38:12At the end of that, they drove another 40 miles out into the bush
0:38:12 > 0:38:15to find what was, for them, the perfect river scene
0:38:15 > 0:38:18for the African Queen. And it was perfectly doable.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21From the thrilling pages of world renowned author CS Forester's
0:38:21 > 0:38:25magnificent story and filmed in the jungles and head waters of Africa,
0:38:25 > 0:38:28The Dark Continent, in all the magnificence of colour
0:38:28 > 0:38:33by Technicolor, comes the most exciting adventure ever screened.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40You promised you'd go down river.
0:38:40 > 0:38:44- There's death a dozen times over down the river.- You promised.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46Well, I'm taking my promise back!
0:38:48 > 0:38:52The region's roads, railways, airports, schools, hospitals
0:38:52 > 0:38:55and hunting lodges were financed from the super abundance
0:38:55 > 0:38:59of mineral deposits that lay beneath the ground.
0:38:59 > 0:39:04Forest products like rubber and oil palm brought in more revenue.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08The very fact it was a rainforest provided another resource.
0:39:09 > 0:39:12The great cliche about the Congo, "It is cursed with its resources."
0:39:12 > 0:39:16It has everything you could possibly want. It has power,
0:39:16 > 0:39:20hydroelectric power, more than anyone can dream of if you could,
0:39:20 > 0:39:22reasonably, trap that river.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24Similarly, the Congo's copper deposits.
0:39:24 > 0:39:26Again, the richest in the world.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28Cobalt deposits, the richest in the world.
0:39:28 > 0:39:30Alluvial diamonds, fantastic.
0:39:30 > 0:39:33Kimberlite Diamonds, even better. Gold? It goes on. Casseterite?
0:39:33 > 0:39:35Coltan? It's all there.
0:39:36 > 0:39:41At the time of Leopold II, someone described the Congo
0:39:41 > 0:39:46as being a geological scandal, and that's certainly the case.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49You have the very, very major holdings
0:39:49 > 0:39:54of copper and cobalt, gold, diamonds and, of course, uranium.
0:39:54 > 0:39:56Now, at the time of the Second World War,
0:39:56 > 0:40:00the uranium that was used to produce the bombs
0:40:00 > 0:40:04that were dropped on Hiroshima came from Congo.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16The very riches that had facilitated the infrastructure
0:40:16 > 0:40:18and wealth of the Belgian Congo
0:40:18 > 0:40:22were to blight the country's future as an independent state.
0:40:22 > 0:40:28In 1960, virtually all the countries of the region gained independence.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32For a moment, this part of Africa was seized with optimism.
0:40:36 > 0:40:40The great tracts of equatorial forests would become
0:40:40 > 0:40:42a collection of independent states
0:40:42 > 0:40:45which still retained their old colonial boundaries.
0:40:45 > 0:40:50The new Congo state dominated the region and international attention.
0:40:51 > 0:40:55But virtually from the beginning, most of the new countries
0:40:55 > 0:40:59were thrown into upheaval as foreign interests interfered
0:40:59 > 0:41:02to retain control over the mineral resources.
0:41:02 > 0:41:07Once again, Henry Morton Stanley's image of savage anarchy prevailed.
0:41:17 > 0:41:18For a few years,
0:41:18 > 0:41:22the region returned to the darkness of chaos and civil war.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25The Congo's first president was assassinated.
0:41:25 > 0:41:28Belgian troops and later the UN were called in.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32White mercenaries fought in the south.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35Che Guevara led guerrilla bands in the East.
0:41:35 > 0:41:37Eventually, a unifying figurehead arose
0:41:37 > 0:41:41who was to recast the image of this country of forests
0:41:41 > 0:41:44as Zaire, the model African state.
0:41:44 > 0:41:47He took his inspiration from his forest background.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11First of all, he was very much a traditional chief,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14coming from the forest tradition.
0:43:14 > 0:43:18His way of governing was very much based on...
0:43:18 > 0:43:20on forest-type policies,
0:43:20 > 0:43:25very secretive and very clanic, there's no question about that.
0:43:25 > 0:43:26And he always loved nature,
0:43:26 > 0:43:29that's one of the things that he is respected for.
0:43:29 > 0:43:33He was very, very supportive of nature conservation,
0:43:33 > 0:43:36even though there was a lot of elephant poaching at the same time.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40He loved to go fishing, he loved to go hunting.
0:43:40 > 0:43:45He used to take his VIP visitors out to nature.
