History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The earliest known human settlements in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been dated back to the Middle Stone Age, approximately 90,000 years ago. The first real states, such as the Kongo, the Lunda, the Luba and Kuba, appeared south of the equatorial forest on the savannah from the 14th century onwards.
The Kingdom of Kongo controlled much of western and central Africa including what is now the western portion of the DR Congo between the 14th and the early 19th centuries. At its peak it had many as 500,000 people, and its capital was known as Mbanza-Kongo (south of Matadi, in modern-day Angola). In the late 15th century, Portuguese sailors arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo, and this led to a period of great prosperity and consolidation, with the king's power being founded on Portuguese trade. King Afonso I (1506–1543) had raids carried out on neighboring districts in response to Portuguese requests for slaves. After his death, the kingdom underwent a deep crisis.
The Atlantic slave trade occurred from approximately 1500 to 1850, with the entire west coast of Africa targeted, but the region around the mouth of the Congo suffered the most intensive enslavement. Over a strip of coastline about long, about 4 million people were enslaved and sent across the Atlantic to sugar plantations in Brazil, the US and the Caribbean. From 1780 onwards, there was a higher demand for slaves in the US which led to more people being enslaved. By 1780, more than 15,000 people were shipped annually from the Loango Coast, north of the Congo.
In 1870, explorer Henry Morton Stanley arrived in and explored what is now the DR Congo. Belgian colonization of DR Congo began in 1879 when King Leopold II started sending out agents to establish state posts along the banks of the Congo River, from its mouth upstream to the north, gradually enabling him to claim sovereignty over what would become the Congo Free State in 1885. However, control of such a huge area took decades to achieve. Many outposts were built to extend the power of the state over such a vast territory. In 1885, the Force Publique was set up, a colonial army with white officers and black soldiers. In 1886, Leopold made Camille Jansen the first Belgian governor-general of Congo. Over the late 19th century, various Christian (including Catholic and Protestant) missionaries arrived intending to convert the local population. A railway between Matadi and Stanley Pool was built in the 1890s. Reports of widespread murder, torture, and other abuses in the rubber plantations led to international and Belgian outrage and the Belgian government transferred control of the region from Leopold II and established the Belgian Congo in 1908.
Following unrest, Belgium granted Congo independence in 1960. However, the Congo remained unstable, leading to the Congo Crisis, where the regional governments of Katanga and South Kasai attempted to gain independence with Belgian support. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba tried to suppress secession with the aid of the Soviet Union as part of the Cold War, causing the United States to support a coup led by Colonel Joseph Mobutu. Lumumba was handed over to the Katangan government and executed in 1961. The secessionist movements were later defeated by the Congolese government as were the Soviet-backed Simba rebels. Following the end of the Congo Crisis in 1965, Joseph Kasa-Vubu was deposed and Mobutu seized complete power of the country and then renamed it Zaire. He sought to Africanize the country, changing his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, and demanded that African citizens change their Western names to traditional African names. Mobutu sought to repress any opposition to his rule, which he successfully did throughout the 1980s. However, with his regime weakened in the 1990s, Mobutu was forced to agree to a power-sharing government with the opposition party. Mobutu remained the head of state and promised elections within the next two years that never took place.
During the First Congo War, Rwanda invaded Zaire, in which Mobutu lost his power during this process. In 1997, Laurent-Désiré Kabila took power and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Afterwards, the Second Congo War broke out, resulting in a regional war in which many different African nations took part and in which millions of people were killed or displaced. Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by his own bodyguard in 2001, and his son, Joseph, succeeded him and was later elected president by the Congolese government in 2006. Joseph Kabila quickly sought peace. Foreign soldiers remained in the Congo for a few years and a power-sharing government between Joseph Kabila and the opposition party was set up. Joseph Kabila later resumed complete control over the Congo and was re-elected in a disputed election in 2011. In 2018, Félix Tshisekedi was elected president; in the first peaceful transfer of power since independence.
Early history.
The area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was populated as early as 90,000 years ago, as shown by the 1988 discovery of the Semliki harpoon at Katanda, one of the oldest barbed harpoons ever found, which is believed to have been used to catch giant river catfish.
By the 13th century there were three main confederations of states in the western Congo Basin. In the east were the Seven Kingdoms of Kongo dia Nlaza, considered to be the oldest and most powerful, which likely included Nsundi, Mbata, Mpangu, and possibly Kundi and Okanga. South of these was Mpemba which stretched from modern-day Angola to the Congo River. It included various kingdoms such as Mpemba Kasi and Vunda. To its west across the Congo River was a confederation of three small states; Vungu (its leader), Kakongo, and Ngoyo.
The Kingdom of Kongo existed from the 14th to the early 19th century. Until the arrival of the Portuguese it was the dominant force in the region along with the Kingdom of Luba, the Kingdom of Lunda, the Mongo people and the Anziku Kingdom.
Colonial rule.
Congo Free State (1885–1908).
The Congo Free State was a privately controlled by Leopold II of Belgium through the "Association Internationale africaine", a non-governmental organization. Leopold was the sole shareholder and chairman. The state included the entire area of the present the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Under Leopold II, the Congo Free State became one of the most infamous international scandals of the turn of the twentieth century. The report of the British Consul Roger Casement led to the arrest and punishment of white officials who had been responsible for cold-blooded killings during a rubber-collecting expedition in 1900, including a Belgian national who caused the shooting of at least 122 Congolese natives. Estimates of the total death toll vary considerably. The first census was only done in 1924, so it is even more difficult to quantify the population loss of the period. Roger Casement's famous 1904 report estimated ten million people. According to Casement's report, indiscriminate "war", starvation, reduction of births and Tropical diseases caused the country's depopulation. European and U.S. press agencies exposed the conditions in the Congo Free State to the public in 1900. By 1908 public and diplomatic pressure had led Leopold II to annex the Congo as the Belgian Congo colony.
Belgian Congo (1908–60).
On 15 November 1908 King Leopold II of Belgium formally relinquished personal control of the Congo Free State. The renamed Belgian Congo was put under the direct administration of the Belgian government and its Ministry of Colonies.
Belgian rule in the Congo was based around the "colonial trinity" ("trinité colonial") of state, missionary and private company interests. The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialized. The interests of the government and private enterprise became closely tied; the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers imposed by the indigenous population. The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organized administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" ("politique indigène")—in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favored the system of indirect rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial oversight. There was also a high degree of racial segregation. 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 nonetheless always treated as superior to blacks.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo experienced an unprecedented level of urbanization and the colonial administration began various development programs aimed at making the territory into a "model colony". Notable advances were made in treating diseases such as African trypanosomiasis. One of the results of these measures was the development of a new middle class of Europeanised African "évolués" in the cities. By the 1950s the Congo had a wage labor force twice as large as that in any other African colony. The Congo's rich natural resources, including uranium—much of the uranium used by the U.S. nuclear programme during World War II was Congolese—led to substantial interest in the region from both the Soviet Union and the United States as the Cold War developed.
Rise in Congolese political activity.
