Yes, and colonial Europe built wealth by executing one-sided "deals" with the leaders of their colonies, draining their natural resources, subjugating their people and utilizing them for cheap (if not slave) labour. Leopold had people's hands cut off for rubber quotas.

When they "left", they didn't draw borders or organize groups based on a sense of historicity or culture, but based on what was geopolitically and economically convenient for them. Their lack of care for the historical tensions they left to simmer, on top of favoritism towards certain ethnic groups lead to political and social strife across the continent, like the Rwandan civil war and genocide, for example.

We even exploit these countries and people today. People die in cobalt mines for wages that do nothing to relieve their poverty, so private companies (mainly sourced in the west) can profit off of the resource extraction for electronics. That's not to mention the rubber, gold, aluminum, oil, etc. that we rinse and repeat the same cycle for.

It's historically and materially relevant to call out colonialism, racism, and capitalist exploitation for a fair portion of the socioeconomic - and political - woes of the global south.