King Leopold II established the Congo Free State in 1884 at the Berlin Conference. King Leopold's goal was to extract as many resources as possible from the CFS. Leopold formed the Force Publique to stop the Arab slave trade in the upper Congo, but in reality the Force Publique was used to maximize the production of workers. The Force Publique was made up of Belgian soldiers and mercenaries. Locals were recruited to help the Force Publique. Local chiefs supplied workers to rubber farms. Workers were often paid little or nothing. Some leaders rebelled by ambushing army units, burning rubber farms, and fleeing into the desert to escape work. To quell these rebellions the Force Publique would burn the villages and follow the rebels into the forest. The rebels found would be shot and killed. The Force Publique cut off the hands of its victims to demonstrate that they had not wasted their bullets. Soldiers who lost or wasted ammunition cut off the hands of living people to meet their quota. Eventually a man named ED Morel while working at a British shipping company noticed that many goods were being exported from the CFS, but only weapons for the Force Publique were being exported. be shipped to Congo. Nothing needed to feed a colony was exported to the CFS. ED Morel resigned and spent time raising awareness of CFS issues. In 1903 ED Morel persuaded the British government to investigate human rights abuses in the CFS. The British government commissioned Roger Casement, the British consul of the CFS, to visit the territory and report his findings. What Roger Casement discovered so impressed him that in 1904 he formed the Congo Reform Association with ED Morel. The Congo Reform Association pushed the political powers to invest... middle of paper... or eliminated ABAKO supporters who had gathered for a political meeting. Immediate clashes broke out in which the Congolese attacked European properties. When the riots ended, 49 Congolese were killed and 101 Congolese injured. On 13 January 1959, Belgium issued a declaration stating that its objective was to proceed towards independence. At this point another political party rose to prominence in the form of the MNC led by Patrice Lumumba. Elections were held in May 1960 with Lumumba receiving the most votes. Lumumba's victory forced Belgium to make him prime minister. After this election another election was held in which Kasavubu won and became president. On June 30, 1960, the Democratic Republic of the Congo gained independence with a prime minister and a president. This led to a conflict over who was the real leader of the country.