During the latter stages of World War II a new social stratum emerged in the Congo, known as the "évolué"s. Forming an African middle class in the colony, they held skilled positions (such as clerks and nurses) made available by the economic boom. While there were no universal criteria for determining "évolué status", it was generally accepted that one would have "a good knowledge of French, adhere to Christianity, and have some form of post-primary education." Early on in their history, "évolué"s sought to use their unique status to earn special privileges in the Congo. Since opportunities for upward mobility through the colonial structure were limited, the "évolué" class institutionally manifested itself in elite clubs through which they could enjoy trivial privileges that made them feel distinct from the Congolese "masses". Additional groups, such as labor unions, alumni associations, and ethnic syndicates, provided other Congolese the means of organization. Among the most important of these was the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), representing the Kongo people of the Lower Congo. However, they were restricted in their actions by the administration. While white settlers were consulted in the appointment of certain officials, the Congolese had no means of expressing their beliefs through the governing structures. Though native chiefs held legal authority in some jurisdictions, in practice they were used by the administration to further its own policies.
Up into the 1950s, most "évolué"s were concerned only with social inequalities and their treatment by the Belgians. Questions of self-government were not considered until 1954 when ABAKO requested that the administration consider a list of suggested candidates for a Léopoldville municipal post. That year the association was taken over by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, and under his leadership, it became increasingly hostile to the colonial authority and sought autonomy for the Kongo regions in the Lower Congo. In 1956 a group of Congolese intellectuals under the tutelage of several European academics issued a manifesto calling for a transition to independence over the course of 30 years. The ABAKO quickly responded with a demand for "immediate independence". The Belgian government was not prepared to grant the Congo independence and even when it started realizing the necessity of a plan for decolonization in 1957, it was assumed that such a process would be solidly controlled by Belgium. In December 1957 the colonial administration instituted reforms that permitted municipal elections and the formation of political parties. Some Belgian parties attempted to establish branches in the colony, but these were largely ignored by the population in favour of Congolese-initiated groups. Nationalism fermented in 1958 as more "évolué"s began interacting with others outside of their own locales and started discussing the future structures of a post-colonial Congolese state. Nevertheless, most political mobilisation occurred along tribal and regional divisions. In Katanga, various tribal groups came together to form the Confédération des associations tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT) under the leadership of Godefroid Munongo and Moïse Tshombe. Hostile to immigrant peoples, it advocated provincial autonomy and close ties with Belgium. Most of its support was rooted in individual chiefs, businessmen, and European settlers of southern Katanga. It was opposed by Jason Sendwe's Association Générale des Baluba du Katanga (BALUBAKAT).
In October 1958 a group of Léopoldville "évolués" including Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Iléo established the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). Diverse in membership, the party sought to peacefully achieve Congolese independence, promote the political education of the populace, and eliminate regionalism. The MNC drew most of its membership from the residents of the eastern city of Stanleyville, where Lumumba was well known, and from the population of the Kasai Province, where efforts were directed by a Muluba businessman, Albert Kalonji. Belgian officials appreciated its moderate and anti-separatist stance and allowed Lumumba to attend the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958 (Kasa-Vubu was informed that the documents necessary for his travel to the event were not in order and was not permitted to go). Lumumba was deeply impressed by the Pan-Africanist ideals of Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah and returned to the Congo with a more radical party programme. He reported on his trip during a widely attended rally in Léopoldville and demanded the country's "genuine" independence.
Fearing that they were being overshadowed by Lumumba and the MNC, Kasa-Vubu and the ABAKO leadership announced that they would be hosting their own rally in the capital on 4 January 1959. The municipal government (under Belgian domination) was given short notice, and communicated that only a "private meeting" would be authorised. On the scheduled day of the rally the ABAKO leadership told the crowd that had gathered that the event was postponed and that they should disperse. The mass was infuriated and instead began hurling stones at the police and pillaging European property, initiating three days of violent and destructive riots. The Force Publique, the colonial army, was called into service and suppressed the revolt with considerable brutality. In wake of the riots Kasa-Vubu and his lieutenants were arrested. Unlike earlier expressions of discontent, the grievances were conveyed primarily by uneducated urban residents, not "évolué"s. Popular opinion in Belgium was one of extreme shock and surprise. An investigative commission found the riots to be the culmination of racial discrimination, overcrowding, unemployment, and wishes for more political self-determination. On 13 January the administration announced several reforms, and the Belgian King, Baudouin, declared that independence would be granted to the Congo in the future.
Meanwhile, discontent surfaced among the MNC leadership, who were bothered by Lumumba's domination over the party's politics. Relations between Lumumba and Kalonji also grew tense, as the former was upset with how the latter was transforming the Kasai branch into an exclusively Luba group and antagonising other tribes. This culminated into the split of the party into the MNC-Lumumba/MNC-L under Lumumba and the MNC-Kalonji/MNC-K under Kalonji and Iléo. The latter began advocating federalism. Adoula left the organisation. Alone to lead his own faction and facing competition from ABAKO, Lumumba became increasingly insistent in his demands for independence. Following an October riot in Stanleyville he was arrested. Nevertheless, the influence of himself and the MNC-L continued to grow rapidly. The party advocated for a strong unitary state, nationalism, and the termination of Belgian rule and began forming alliances with regional groups, such as the Kivu-based Centre du Regroupement Africain (CEREA). Though the Belgians supported a unitary system over the federal models suggested by ABAKO and CONAKAT, they and more moderate Congolese were unnerved by Lumumba's increasingly extremist attitudes. With the implicit support of the colonial administration, the moderates formed the Parti National du Progrès (PNP) under the leadership of Paul Bolya and Albert Delvaux. It advocated centralisation, respect for traditional elements, and close ties with Belgium. In southern Léopoldville Province, a socialist-federalist party, the Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA) was founded. Antoine Gizenga served as its president, and Cléophas Kamitatu was in charge of the Léopoldville Province chapter.
Independence and the Congo Crisis (1960–65).
Following the riots in Leopoldville (4–7 January 1959) and in Stanleyville (31 October 1959), the Belgians realised they could not maintain control of such a vast country in the face of rising demands for independence. Belgian and Congolese political leaders held a Round Table Conference in Brussels beginning on 18 January 1960.
At the end of the conference, on 27 January 1960, it was announced that elections would be held in the Congo on 22 May 1960, and full independence granted on 30 June 1960. The elections produced the nationalist Patrice Lumumba as prime minister, and Joseph Kasavubu as president.
On independence the country adopted the name "Republic of the Congo" (République du Congo). The French colony of Middle Congo (Moyen Congo) also chose the name Republic of the Congo upon its independence, so the two countries were more commonly known as Congo-Léopoldville and Congo-Brazzaville, after their capital cities.
In 1960, the country was very unstable—regional tribal leaders held far more power than the central government—and with the departure of the Belgian administrators, almost no skilled bureaucrats remained in the country. The first Congolese graduated from university only in 1956, and very few in the new nation had any idea how to manage a country of such size.
