[3] Belgian traders also extended their influence in West Africa but this too fell apart following the Rio Nuñez Incident of 1849 and growing Anglo-French rivalry in the region.

Successive governments viewed colonial expansion as economically and politically risky and fundamentally unrewarding, and believed that informal empire, continuing Belgium's booming industrial trade in South America and Russia, was much more promising.

King Leopold II of Belgium, frustrated by his nation's lack of international power and prestige, tried to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexplored Congo Basin.

[6] Many deaths can be attributed to new diseases introduced by contact with European colonists, including smallpox which killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.

[citation needed] The Lado Enclave was a Belgian Colony that existed from 1894 until 1910, situated on the west bank of the Upper Nile in what is now Central Equatoria province in South Sudan and northwest Uganda.

British desire for a Cape to Cairo railway led them to negotiate with the Belgians to exchange the area that became the Lado Enclave for a narrow strip of territory in eastern Congo between Lakes Albert and Tanganyika.

These negotiations resulted in the 1894 British-Congolese Treaty, signed on 12 May, under which the British leased all of the Nile basin south of the 10° north latitude to King Leopold II of the Belgians for the period of his lifetime.

[15] The Lado Enclave was important to the Belgian Congo as it included Rejaf, which was the terminus for boats on the Nile, as the rapids there proved a barrier to further travel.

Efforts were made to properly defend Lado against any possible incursion by another colonial power, with twelve heavy Krupp fort guns installed in November 1906.

[19] Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private company interests.

On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied, and the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers raised by the indigenous population.

[20] The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" (politique indigène).

This was in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favoured the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight.

During World War I, Congolese troops participated in offensives against German forces in the area of modern-day Rwanda and Burundi which were placed under Belgian occupation.

The large numbers of white immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social spectrum, but were always treated as superior to black citizens.

[23] In 1960, as the result of a widespread and increasingly radical pro-independence movement, the Congo achieved independence, becoming the Republic of Congo-Léopoldville under Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Kasa-Vubu.

In 1842, a ship sent by King Leopold I of Belgium arrived in Guatemala; the Belgians observed the natural riches of the department of Izabal and decided to settle in Santo Tomas de Castilla and build infrastructure in the region.

On 4 May 1843, the Guatemalan parliament issued a decree giving the district of Santo Tomás "in perpetuity" to the Compagnie belge de colonisation [fr], a private Belgian company under the protection of King Leopold I of Belgium.

Article 5 stated that upon their arrival on the territory, the settlers would become Guatemalan natives (indigènes de Guatemala) fully subject to the existing constitution and laws of the country, relinquishing their former Belgian or other national birthright, as well as any claim to any privileges or immunity as foreigners.