Belgian Africa museum in tour guide race row

Belgium’s Africa Museum launched an investigation Saturday into allegations that a guide made racist comments and defended the country’s brutal colonial past during a tour with students.

The museum director told AFP the guide’s comments, which apparently included downplaying the widespread mutilation of local workers in Belgian-ruled Congo, were unacceptable and “totally against the spirit of what we stand for”.

The row comes just a year after the museum, once notorious for its uncritical celebration of Belgian colonial exploits in central Africa, reopened following a major refurbishment that sought to bring it up to date.

Belgian rule in the late 19th and early 20th century was notoriously brutal and exploitative. Run as a private royal estate by former king Leopold II, the African colonies covered lands now included in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.