On 5 July 1960, a military mutiny by Congolese soldiers against their European officers broke out in the capital and rampant looting began. On 11 July 1960 the richest province of the country, Katanga, seceded under Moise Tshombe. The United Nations sent 20,000 peacekeepers to protect Europeans in the country and try to restore order. Western paramilitaries and mercenaries, often hired by mining companies to protect their interests, also began to pour into the country. In this period Congo's second richest province, Kasai, also announced its independence on 8 August 1960.
After trying to get help from the United States and the United Nations, Prime Minister Lumumba turned to the USSR for assistance. Nikita Khrushchev agreed to help, offering advanced weaponry and technical advisors. The United States viewed the Soviet presence as an attempt to take advantage of the situation and gain a proxy state in sub-Saharan Africa. UN forces were ordered to block any shipments of arms into the country. The United States also looked for a way to replace Lumumba as leader. President Kasavubu had clashed with Prime Minister Lumumba and advocated an alliance with the West rather than the Soviets. The U.S. sent weapons and CIA personnel to aid forces allied with Kasavubu and combat the Soviet presence.
On 23 August, the Congolese armed forces invaded South Kasai and perpetrated massacres against the Luba people. Lumumba was dismissed from office on 5 September 1960 by Kasavubu who publicly blamed him for the massacres in South Kasai and for involving Soviets in the country. On 14 September 1960, with CIA support, Colonel Joseph Mobutu overthrew the government and arrested Lumumba. A technocratic government, the College of Commissioners-General, was established.
On 17 January 1961 Mobutu sent Lumumba to Élisabethville (now Lubumbashi), capital of Katanga. In full view of the press he was beaten and forced to eat copies of his own speeches. For three weeks afterward, he was not seen or heard from. Then Katangan radio announced implausibly that he had escaped and been killed by villagers. It was soon clear that in fact he had been tortured and killed along with two others shortly after his arrival. In 2001, a Belgian inquiry established that he had been shot by Katangan gendarmes in the presence of Belgian officers, under Katangan command. Lumumba was beaten, placed in front of a firing squad with two allies, cut up, buried, dug up and what remained was dissolved in acid.
In Stanleyville, those loyal to the deposed Lumumba set up a rival government under Antoine Gizenga which lasted from 31 March 1961 until it was reintegrated on 5 August 1961. After some reverses, UN and Congolese government forces succeeded in recapturing the breakaway provinces of South Kasai on 30 December 1961, and Katanga on 15 January 1963.
Beginning in 1964, in the east of the country, Soviet and Cuban backed rebels called the Simbas rose up, taking a significant amount of territory and proclaiming a communist "People's Republic of the Congo" in Stanleyville. As the Congolese government was reclaiming territory from the Simbas, the rebels resorted to taking the local white population hostage. Belgian and American forces pushed the Simbas out of Stanleyville in November 1964 during a hostage rescue operation. Congolese government forces, supported by European mercenaries, fully defeated the Simba rebels by November 1965. The Simba rebels executed 20,000 Congolese and 392 Western hostages, including 268 Belgians, during the rebellion. Tens of thousands of people were killed in total during the suppression of the Simbas.
Zaire (1965–1997).
Unrest and rebellion plagued the government until November 1965, when Lieutenant General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, by then commander in chief of the national army, seized control of the country and declared himself president for the next five years. Mobutu quickly consolidated his power, despite the Stanleyville mutinies of 1966 and 1967, and was elected unopposed as president in a sham election in 1970 for a seven-year term.
Embarking on a campaign of cultural awareness, President Mobutu renamed the country the "Republic of Zaire" in 1971 and required citizens to adopt African names and drop their French-language ones. The name comes from Portuguese, adapted from the Kongo word "nzere" or "nzadi" ("river that swallows all rivers"). Among other changes, Leopoldville became Kinshasa and Katanga Shaba.
Relative peace and stability prevailed until 1977 and 1978 when Katangan Front for Congolese National Liberation rebels, based in the Angolan People's Republic, launched the Shaba I and II invasions into the southeast Shaba region. These rebels were driven out with the aid of French and Belgian paratroopers plus Moroccan troops. An Inter-African Force remained in the region for some time afterwards.
Zaire remained a one-party state in the 1980s. Although Mobutu successfully maintained control during this period, opposition parties, most notably the Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS), were active. Mobutu's attempts to quell these groups drew significant international criticism.
As the Cold War came to a close, internal and external pressures on Mobutu increased. In late 1989 and early 1990, Mobutu was weakened by a series of domestic protests, by heightened international criticism of his regime's human rights practices, by a faltering economy, and by government corruption, most notably his own massive embezzlement of government funds for personal use.
In April 1990, Mobutu declared the Third Republic, agreeing to a limited multi-party system with free elections and a constitution. As details of the reforms were delayed, soldiers in September 1991 began looting Kinshasa to protest their unpaid wages. Two thousand French and Belgian troops, some of whom were flown in on U.S. Air Force planes, arrived to evacuate the 20,000 endangered foreign nationals in Kinshasa.
In 1992, after previous similar attempts, the long-promised Sovereign National Conference was staged, encompassing over 2,000 representatives from various political parties. The conference gave itself a legislative mandate and elected Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya as its chairman, along with Étienne Tshisekedi, leader of the UDPS, as prime minister. By the end of the year Mobutu had created a rival government with its own prime minister. The ensuing stalemate produced a compromise merger of the two governments into the High Council of Republic-Parliament of Transition (HCR-PT) in 1994, with Mobutu as head of state and Kengo Wa Dondo as prime minister. Although presidential and legislative elections were scheduled repeatedly over the next two years, they never took place.
Civil wars (1996–2003).
First Congo War (1996–97).
By 1996, tensions from the war and genocide in neighboring Rwanda had spilled over into Zaire. Rwandan Hutu militia forces (Interahamwe) who had fled Rwanda following the ascension of a Tutsi-led government had been using Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire as bases for incursions into Rwanda. In October 1996
Rwandan forces attacked refugee camps in the Ruzizi Plain near the intersection of the Congolese, Rwandan and Burundi borders meet, scattering refugees. They took Uvira, then Bukavu, Goma and Mugunga.
Hutu militia forces soon allied with the Zairian armed forces (FAZ) to launch a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in eastern Zaire. In turn, these Tutsis formed a militia to defend themselves against attacks. When the Zairian government began to escalate the massacres in November 1996, Tutsi militias erupted in rebellion against Mobutu.
The Tutsi militia was soon joined by various opposition groups and supported by several countries, including Rwanda and Uganda. This coalition, led by Laurent-Desire Kabila, became known as the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL). The AFDL, now seeking the broader goal of ousting Mobutu, made significant military gains in early 1997. Various Zairean politicians who had unsuccessfully opposed the dictatorship of Mobutu for many years now saw an opportunity for them in the invasion of Zaire by two of the region's strongest military forces. Following failed peace talks between Mobutu and Kabila in May 1997, Mobutu left the country on 16 May. The AFDL entered Kinshasa unopposed a day later, and Kabila named himself president, reverting the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He marched into Kinshasa on 20 May and consolidated power around himself and the AFDL.
In September 1997, Mobutu died in exile in Morocco.