0:43:45 > 0:43:47He had this wonderful expression.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50He used to say, "You people in Europe have your cathedrals.
0:43:50 > 0:43:54"In Zaire, we have our forest, that is our heritage."
0:43:54 > 0:43:57"This is something you want to protect."
0:43:57 > 0:44:00As the region's powerful figurehead,
0:44:00 > 0:44:05Zaire's leader ensured a period of relative peace.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08Field researchers were able to operate in his forests
0:44:08 > 0:44:10and, among other discoveries,
0:44:10 > 0:44:15identified another close relative to humankind. Unique to Zaire,
0:44:15 > 0:44:20the Bonobo's social relations were based on...an abundance of sex.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27Everyone does it with everyone else.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30Males with males, females with females, adults with young,
0:44:30 > 0:44:35and they do it for all sorts of reasons - to greet, to appease,
0:44:35 > 0:44:39to reassure, to enhance relationships of all kinds.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42It's the social cement of bonobo society,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45the binding force that keeps the group together.
0:44:52 > 0:44:57The mountain gorillas were protected in the eastern province of Kivu,
0:44:57 > 0:44:58the old Albert National Park.
0:45:00 > 0:45:02No respecters of borders,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05they moved between Zaire and neighbouring Rwanda.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10Naturalists like Dian Fossey and David Attenborough
0:45:10 > 0:45:13were to recreate their image as peace lovers.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18There is more...
0:45:18 > 0:45:23meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance...
0:45:23 > 0:45:26with a gorilla...
0:45:26 > 0:45:27than any other animal I know.
0:45:29 > 0:45:31We're so similar.
0:45:33 > 0:45:34Their sight, their hearing,
0:45:34 > 0:45:39their sense of smell are so similar to ours
0:45:39 > 0:45:43that we see the world in the same way as they do.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51Du Chaillu's image of the ferocious half-man half-beast
0:45:51 > 0:45:55could now be consigned to the antique book collectors.
0:45:58 > 0:46:04So it seems really very unfair that man should have chosen the gorilla
0:46:04 > 0:46:08to symbolise all that is aggressive and violent
0:46:08 > 0:46:13when that's the one thing that the gorilla is not and that we are.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23But just as we were beginning to see them as playful and harmless herbivores,
0:46:23 > 0:46:26they were about to become a new symbol,
0:46:26 > 0:46:29the innocent victims of deforestation.
0:46:29 > 0:46:31CHAINSAW WHINES
0:46:36 > 0:46:40Rainforests like the Amazon and the Congo
0:46:40 > 0:46:43were becoming a source of international concern.
0:46:43 > 0:46:47This time, it was in the ex-French colonies to the north
0:46:47 > 0:46:52where concessions were being granted to European timber companies.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55Not only was animal habitat being destroyed,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58but roads were being opened to the bushmeat hunters.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12In Zaire itself, the uncontrolled and thoroughly corrupt exploitation
0:47:12 > 0:47:14of the country's minerals
0:47:14 > 0:47:18was now causing the collapse of Mobutu's great forest state.
0:47:25 > 0:47:29Zaire's riches were being siphoned into foreign bank accounts,
0:47:29 > 0:47:33spent on palaces or squandered on expensive and often pointless
0:47:33 > 0:47:38purchases that could not be afforded and would not be maintained.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45'And now it's time for birthday presents to the nation.
0:47:45 > 0:47:46'A jumbo jet.'
0:48:19 > 0:48:22His final downfall was to be triggered by the fallout
0:48:22 > 0:48:26from the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
0:48:27 > 0:48:30Millions of refugees poured over the border
0:48:30 > 0:48:32into the forests of eastern Congo.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35The upheaval resulted in the invasion of foreign armies
0:48:35 > 0:48:38that backed his political rivals.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43As his loss of power became inevitable,
0:48:43 > 0:48:47he began to resemble less the dominating figure of Leopold II
0:48:47 > 0:48:52and more Mr Kurtz, the failed and morally bankrupt administrator
0:48:52 > 0:48:55from The Heart Of Darkness.
0:48:55 > 0:48:59I think there are some similarities between Kurtz and Mobutu.
0:48:59 > 0:49:05Certainly, when I first got to Kinshasa as a young reporter,
0:49:05 > 0:49:08there was this mystery figure who was in the middle of the jungle,
0:49:08 > 0:49:12marooned in Gbadolite, where he had this this vast palace,
0:49:12 > 0:49:17where he'd grown up, where he came from, where he spent a lot of time
0:49:17 > 0:49:21planting seedlings, designing his ornamental gardens.
