Congo, Democratic Republic of the (DROC) - History
The earliest inhabitants of the area now called the DROC are believed to have been Pygmy tribes who lived by hunting and gathering food and using stone tools. Bantu-speaking peoples entered from the west by 150 AD , while non-Bantu-speakers penetrated the area from the north. These peoples brought with them agriculture and developed iron tools. In 1482, the Portuguese navigator Diego Cão visited the mouth of the Congo River, marking the first known European contact with the region, but this did not lead to penetration of the interior. The Portuguese confined their relations to the Kongo kingdom, which ruled the area near the mouth of the Congo River as well as what is now the coast of northern Angola. A lucrative slave trade developed.
In the 16th century, the powerful Luba state developed in what is now Katanga Province; soon afterward, a Lunda state was established in what is now south-central DROC. In 1789, a Portuguese explorer, José Lacerdu e Almeida, explored in a cuvette and penetrated as far as Katanga, where he learned of the rich copper mines. A thriving Arab trade in slaves and ivory reached the Luba country from the east in the late 1850s or early 1860s.
The Scottish explorer David Livingstone reached the upper course of the Congo in 1871, when his whereabouts became unknown, and Welsh-American explorer Henry M. Stanley, commissioned by a US newspaper, located and rescued him (in modern Tanzania). In 1876–77, after the death of Livingstone, Stanley followed the river from the point that Livingstone had reached to its mouth. King Leopold II of Belgium commissioned Stanley to undertake further explorations and to make treaties with the tribal chiefs. In 1878, the monarch formed the International Association of the Congo, a development company, with himself as the chief stockholder. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 recognized the Independent State of the Congo, set up by Leopold II under his personal rule, and its ultimate boundaries were established by treaties with other colonial powers.
International criticism and investigation of the treatment of the inhabitants, particularly on the rubber plantations, resulted in 1908 in the end of personal rule. The territory was transferred to Belgium as a colony called the Belgian Congo, and in that year a law known as the Colonial Charter set up its basic structure of government.
The rise of nationalism in the various African territories following World War II seemed to have bypassed the colony, which remained without self-government (except for a few large cities) until 1959. Then Congolese demanded independence and rioted, first in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) and then in other parts of the colony. Following the first outbreaks, the Belgian government outlined a program for the gradual attainment of self-rule in the colony, but as the independence movement persisted and grew, Belgium agreed to grant the Congo its independence in mid-1960. It also promised to assist in the training of Congolese administrators, as well as to continue economic and other aid after independence.
Independence
The newly independent Republic of the Congo was inaugurated on 30 June 1960, with Joseph Kasavubu as its first head of state and Patrice Lumumba its first premier. It was immediately confronted by massive economic, political, and social problems. A week after independence the armed forces mutinied, and separatist movements and intertribal conflict threatened to split the country. Following the mutiny and the ousting of its European officers, the Congolese National Army became an undisciplined and uncertain force, with groups of soldiers supporting various political and military leaders.
A major blow to the new republic was the secession of mineralrich Katanga Province, announced on 11 July 1960 by Moïse Tshombe, head of the provincial government. The central government was hamstrung by the loss of revenues from its richest province and by the departure of Belgian civil servants, doctors, teachers, and technicians. After some assaults on Belgian nationals, Belgium sent paratroopers into the Congo, which appealed to the UN for help. Faced with the threatened collapse of a new nation, the UN responded with what grew into a program of massive assistance—financial, military, administrative, and technical. It established the UN Operation for the Congo (UNOC), sent in a UN military force (made up of contingents volunteered by nonmajor powers), and furnished considerable numbers of experts in administration, teachers, doctors, and other skilled personnel.
In September 1960, Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba as premier, and Lumumba announced that he had dismissed Kasavubu as head of state. The parliament subsequently rescinded both dismissals. Kasavubu then dismissed the parliament and with Col. Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the army's newly appointed chief of staff, succeeded in taking Lumumba prisoner. UN troops did not interfere. As demands for Lumumba's release mounted, Lumumba was secretly handed over to the Katanga authorities, who had him put to death early in 1961. Shortly afterward, the UN Security Council for the first time authorized UN forces in the Congo to use force if necessary, as a "last resort," to prevent civil war from occurring.