Second Congo War (1998–2003).
Kabila demonstrated little ability to manage the problems of his country, and lost his allies. To counterbalance the power and influence of Rwanda in DRC, Ugandan troops created another rebel movement called the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), led by the Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. They attacked in August 1998, backed by Rwandan and Ugandan troops. Soon afterwards, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe became involved militarily in the Congo, with Angola and Zimbabwe supporting the government. While the six African governments involved in the war signed a ceasefire accord in Lusaka in July 1999, the Congolese rebels did not and the ceasefire broke down within months.
Kabila was assassinated in 2001 by a bodyguard called Rashidi Kasereka, 18, who was then shot dead, according to Justice Minister Mwenze Kongolo. Another account of the assassination says that the real killer escaped.
Kabila was succeeded by his son, Joseph. Upon taking office, Kabila called for multilateral peace talks to end the war. Kabila partly succeeded when a further peace deal was brokered between him, Uganda, and Rwanda leading to the apparent withdrawal of foreign troops.
Currently, the Ugandans and the MLC still hold a wide section of the north of the country; Rwandan forces and its front, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) control a large section of the east; and government forces or their allies hold the west and south of the country. There were reports that the conflict is being prolonged as a cover for extensive looting of the substantial natural resources in the country, including diamonds, copper, zinc, and coltan. The conflict was reignited in January 2002 by ethnic clashes in the northeast and both Uganda and Rwanda then halted their withdrawal and sent in more troops. Talks between Kabila and the rebel leaders, held in Sun City, lasted a full six weeks, beginning in April 2002. In June, they signed a peace accord under which Kabila would share power with former rebels. By June 2003, all foreign armies except those of Rwanda had pulled out of Congo.
Few people in the Congo have been unaffected by the conflict. A survey conducted in 2009 by the ICRC and Ipsos shows that three-quarters (76%) of the people interviewed have been affected in some way–either personally or due to the wider consequences of armed conflict.
The response of the international community has been incommensurate with the scale of the disaster resulting from the war in the Congo. Its support for political and diplomatic efforts to end the war has been relatively consistent, but it has taken no effective steps to abide by repeated pledges to demand accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that were routinely committed in Congo.
The United Nations Security Council and the U.N. Secretary-General have frequently denounced human rights abuses and the humanitarian disaster that the war unleashed on the local population, but have shown little will to tackle the responsibility of occupying powers for the atrocities taking place in areas under their control, areas where the worst violence in the country took place. In particular Rwanda and Uganda have escaped any significant sanction for their role.
Joseph Kabila period.
Transitional government (2003–2006).
DR Congo had a transitional government in July 2003 until the election was over. A constitution was approved by voters and on 30 July 2006 the Congo held its first multi-party elections since independence in 1960. Joseph Kabila took 45% of the votes and his opponent Jean-Pierre Bemba 20%. That was the origin of a fight between the two parties from 20 to 22 August 2006 in the streets of the capital, Kinshasa. Sixteen people died before policemen and MONUC took control of the city. A new election was held on 29 October 2006, which Kabila won with 70% of the vote. Bemba has decried election "irregularities". On 6 December 2006 Joseph Kabila was sworn in as president.
Kabila overstays his term.
In December 2011, Joseph Kabila was re-elected for a second term as president. After the results were announced on 9 December, there was violent unrest in Kinshasa and Mbuji-Mayi, where official tallies showed that a strong majority had voted for the opposition candidate Étienne Tshisekedi. Official observers from the Carter Center reported that returns from almost 2,000 polling stations in areas where support for Tshisekedi was strong had been lost and not included in the official results. They described the election as lacking credibility. On 20 December, Kabila was sworn in for a second term, promising to invest in infrastructure and public services. However, Tshisekedi maintained that the result of the election was illegitimate and said that he intended also to "swear himself in" as president.
On 19 January 2015 protests led by students at the University of Kinshasa broke out. The protests began following the announcement of a proposed law that would allow Kabila to remain in power until a national census can be conducted (elections had been planned for 2016). By Wednesday 21 January clashes between police and protesters had claimed at least 42 lives (although the government claimed only 15 people had been killed).
Similarly, in September 2016, violent protests were met with brutal force by the police and Republican Guard soldiers. Opposition groups claim 80 dead, including the Students' Union leader. From Monday 19 September Kinshasa residents, as well as residents elsewhere in Congo, were mostly confined to their homes. Police arrested anyone remotely connected to the opposition as well as innocent onlookers. Government propaganda, on television, and actions of covert government groups in the streets, acted against opposition as well as foreigners. The president's mandate was due to end on 19 December 2016, but no plans were made to elect a replacement at that time and this caused further protests.
Félix Tshisekedi Presidency (2019–present).
On 30 December 2018 the presidential election to determine the successor to Kabila was held. On 10 January 2019, the electoral commission announced opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi as the winner of the vote. He was officially sworn in as president on 24 January 2019. in the ceremony of taking of the office Félix Tshisekedi appointed Vital Kamerhe as his chief of staff. In June 2020, chief of staff Vital Kamerhe was found guilty of embezzling public funds and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, Kamerhe was released in December 2021.
The political allies of former president Joseph Kabila, who stepped down in January 2019, maintained control of key ministries, the legislature, judiciary and security services. However, President Felix Tshisekedi succeeded to strengthen his hold on power. In a series of moves, he won over more legislators, gaining the support of almost 400 out of 500 members of the National Assembly. The pro-Kabila speakers of both houses of parliament were forced out. In April 2021, the new government was formed without the supporters of Kabila. President Felix Tshisekedi succeeded to oust the last remaining elements of his government who were loyal to former leader Joseph Kabila. In January 2021, DRC's President Félix Tshisekedi pardoned all those convicted in the murder of Laurent-Désiré Kabila in 2001. Colonel Eddy Kapend and his co-defendants, who have been incarcerated for 15 years, were released.
After the 2023 presidential election, Tshisekedi had a clear lead in his run for a second term. On 31 December 2023, officials said that President Felix Tshisekedi had been re-elected with 73% of the vote. Nine opposition candidates signed a declaration rejecting the election and called for a rerun.
Continued conflicts.
The inability of the state and the world's largest United Nations peacekeeping force to provide security throughout the vast country has led to the emergence of up to 120 armed groups by 2018, perhaps the largest number in the world. Armed groups are often accused of being proxies or being supported by regional governments interested in Eastern Congo's vast mineral wealth. Some argue that much of the lack of security by the national army is strategic on the part of the government, who let the army profit from illegal logging and mining operations in return for loyalty. Different rebel groups often target civilians by ethnicity and militias often become oriented around ethnic local militias known as "Mai-Mai".
Conflict in Kivu (2004–present).
Tutsi led insurgency.
Laurent Nkunda with other soldiers from RCD-Goma who were integrated into the army defected and called themselves the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). Starting in 2004, CNDP, believed to be backed by Rwanda as a way to tackle the Hutu group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), rebelled against the government, claiming to protect the Banyamulenge (Congolese Tutsis). In 2009, after a deal between the DRC and Rwanda, Rwandan troops entered the DRC and arrested Nkunda and were allowed to pursue FDLR militants. The CNDP signed a peace treaty with the government where its soldiers would be integrated into the national army.
