Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past

Inside the palatial walls of Belgium's Africa Museum stand statues of Leopold II - each one a monument to the king whose rule killed as many as 10 million Africans.
Standing close by, one visitor said, "I didn't know anything about Leopold II until I heard about the statues defaced down town".
The museum is largely protected by heritage law but, in the streets outside, monuments to a monarch who seized a huge swathe of Central Africa in 1885 have no such security.
Last week a statue of Leopold II in the city of Antwerp was set on fire, before authorities took it down. Statues have been daubed with red paint in Ghent and Ostend and pulled down in Brussels.
Leopold II's rule in what is now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was so bloody it was eventually condemned by other European colonialists in 1908 - but it has taken far longer to come under scrutiny at home.