0:49:21 > 0:49:27If you see some of the coverage that was shot of him during those years,
0:49:27 > 0:49:31there is a sense of a man who's cutting himself off completely
0:49:31 > 0:49:35from reality, still touring around, saying hello to local villagers,
0:49:35 > 0:49:39planting his garden, trying to live the life of the gentleman farmer.
0:49:39 > 0:49:42No longer wants to know anything
0:49:42 > 0:49:47about the politics of his country, international politics,
0:49:47 > 0:49:50who only feels at home now in the forest
0:49:50 > 0:49:53and who had withdrawn into his forest hideout.
0:49:54 > 0:49:58Mobutu was eventually forced into exile,
0:49:58 > 0:50:00leaving behind his rotting palaces
0:50:00 > 0:50:04to become a symbol of his grandiose failure,
0:50:04 > 0:50:09slowly consumed by the forest he so identified with.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18The spectre of savage anarchy returned once again
0:50:18 > 0:50:22to much of the Congo with the civil wars that followed
0:50:22 > 0:50:24Mobutu's exile and death.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31This image has been perpetuated
0:50:31 > 0:50:34by the intervention of armies from other nations
0:50:34 > 0:50:39and a struggle to control the country's minerals and mines.
0:50:39 > 0:50:44And the great forests are an easy place to hide renegade armies and tribal militias.
0:50:48 > 0:50:53But just as the forests can support ruthless and violent armed bands,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56they can be the source of food and shelter for the inhabitants.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01It was a constant message, a constant remark
0:51:01 > 0:51:04that came from every single Congolesan person I spoke to
0:51:04 > 0:51:07from one side to the other, either deep inland or down by the coast.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10At one point in their lives, they'd all had this experience.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12HE SPEAKS IN FRENCH
0:51:12 > 0:51:15"We've all fled to the bush, we've gone there to find sanctuary."
0:51:18 > 0:51:21I guess if you think about it, the sheer scale of the place,
0:51:21 > 0:51:23it's the geography, it is so vast,
0:51:23 > 0:51:26it is the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon.
0:51:26 > 0:51:28This vast, vast country,
0:51:28 > 0:51:31that's the only safety you've got when the bad guys are coming.
0:51:31 > 0:51:32You have a chance of hiding,
0:51:32 > 0:51:35if you can just go and disperse yourself somewhere in that forest.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42In the last decade, the eastern part of the Congo has been blighted
0:51:42 > 0:51:46with natural disasters, as well as massacre, rape and pillage.
0:51:46 > 0:51:50Malnutrition and disease have taken an even greater toll.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53As many as five million people have died.
0:51:57 > 0:52:01For the largest human death toll since the Second World War,
0:52:01 > 0:52:03there's been scant coverage.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07But analysis of some television channels, including the BBC,
0:52:07 > 0:52:10shows there have been more hours focusing on the threat
0:52:10 > 0:52:12to the Congo's great apes and their habitat
0:52:12 > 0:52:16than there has been on the plight of the human population.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19I'd spent many months in Eastern Congo,
0:52:19 > 0:52:22covering first the genocide in Rwanda, then
0:52:22 > 0:52:26there was the flood of thousands of refugees into Eastern Congo,
0:52:26 > 0:52:30then thousands more were dying of cholera in the refugee camps.
0:52:30 > 0:52:36Amongst the journalists there would be many who would be taking time out
0:52:36 > 0:52:39to write about the gorillas in Virunga Park,
0:52:39 > 0:52:41which ran just near the refugee camps,
0:52:41 > 0:52:44and the emphasis would always be about, "Isn't it awful?
0:52:44 > 0:52:46"There are all these Hutu genocidaires,
0:52:46 > 0:52:49these genocidal killers wandering around in the camps,
0:52:49 > 0:52:51and the gorillas are being eaten,
0:52:51 > 0:52:54the gorillas are being slaughtered, isn't it awful?"
0:52:54 > 0:52:56And you sort of thought,
0:52:56 > 0:52:59"Well, yes, but there's been a genocide across the border.
0:52:59 > 0:53:03"People are still dying of cholera, is this an appropriate emphasis?"
0:53:05 > 0:53:08Our Western response to the Congo does seem to allow
0:53:08 > 0:53:12for two contradictory visions to live side by side.