In April 2012, the leader of the CNDP, Bosco Ntaganda and troops loyal to him mutinied, claiming a violation of the peace treaty and formed a rebel group, the March 23 Movement (M23), which was believed to be backed by Rwanda. On 20 November 2012, M23 took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of one million people. The UN authorized the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), which was the first UN peacekeeping force with a mandate to neutralize opposition rather than a defensive mandate, and the FIB quickly defeated M23. The FIB was then to fight the FDLR but were hampered by the efforts of the Congolese government, who some believe tolerate the FDLR as a counterweight to Rwandan interests. Since 2017, fighters from M23, most of whom had fled into Uganda and Rwanda (both were believed to have supported them), started crossing back into DRC with the rising crisis over Kabila's extension of his term limit.
After rising insecurity, President Tshisekedi declared a "state of siege" or state of emergency in North Kivu, as well as Ituri province, in the first such declaration since the country's independence. The military and police took over positions from civilian authorities and some saw it as a powerplay since the civilian officials were part of the opposition to the President. A similar declaration was avoided for South Kivu, in a move believed to avoid antagonizing armed groups with ties to regional powers such as Rwanda.
Mai Mai insurgencies.
Ethnic conflict in Kivu has often involved the Congolese Tutsis known as Banyamulenge, a cattle herding group of Rwandan origin derided as outsiders, and other ethnic groups who consider themselves indigenous. Additionally, neighboring Burundi and Rwanda, who have a thorny relationship, are accused of being involved, with Rwanda accused of training Burundi rebels who have joined with Mai Mai against the Banyamulenge and the Banyamulenge is accused of harboring the RNC, a Rwandan opposition group supported by Burundi. In June 2017, the group was formed called the National Coalition of the People for the Sovereignty of Congo (CNPSC) or Alliance of Article 64, a reference to Article 64 of the constitution, which says the people have an obligation to fight the efforts of those who seek to take power by force, in reference to President Kabila. It is one of three alliances of various Mai-Mai militias and is led by Bembe warlord William Yakutumba whose Mai-Mai Yakutumba is the largest component of the CNPSC and has had friction with the Congolese Tutsis. was formed and even briefly capturing a few strategic towns. In May 2019, Banyamulenge fighters killed a Banyindu traditional chief, Kawaza Nyakwana. Later in 2019, a coalition of militias from the Bembe, Bafuliru and Banyindu are estimated to have burnt more than 100, mostly Banyamulenge, villages and stole tens of thousands of cattle from the largely cattle-herding Banyamulenge. About 200,000 people fled their homes.
Clashes between Hutu militias and militias of other ethnic groups has also been prominent. In 2012, the Congolese army in its attempt to crush the Rwandan backed and Tutsi-dominated CNDP and M23 rebels, empowered and used Hutu groups such as the FDLR and a Hutu dominated Maï Maï Nyatura as proxies in its fight. The Nyatura and FDLR even arbitrarily executed up to 264 mostly Tembo civilians in 2012. In 2015, the army then launched an offensive against the FDLR militia. The FDLR and Nyatura were accused of killing Nande people and of burning their houses. The Nande-dominate UPDI militia, a Nande militia called Mai-Mai Mazembe and a militia dominated by Nyanga people, the "Nduma Defense of Congo" (NDC), also called Maï-Maï Sheka and led by Gédéon Kyungu Mutanga, are accused of attacking Hutus. In North Kivu, in 2017, an alliance of Mai-Mai groups called the National Movement of Revolutionaries (MNR) began attacks in June 2017 includes Nande Mai-Mai leaders from groups such as Corps du Christ and Mai-Mai Mazembe. Another alliance of Mai-Mai groups is CMC which brings together Hutu militia Nyatura and are active along the border between North Kivu and South Kivu. In September 2019, the army declared it had killed Sylvestre Mudacumura, head of the FDLR, and in November that year the army declared it had killed Juvenal Musabimana, who had led a splinter group of the FDLR.
Allied Democratic Forces insurgency.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has been waging an insurgency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is blamed for the Beni massacre in 2016. While the Congolese army maintains that the ADF is an Islamist insurgency, most observers feel that they are only a criminal group interested in gold mining and logging. In March 2021, the United States claimed that the ADF was linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as part of the Islamic State's Central Africa Province. By 2021, the ADF was considered the deadliest of the many armed groups in the east of the country.
Conflict in Katanga.
In Northern Katanga Province starting in 2013, the Pygmy Batwa people, whom the Luba people often exploit and allegedly enslave, rose up into militias, such as the "Perci" militia, and attacked Luba villages. A Luba militia known as "Elements" or "Elema" attacked back, notably killing at least 30 people in the "Vumilia 1" displaced people camp in April 2015. Since the start of the conflict, hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes. The weapons used in the conflict are often arrows and axes, rather than guns.
Elema also began fighting the government mainly with machetes, bows and arrows in Congo's Haut Katanga and Tanganyika provinces. The government forces fought alongside a tribe known as the Abatembo and targeting civilians of the Luba and the Tabwa tribes who were believed to be sympathetic to the Elema.
Conflict in Kasai.
In the Kasaï-Central province, starting in 2016, the largely Luba Kamwina Nsapu militia led by Kamwina Nsapu attacked state institutions. The leader was killed by authorities in August 2016 and the militia reportedly took revenge by attacking civilians. By June 2017, more than 3,300 people had been killed and 20 villages have been completely destroyed, half of them by government troops. The militia has expanded to the neighboring Kasai-Oriental area, Kasaï and Lomami.
The UN discovered dozens of mass graves. There was an ethnic nature to the conflict with the rebels being mostly Luba and Lulua and have selectively killed non-Luba people while the government allied militia, the Bana Mura, constituting people from the Chokwe, Pende, and Tetela, have committed ethnically motivated attacks against the Luba and Lulua.
Conflict in Ituri.
The Ituri conflict in the Ituri region of the north-eastern DRC involved fighting between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups, who together made up around 40% of Ituri's population, with other groups including the Ndo-Okebo and the Nyali. During Belgian rule, the Hema were given privileged positions over the Lendu while long time leader Mobutu Sese Seko also favored the Hema. While "Ituri conflict" often refers to the major fighting from 1999 to 2003, fighting has existed before and continues since that time. During the Second Congolese Civil War, Ituri was considered the most violent region. An agricultural and religious group from the Lendu people known as the "Cooperative for the Development of Congo" or CODECO allegedly reemerged as a militia in 2017 and began attacking the Hema as well as the Alur people to control the resources in the region, with the Ndo-Okebo and the Nyali also involved in the violence. After disagreements over negotiating with the government and the killing of CODECO's leader, Ngudjolo Duduko Justin, in March 2020, the group splintered and violence spread into new areas. In late 2020, CODECO briefly held the capital of the province, Bunia, but retreated. In June 2019, attacks by CODECO led to 240 people being killed and more than 300,000 people fleeing.