In September 1961, after Katanga forces fired on UN troops seeking to secure the removal of foreign mercenaries, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld flew to the Congo, where he boarded a plane for Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) to meet with Tshombe. The plane crashed, killing him and all others on board. In December 1962, Katanga forces in Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) opened sustained fire on UN troops. The UN troops then began broad-scale military operations to disarm the Katanga forces throughout the province. As they neared the completion of their task, Tshombe capitulated, and the secession of Katanga was ended on 14 January 1963.
Almost immediately, a new insurrection, in the form of a series of rebellions, broke out. The rebels at one point exercised de facto control over more than half the country. As UN troops were withdrawn on 30 June 1964, the self-exiled Tshombe was recalled and offered the position of prime minister, largely at US and Belgian instigation. Tshombe promptly recruited several hundred white mercenaries to spearhead the demoralized national army. Rebel-held Stanleyville (now Kisangani) was recaptured in November 1964, when a US-airlifted contingent of Belgian paratroopers disarmed the insurgents. Widespread government reprisals against the population followed. By then, the rebellion had been contained.
Tshombe's attempt to establish a nationwide political base was successful in parliamentary elections held in early 1965, but on 13 October 1965 he was removed from office by Kasavubu, who attempted to replace him with Evariste Kimba, also from Katanga. When Kimba was not endorsed by the parliament, Gen. Joseph Desiré Mobutu, commander-in-chief of the Congolese National Army, seized power in a coup d'état on 24 November 1965 and assumed the presidency.
A new constitution adopted in June 1967 instituted a centralized presidential form of government, coupled with the creation of a new political movement, the Popular Movement of the Revolution (Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution—MPR). Tshombe's hopes for a comeback were dashed when he was kidnapped in June 1967 and imprisoned in Algeria, where he died two years later. His supporters, led by French and Belgian mercenaries, mutinied again in July 1967 but were finally defeated in November, in part because of logistical support of Mobutu extended by the US government. Other sources of opposition were summarily dealt with in 1968 with the disbanding of independent labor and student organizations.
Mobutu officially transformed Congo into a one-party state in 1970, and in 1971, changed the name of the country, river, and currency to Zaire. (This name, an inaccurate rendition of the Kikongo word for "river," had been given by 16th-century Portuguese navigators to the river that later came to be known as the Congo.) This turned out to be the first step in a campaign of national "authenticity," which led not only to the Africanization of all European toponyms (a process that had already been applied to major cities in 1966) but also to the banning of Christian names (Mobutu himself changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko).
Mobutu was elected without opposition to a new seven-year term as president in 1977, but he continued to face opposition, both external and internal. Former Katangan gendarmes, who had earlier fled to Angola, invaded (then) Shaba Province on 8 March 1977. Mobutu, charging that Cuba and the former USSR were behind the invasion, enlisted the aid of 1,500 Moroccan troops. The incursion was quelled by late May. In May 1978, however, the rebels again invaded Shaba and occupied Kolwezi, a key mining center. French paratroopers retook Kolwezi on 19 May and were later joined by Belgian troops, but several hundred foreigners and Zairians were killed during the eight-day rebel occupation. Troops from Morocco, Gabon, and Senegal replaced the French and Belgians in June; Zairian troops later reoccupied the region.
In 1981, Premier Nguza Karl-I-Bond resigned and became spokesman for an opposition group based in Belgium; however, he returned to Zaire in 1985 and was appointed ambassador to the United States in 1986. In June 1982, 13 former parliament members were jailed allegedly for trying to organize an opposition party. They were released in 1983, as part of an announced amnesty for political detainees and exiles, but six of the 13 were sent into internal exile in 1986.
