>The official rule established by European officers for the Force Publique (Leopold's private military force) required soldiers to present the severed right hand of every victim killed.
>European administrators feared soldiers would waste expensive, imported rifle ammunition on hunting for sport or saving cartridges for a potential mutiny.
>To enforce strict accounting, the policy mandated a 1-to-1 ratio: 1 cartridge fired = 1 severed hand returned to the commander as proof of a killed native rebel or non-compliant worker.
>In practice, soldiers routinely missed their targets or used bullets to hunt game for food. To cover up the discrepancy between spent cartridges and dead bodies, soldiers simply chopped the hands off living men, women, and children.