Belgium's Africa Museum reopens to confront its colonial demons

A journalist visits Belgium's Africa Museum before its reopening to the public on December 9, 2018 in Tervuren, Belgium. [Photo: Reuters]

TERVUREN, Belgium - Belgium’s Africa Museum will reopen to the public on Sunday after five years of renovations designed to modernise the museum from an exhibition of pro-colonial propaganda to one that is critical of Belgium’s imperialist past.

The museum, full of artefacts and stuffed wildlife, was often criticised for ignoring the brutalities of King Leopold II’s fiefdom, whose troops collected the hands of those who resisted slave labour at a time when millions of Congolese people are estimated to have died.