In 1982, Mobutu resumed diplomatic ties with Israel, which had been broken in 1974; five Arab nations quickly cut ties with Zaire, and $350 million in promised Arab aid to Zaire was blocked. In 1983, Zaire sent 2,700 troops to Chad to aid the government against Libyan-backed rebels; they were withdrawn in 1984. Mobutu was reelected "unopposed" to a new seven-year presidential term in July 1984. In 1986 and 1987 there were reports that the United States was using an airbase in Zaire to supply weapons to the antigovernment guerrillas in neighboring Angola; Mobutu denied these charges and affirmed his support of the Angolan government.
For his support of western positions through the Cold War, Mobutu was handsomely rewarded. Western aid and investment and state seizures of private property made some individuals extraordinarily wealthy. Mobutu allegedly became the wealthiest person in Africa, with a fortune estimated at $7 billion, mostly in Swiss bank accounts. However, widely publicized human rights violations in the late 1980s put Mobutu on the defensive. He lobbied the US Congress vigorously, conducted public relations campaigns in Europe and North America and, until the collapse of his authority in the 1990s, managed to gain support from abroad. French and Belgian troops intervened in the Kinshasa unrest of 1990.
To stave off criticism, Mobutu promised to create a multiparty Third Republic. But, in fact, he raised the level of repression. He originally hoped to create two new parties, both of which reflected his own political philosophy and were to join with his own MPR. Those opposed to Mobutu rejected this scheme. But the opposition was divided into a score of parties. With the army in disarray and disorder growing, Mobutu was forced to call a National Conference of some 2,800 delegates in September 1991 to draft a new constitution. Some 130 opposition parties joined together as the Sacred Union. Mobutu on several occasions suspended the Conference, but it continued to meet. It often failed to arrive at a consensus. When it did, Mobutu thwarted its decisions. Neither side was in a hurry to finish the Conference and get on with political reforms because the Conference allowed Mobutu to delay real political competition, while conferees received a handsome per diem for their attendance.
Mounting impatience for reforms unleashed widespread looting in Kinshasa in September 1991 and again the following year, which the Congolese remember as les piages . Mobutu himself abandoned his presidential palace for the security of his yacht on the Congo River. On 16 February 1992, the Catholic Church organized a massive demonstration to reopen the National Conference. Thousands of marchers from all backgrounds converged on the stadium Tata Rafael. Police and soldiers opened fire on the marchers before they could reach their destination, killing hundreds.
In November 1991, Mobutu split the Sacred Union by naming Nguza Karl-I-Bond of the Union of Federalists and Independent Republicans (UFERI) as prime minister. Nguza closed the National Conference in February 1992. Pressure from inside and from western aid donors forced Mobutu to allow the Conference to resume in April. It sought to draft a new constitution and threatened to rename Zaire "Congo." On 14 August 1992, the Sacred Union got the Conference to elect Etienne Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) as prime minister of a transitional government. Mobutu, who countered by forming a new government under his control and dismissing Tshisekedi in December 1992, controlled the army, the central bank, and the police. Continuing the struggle for control of the state, the Conference drafted a constitution and set a referendum date for April 1993, but it was never held. In March, Mobutu called a conclave of political leaders and named Faustin Birindwa as prime minister. The High Council of the Republic, the interim legislature, continued to recognize Tshisekedi, as did Zaire's principal economic partners abroad. Mobutu was able to incite ethnic violence through "ethnic cleansing policies," thereby dividing his opponents and then using his armed forces to quell the violence.
Two parallel governments attempted to rule Zaire. One controlled the country's wealth and the media; the other had a popular following and professed support from western governments. In September 1993, there was a minor breakthrough. Thanks to UN mediation, the rival powers agreed on a draft constitution for the Third Republic. The two legislatures were to combine into a single, 700-person assembly. New presidential and parliamentary elections were promised. However in January 1994, Mobutu dissolved both governments and a joint sitting of the two legislatures, (the HCR-Parliament of Transition). It met on 19 January and appointed the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kisangani as its president. Tshisekedi organized a successful, one-day strike in Kinshasa.