0:53:12 > 0:53:16However much we recoil from the human bloodshed and atrocities,
0:53:16 > 0:53:18we're still fascinated by the idea
0:53:18 > 0:53:23that these forests are also home to our closest genetic relatives.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29Ever since the first explorers, we have been entranced
0:53:29 > 0:53:35by the great diversity and abundance of plant and animal species,
0:53:35 > 0:53:37the sheer exuberance of nature.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42After Leopold, the Belgians attempted to bring
0:53:42 > 0:53:48order and infrastructure, but now, like Mobutu's palaces,
0:53:48 > 0:53:52the last vestiges of the white man's colonial endeavours
0:53:52 > 0:53:56are being swallowed up by rampant nature.
0:53:58 > 0:54:01There was an amazing moment very close to the equator,
0:54:01 > 0:54:03about as close as you possibly could get.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05It was just near the town of Kisangani,
0:54:05 > 0:54:08what used to be Stanleyville, this city on a bend in the river.
0:54:09 > 0:54:12Deep equatorial forest,
0:54:12 > 0:54:14and I was walking through the forest,
0:54:14 > 0:54:20and then suddenly my heel felt something strange and angular,
0:54:20 > 0:54:25felt a bit odd in this sort of leafy organic world of the forest.
0:54:25 > 0:54:28And I scraped down through the leaf mulch with my heel
0:54:28 > 0:54:30and came across a railway sleeper,
0:54:30 > 0:54:34you know, with the name Antwerp printed on it, 1913.
0:54:34 > 0:54:36But even more scary,
0:54:36 > 0:54:38the railway sleeper was connected to railway tracks,
0:54:38 > 0:54:40which again I could scrape away,
0:54:40 > 0:54:43and they disappeared off and then died in the forest.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52Katharine Hepburn sat on that railway.
0:54:52 > 0:54:54Humphrey Bogart sat on that railway,
0:54:54 > 0:54:58and they went along that railway in 1951 to film The African Queen.
0:54:58 > 0:55:00And for me it was a very powerful moment,
0:55:00 > 0:55:02and it drilled home that sense of a place
0:55:02 > 0:55:05where the developmental graph had gone like a parabola
0:55:05 > 0:55:07and we were on the downward slope,
0:55:07 > 0:55:10and that's the reality of today's Congo.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18But now there are new foreign builders in the Congo.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21Like the Europeans of the 19th century,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25the Chinese have come here offering to bring the benefits
0:55:25 > 0:55:27of their expertise and technology.
0:55:39 > 0:55:42In a deal worth as much as 9 billion,
0:55:42 > 0:55:45the Chinese are promising to build new roads,
0:55:45 > 0:55:49railways, hospitals and schools.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51This is in exchange for millions of tons
0:55:51 > 0:55:56of the country's copper and nickel over the next 15 years.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00The new roads, railways and hospitals depend on
0:56:00 > 0:56:05a stable and open government which will be able to maintain them.
0:56:05 > 0:56:10There are justified fears that history will repeat itself.
0:56:10 > 0:56:15Economists talk about the resource curse, which is that assets which
0:56:15 > 0:56:20should be a great blessing in fact turn out to be a blight, and I think Congo is the
0:56:20 > 0:56:25perfect example of that, and what's interesting is that Congolese people
0:56:25 > 0:56:30will often talk to you with huge pride and sort of vaingloriousness about all these wonderful...
0:56:30 > 0:56:33"We're a rich country, we've got all these mineral assets,"
0:56:33 > 0:56:37and it really is a very important part of their self-image and their
0:56:37 > 0:56:42image of their own country, but of course if you can't tap the assets
0:56:42 > 0:56:48and if you can't tap the assets in a way that is then funnelled back and re-invested in your own country,
0:56:48 > 0:56:52you'd actually be better off without them, and that is unfortunately the truth,
0:56:52 > 0:56:55because they have constantly
0:56:55 > 0:57:00seen these assets being used as an excuse to rape the country.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08The people of the Congo are now among the poorest in the world.
0:57:08 > 0:57:13In the last century, many have left the forests for the towns and cities.
0:57:14 > 0:57:21In earlier days, they'd seen the forest as more than just a place of refuge and sustenance.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24It was also the place where their ancestors lived,
0:57:24 > 0:57:29a place of awe, reverence and sometimes fear.
0:57:29 > 0:57:36Since the arrival of the Europeans, this relationship has been fundamentally transformed.