The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), mostly active in North and South Kivu has also been involved in Ituri province. President Tshisekedi declared a "state of siege" or state of emergency in the province in May 2021 to tackle ADF. However, ADF killed 57 civilians in one attack in the same month in one of its deadliest single attacks. 30 people were massacred in September 2021 by the ADF. The President is accused of promoting former rebel leaders and generals accused of war crimes to be in charge of the province.
Conflict in the Northwest.
Dongo Conflict.
In October 2009 a conflict started in Dongo, Sud-Ubangi District where clashes had broken out over access to fishing ponds.
Yumbi Massacre (2018).
Nearly 900 people were killed between 16 and 17 December 2018 around Yumbi, a few weeks before the Presidential election, when mostly those of the Batende tribe massacred mostly those of the Banunu tribe. About 16,000 fled to neighboring Republic of the Congo. It was alleged that it was a carefully planned massacre, involving elements of the national military.
References.
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Sources.
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Zaire
Country in Central Africa (1971–1997)
Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-largest country in the world from 1965 to 1997. With a population of over 23 million, Zaire was the most populous Francophone country in Africa. Zaire was strategically important to the West during the Cold War, particularly the U.S., as a counterbalance to Soviet influence in Africa. The U.S. and its allies supported the Mobutu regime (1965–1997) with military and economic aid to prevent the spread of communism.
The country was a one-party totalitarian military dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko and his Popular Movement of the Revolution. Zaire was established following Mobutu's seizure of power in a military coup in 1965, after five years of political upheaval following independence from Belgium known as the Congo Crisis. Zaire had a strongly centralist constitution, and foreign assets were nationalized. The period is sometimes referred to as the Second Congolese Republic.
A wider campaign of , ridding the country of the influences from the colonial era of the Belgian Congo, was also launched under Mobutu's direction. Weakened by the termination of American support after the end of the Cold War, Mobutu was forced to declare a new republic in 1990 to cope with demands for change. By the time of its downfall, Zaire was characterised by widespread cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement.
Zaire collapsed in the 1990s, amid the destabilization of the eastern parts of the country in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and growing ethnic violence. In 1996, , the head of the AFDL militia, led a popular rebellion against Mobutu. With rebel forces making gains westward, Mobutu fled the country, leaving Kabila's forces in charge. In 1997, the country's name was restored to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Mobutu died less than four months later while in exile in Morocco.
Etymology.
The country's name, , was derived from the name of the Congo River, sometimes called in Portuguese, which in turn was derived from the Kikongo ('river that swallows rivers'). The use of "Congo" seems to have replaced "Zaire" gradually in English usage during the 18th century and "Congo" was the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to "Zahir" or "Zaire" as the name used by the local population (i.e. derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.
History.
Mobutu.
In 1965, as in 1960, the division of power in Congo-Léopoldville (a former Belgian colony) between President and Parliament led to a stalemate and threatened the country's stability. Joseph-Désiré Mobutu again seized power. Unlike the first time, however, Mobutu assumed the presidency, rather than remaining behind the scenes. From 1965, Mobutu dominated the political life of the country, restructuring the state on more than one occasion, and claiming the title of "Father of the Nation". He announced the renaming of the country as the Republic of Zaire on 27 October 1971.
When, under the authenticité policy of the early 1970s, Zairians were obliged to adopt "authentic" African names rather than European monikers. Mobutu dropped Joseph-Désiré and officially changed his name to "Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga", or, more commonly, Mobutu Sésé Seko, roughly meaning "the all-conquering warrior, who goes from triumph to triumph".
In retrospective justification of his 1965 seizure of power, Mobutu later summed up the record of the First Republic as one of "chaos, disorder, negligence, and incompetence". Rejection of the legacy of the First Republic went far beyond rhetoric. In the first two years of its existence, the new regime turned to the urgent tasks of political reconstruction and consolidation. Creating a new basis of legitimacy for the state, in the form of a single party, came next in Mobutu's order of priority.
A third imperative was to expand the reach of the state in the social and political realms, a process that began in 1970 and culminated in the adoption of a new constitution in 1974. By 1976, however, this effort had begun to generate its own inner contradictions, thus paving the way for the resurrection of a Bula Matari ("the breaker of rocks") system of repression and brutality.
Constitutional changes.
By 1967, Mobutu had consolidated his rule and proceeded to give the country a new constitution and a single party. The new constitution was submitted to popular referendum in June 1967 and approved by 98 per cent of those voting. It provided that executive powers be centralised in the president, who was to be head of state, head of government, commander in chief of the armed forces and the police, and in charge of foreign policy.
But the most far-reaching change was the creation of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution—MPR) on 17 April 1967, marking the emergence of "the nation politically organised". Rather than government institutions being the emanation of the state, the state was henceforth defined as the emanation of the party. Thus, in October 1967, party and administrative responsibilities were merged into a single framework, thereby automatically extending the role of the party to all administrative organs at the central and provincial levels, as well as to the trade unions, youth movements, and student organisations.
Three years after changing the country's name to Zaire, Mobutu promulgated a new constitution that consolidated his hold on the country. Every five years (seven years after 1978), the MPR elected a president who was simultaneously nominated as the only candidate for president of the republic; he was confirmed in office via a referendum. Under this system, Mobutu was reelected in 1977 and 1984 by implausibly high margins, claiming a unanimous or near-unanimous "yes" vote. The MPR was defined as the country's "single institution," and its president was vested with "plentitude of power exercise." Every five years, a single list of MPR candidates was returned to the National Assembly, with official figures showing near-unanimous support. All citizens of Zaire automatically became members of the MPR at birth. For all intents and purposes, this gave the president of the MPR—Mobutu—complete political control over the country.
Totalitarian expansion.
Translating the concept of "the nation politically organised" into reality implied a major expansion of state control of civil society. It meant, to begin with, the incorporation of youth groups and worker organisations into the matrix of the MPR. In July 1967, the Political Bureau announced the creation of the Youth of the Popular Revolutionary Movement (Jeunesse du Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution—JMPR), following the launching a month earlier of the National Union of Zairian Workers (Union Nationale des Travailleurs Zaïrois—UNTZA), which brought together into a single organisational framework three preexisting trade unions.
Ostensibly, the aim of the merger, in the terms of the Manifesto of N'Sele, was to transform the role of trade unions from "being merely a force of confrontation" into "an organ of support for government policy", thus providing "a communication link between the working class and the state". Similarly, the JMPR was to act as a major link between the student population and the state. In reality, the government was attempting to bring under its control those sectors where opposition to the regime might be centred. By appointing key labour and youth leaders to the MPR Political Bureau, the regime hoped to harness syndical and student forces to the machinery of the state. Nevertheless, as has been pointed out by numerous observers, there is little evidence that co-optation succeeded in mobilising support for the regime beyond the most superficial level.
The trend toward co-optation of key social sectors continued in subsequent years. Women's associations were eventually brought under the control of the party, as was the press, and in December 1971 Mobutu proceeded to emasculate the power of the churches. From then on, only three churches were recognised: the Church of Christ in Zaire (L'Église du Christ au Zaïre), the Kimbanguist Church, and the Roman Catholic Church.
Nationalisation of the universities of Kinshasa and Kisangani, coupled with Mobutu's insistence on banning all Christian names and establishing JMPR sections in all seminaries, soon brought the Roman Catholic Church and the state into conflict. Not until 1975, and after considerable pressure from the Vatican, did the regime agree to tone down its attacks on the Roman Catholic Church and return some of its control of the school system to the church. Meanwhile, in line with a December 1971 law, which allowed the state to dissolve "any church or sect that compromises or threatens to compromise public order", scores of unrecognised religious sects were dissolved and their leaders jailed.
Mobutu was careful also to suppress all institutions that could mobilise ethnic loyalties. Avowedly opposed to ethnicity as a basis for political alignment, he outlawed such ethnic associations as the Association of Lulua Brothers (Association des Lulua Frères), which had been organised in Kasai in 1953 in reaction to the growing political and economic influence in Kasai of the rival Luba people, and Liboke lya Bangala (literally, "a bundle of Bangala"), an association formed in the 1950s to represent the interests of Lingala speakers in large cities. It helped Mobutu that his ethnic affiliation was blurred in the public mind. Nevertheless, as dissatisfaction arose, ethnic tensions surfaced again.
Centralisation of power.
Running parallel to the efforts of the state to control all autonomous sources of power, important administrative reforms were introduced in 1967 and 1973 to strengthen the hand of the central authorities in the provinces. The central objective of the 1967 reform was to abolish provincial governments and replace them with state functionaries appointed by Kinshasa. The principle of centralisation was further extended to districts and territories, each headed by administrators appointed by the central government.
The only units of government that still retained a fair measure of autonomy—but not for long—were the so-called local collectivities, i.e. chiefdoms and sectors (the latter incorporating several chiefdoms). The unitary, centralised state system thus legislated into existence bore a striking resemblance to its colonial antecedent, except that from July 1972 provinces were called regions.
With the January 1973 reform, another major step was taken in the direction of further centralisation. The aim, in essence, was to operate a complete fusion of political and administrative hierarchies by making the head of each administrative unit the president of the local party committee. Furthermore, another consequence of the reform was to severely curtail the power of traditional authorities at the local level. Hereditary claims to authority would no longer be recognised; instead, all chiefs were to be appointed and controlled by the state via the administrative hierarchy. By then, the process of centralisation had theoretically eliminated all preexisting centres of local autonomy.
The analogy with the colonial state becomes even more compelling when coupled with the introduction in 1973 of "obligatory civic work" (locally known as "Salongo" after the Lingala term for work), in the form of one afternoon a week of compulsory labor on agricultural and development projects. Officially described as a revolutionary attempt to return to the values of communalism and solidarity inherent in the traditional society, Salongo was intended to mobilise the population into the performance of collective work "with enthusiasm and without constraint".
In reality, the conspicuous lack of popular enthusiasm for Salongo led to widespread resistance and foot dragging (causing many local administrators to look the other way). Although failure to comply carried penalties of one month to six months in jail, by the late 1970s most Zairians shirked their Salongo obligations. By resuscitating one of the most bitterly resented features of the colonial state, obligatory civic work contributed in no small way to the erosion of legitimacy suffered by the Mobutist state.
Growing conflict.
In 1977 and 1978, Katangan rebels based in Angola launched two invasions, Shaba I and Shaba II, into the Katanga Province (renamed "Shaba" in 1972). The rebels were driven out with military assistance from the Western Bloc, particularly from the Safari Club.
The Battle of Kolwezi, fought in May 1978, resulted in an airborne operation in an aim of rescuing Zairian, Belgian and French miners held as hostages by pro-Communist Katangan guerrillas.
Pope John Paul II made a papal trip to Zaire on 2 May 1980, on the centenary of Catholic evangelization. During his tour, he greeted over a million people, making him the first pontiff to visit Africa as a "messenger of peace". He left Zaire four days later on 6 May shortly after 9 people were trampled to death trying to attend mass.
In 1981, despite slow progress, Zaire launched an economic reform to revive its economy in order to keep up its rescheduled payment on the country's tremendous debt of $4.4 billion, which had recorded a small rate of economic growth in the last three quarters of 1980.
During the 1980s, Zaire remained a one-party state. Although Mobutu maintained control during this period, opposition parties, most notably the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social—UDPS), were active. Mobutu's attempts to quell these groups drew significant international criticism.
As the Cold War came to a close, internal and external pressures on Mobutu increased. In late 1989 and early 1990, Mobutu was weakened by a series of domestic protests, by heightened international criticism of his regime's human rights practices, by a faltering economy, and by government corruption, most notably his massive embezzlement of government funds for personal use. In June 1989, Mobutu visited Washington, D.C., where he was the first African head of state to be invited for a state meeting with newly elected U.S. President George H. W. Bush.
In May 1990, Mobutu agreed to the principle of a multi-party system with elections and a constitution. As details of a reform package were delayed, soldiers began looting Kinshasa in September 1991 to protest their unpaid wages. Two thousand French and Belgian troops, some of whom were flown in on U.S. Air Force planes, arrived to evacuate the 20,000 endangered foreign nationals in Kinshasa.
In 1992, after previous similar attempts, the long-promised Sovereign National Conference was staged, encompassing over 2,000 representatives from various political parties. The conference gave itself a legislative mandate and elected Archbishop Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya as its chairman, along with Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, leader of the UDPS, as prime minister. By the end of the year Mobutu had created a rival government with its own prime minister. The ensuing stalemate produced a compromise merger of the two governments into the High Council of Republic–Parliament of Transition (HCR–PT) in 1994, with Mobutu as head of state and Kengo wa Dondo as prime minister. Although presidential and legislative elections were scheduled repeatedly over the next 2 years, they never took place.
First Congo War and demise of Zaire.
By 1996, tensions from the neighbouring Rwandan Civil War and genocide had spilled over to Zaire (see History of Rwanda). Rwandan Hutu militia forces (Interahamwe), who had fled Rwanda following the ascension of an RPF-led government, had been using Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire as bases for incursion against Rwanda. These Hutu militia forces soon allied with the Zairian armed forces (FAZ) to launch a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in eastern Zaire, known as the Banyamulenge. In turn, these Zairian Tutsis formed a militia to defend themselves against attacks. When the Zairian government began to escalate its massacres in November 1996, the Tutsi militias erupted in rebellion against Mobutu, triggering the First Congo War.
The Tutsi militia was soon joined by various opposition groups and supported by several countries, including Rwanda and Uganda. This coalition, led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, became known as the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL). The AFDL, now seeking the broader goal of ousting Mobutu, made significant military gains in early 1997, and by the middle of 1997 had almost completely overrun the country. The only thing that seemed to slow the AFDL forces down was the country's ramshackle infrastructure; irregularly used dirt paths and river ports were all that connected some areas to the outside world. Following failed peace talks between Mobutu and Kabila, Mobutu fled into exile in Morocco on 17 May. Kabila named himself president, consolidated power around himself and the AFDL, and marched unopposed into Kinshasa three days later. On 21 May, Kabila officially reverted the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Legacy.
After the collapse of Zaire, its legacy was claimed and partially continued by various factions which emerged from Mobutu's former supporter and loyalist network. These factions were headed by former "barons" of the regime as well as Mobutu's family members, and included political parties such as the Union of Mobutist Democrats and the MPR-"Fait privé". Several of these groups continued to use Zaire's symbols and invoke its traditions. In 2024, opposition politician Christian Malanga led a coup attempt against the Congolese government in the name of his self-proclaimed "New Zaire", raising the old flag of Zaire in Kinshasa. The coup attempt was defeated, and Malanga was killed.
Government and politics.
The country was governed by the Popular Movement of the Revolution as a one-party state as the only legally permitted party in the country, though the Congo had effectively been a one-party state since the MPR's formation. Despite the constitution nominally allowing for the existence of two parties, the MPR was the only party that was allowed to nominate a candidate for the 1 November 1970 presidential election. Mobutu was confirmed in office by an implausible margin of over 10,131,000 votes against only 157 who voted "no." At parliamentary elections held two weeks later, voters were presented with a single MPR list that was approved with over 99 per cent support.
The president served as the head of state of Zaïre whose role was to appoint and dismiss cabinet members and determine their areas of responsibility. The ministers, as heads of their respective departments, were to execute the programs and decisions of the president. The president also was to have the power to appoint and dismiss the governors of the provinces and the judges of all courts, including those of the Supreme Court of Justice.
The bicameral parliament was replaced by a unicameral legislative body called the Legislative Council. Governors of provinces were no longer elected by provincial assemblies but appointed by the central government. The president had the power to issue autonomous regulations on matters other than those pertaining to the domain of law, without prejudice to other provisions of the constitution. Under certain conditions, the president was empowered to govern by executive order, which carried the force of law.
Mobutism.
The doctrinal foundation was disclosed shortly after its birth, in the form of the Manifesto of N'sele, which was issued from the president's rural residence at N'sele, 60 km further up the Congo River from Kinshasa. In May 1967, it was made public. Nationalism, revolution, and authenticity were identified as the major themes of what came to be known as "Mobutism".
Nationalism implied the achievement of economic and political independence. Revolution, described as a "truly national revolution, essentially pragmatic", meant "the repudiation of both capitalism and communism". Thus, "neither right nor left" became one of the legitimising slogans of the regime, along with "authenticity".
In the 1970s and 1980s, Mobutu's government relied on a selected pool of technocrats, often referred to as the "nomenklatura", from which the Head of State drew, and periodically rotated, competent individuals. They comprised the Executive Council and led the full spectrum of Ministries, Departments or, as governmental terminology shifted, Commissariats. Among these individuals were internationally respected appointees such as Djamboleka Lona Okitongono who was named Secretary of Finance, under Citizen Namwisi (Minister of Finance), and later became President of OGEDEP, the National Debt Management Office.
Djamboleka became Governor of the Bank of Zaire in the final stage of Mobutu's government. His progress was fairly typical of the rotational pattern established by Mobutu, who retained the most sensitive ministerial portfolios (such as Defense) for himself.
Administrative divisions.
Zaire was divided into 8 regions with its capital Kinshasa. In 1988, the province of Kivu was split into three regions. They were renamed into provinces in 1997.
Economy.
The zaïre was introduced to replace the franc as the new national currency. 100 makuta (singular likuta) equaled one zaïre. The likuta was also divided into 100 sengi. However this unit was worth very little, so the smallest coin was for 10 sengi. The currency and the cities named above had actually already been renamed between 1966 and 1971.
While the country began to stabilize after Mobutu took control, the economic situation began to decline, and by 1979, the purchasing power was only 4% of that in 1960. Starting in 1976 the IMF provided stabilizing loans to his regime. Much of this money was embezzled by Mobutu and his circle.
According to the 1982 report by the IMF's envoy Erwin Blumenthal, it was "alarmingly clear that the corruptive system in Zaire with all its wicked and ugly manifestations, its mismanagement and fraud will destroy all endeavors of international institutions, of friendly governments, and of the commercial banks towards recovery and rehabilitation of Zaire's economy". Blumenthal stated that there was "no chance" that creditors would ever recover their loans. Yet the IMF and the World Bank continued to lend money that was either embezzled, stolen, or "wasted on elephant projects". "Structural adjustment programmes" implemented as a condition of IMF loans cut support for health care, education, and infrastructure.
Culture.
The concept of authenticity was derived from the MPR's professed doctrine of "authentic Zairian nationalism and condemnation of regionalism and tribalism". Mobutu defined it as being conscious of one's own personality and one's own values and of being at home in one's culture. In line with the dictates of authenticity, the name of the country was changed to the Republic of Zaire on 27 October 1971, and that of the armed forces to Zairian Armed Forces (Forces Armées Zaïroises—FAZ).
This decision was curious, given that the name "Congo", which referred both to the river Congo and to the mediaeval Kongo Empire, was fundamentally authentic to pre-colonial African roots, while "Zaire" is in fact a Portuguese corruption of another African word, "Nzadi" ("river", by Nzadi o Nzere, "the river that swallows all the other rivers", another name of the Congo river). General Mobutu became Mobutu Sésé Seko and forced all his citizens to adopt African names and many cities were also renamed.
Some of the conversions are as follows:
In addition, the adoption of Zairian, as opposed to Western or Christian, names in 1972 and the abandonment of Western dress in favour of the wearing of the abacost were subsequently promoted as expressions of authenticity.
Mobutu used the concept of authenticity as a means of vindicating his own brand of leadership. As he himself stated, "in our African tradition there are never two chiefs ... That is why we Congolese, in the desire to conform to the traditions of our continent, have resolved to group all the energies of the citizens of our country under the banner of a single national party."
Critics of the regime were quick to point out the shortcomings of Mobutism as a legitimising formula, in particular its self-serving qualities and inherent vagueness; nonetheless, the MPR's ideological training centre, the Makanda Kabobi Institute, took seriously its assigned task of propagating through the land "the teachings of the Founder-President, which must be given and interpreted in the same fashion throughout the country". Members of the MPR Political Bureau, meanwhile, were entrusted with the responsibility of serving as "the repositories and guarantors of Mobutism".
Quite aside from the merits or weaknesses of Mobutism, the MPR drew much of its legitimacy from the model of the overarching mass parties that had come into existence in Africa in the 1960s, a model which had also been a source of inspiration for the MNC-Lumumba. It was this Lumumbist heritage which the MPR tried to appropriate in its effort to mobilise the Zairian masses behind its founder-president. Intimately tied up with the doctrine of Mobutism was the vision of an all-encompassing single party reaching out to all sectors of the nation.
Standards and abbreviations.
Zaire's top-level domain was ".zr". It has since changed to ".cd".
Zaire's IOC code was ZAI, which the nation's athletes used at the Olympic Games and other international sporting events like the All-Africa Games. It has since changed to COD.
References.
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Works cited.
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Further reading and external links.
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