In 1993, Mobutu's Bank of Zaire introduced new currency on three occasions, but it soon became worthless. Merchants would not accept it and riots broke out when soldiers could not spend their pay. French and Belgian troops were deployed in Kinshasa to help restore order as foreigners fled. Public employees also went on strike because of the economic conditions. Anarchy, corruption, uncontrolled violence and poverty prevailed. Government authority dissolved, leaving the country to pillaging soldiers and roaming gangs. The situation led one journalist to call it "a stateless country." Shaba (Katanga) province declared its autonomy. AIDS was rife. The struggle of two rival claimants to power continued with neither able to mount much overt support.
Due, at least in part, to this chaotic domestic situation, a new outbreak of the Ebola virus was reported in May 1995. Ebola, a virulent disease for which there are no known treatments and which may kill as many as 90% of those infected by it, was responsible for approximately 250 deaths in this outbreak that occurred in Kitwit, a city of about 600,000, 402 km (250 mi) southeast of the capital. Hospitals lacked basic supplies, such as sterile dressings, gowns, and gloves. Many of those who died were medical professionals who had treated the first Ebola patients brought into medical facilities.
Meanwhile the nation was experiencing other problems on its eastern border. Civil war in neighboring Rwanda throughout 1994 and 1995 had forced over one million people to flee into North and South Kivu provinces where refugees settled into densely populated camps. These refugees, mostly Rwandan Hutus—many of whom had participated in the genocide against Rwandan Tutsis—quickly became a great strain on the region's scarce resources and in August 1995 the government stepped up efforts to repatriate them to Rwanda. Within a month, over 75,000 refugees had been expelled. However, the expulsion proved counterproductive. Many of the refugees were afraid of being imprisoned or killed by the Tutsi-led government of Rwanda. Some refugees fled into the countryside to avoid being deported while others returned across the border only hours after being expelled. Discussions involving several nations from the region, chaired by Jimmy Carter, sought to resolve the problem.
In October 1996, increasing insecurity, the high cost of living, and the destruction of the fauna and flora, led the government of South Kivu province to initiate a series of repressive measures. These reprisals were directed against Rwandan Hutu refugees and against a group of ethnic Rwandans Tutsis, who claimed their ancestors had settled in Zaire more than a century before. This action prompted a rebellion by the Rwandans. By early November the provincial government had been overthrown; the major cities of the province had come under rebel control; and hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees were repatriated into Rwanda, attempting to flee the fighting.
At this point the rebellion took a strange turn as Laurent-Desiré Kabila took control. Kabila had originally fought with Lumumba for independence but had been in recent years living as a local warlord in the South Kivu province. Kabila's presence as the leader of the rebellion shifted its focus from protecting ethnic Rwandans to conducting a rebellion against the Mobutu government. Kabila obtained the backing of President Museveni of Uganda, and Paul Kagame, the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
During the first few months of the rebellion, President Mobutu had been abroad to seek treatment for his prostate cancer. In Mid-December, Mobutu returned, appointed a new defense minister, and reshuffled the army command. He also hired Serbian Mercenaries and Hutu Rwandans to strengthen his army. In January 1997, the army launched a disastrous counteroffensive against the rebels. By February 1997, the rebels controlled nearly all of the Eastern provinces and were threatening to overtake the country. South African-brokered peace talks failed to bring about a cease-fire. The rebels soon took Kisangani, the nation's third-largest city without a fight in March. Any serious opposition to the rebels completely crumbled in the wake of their onslaught. In April, while the UN attempted to negotiate a meeting between Mobutu and Kabila (with Mobutu refusing) the rebels seized Lubumbashi, the second-largest city, and also took control of the diamond-rich province of Kasai.
As rebels closed in on the capital in May, Nelson Mandela hosted talks between Kabila and Mobutu aboard a South African ship. Mobutu agreed to stand-down the army forces in Kinshasa but refused to agree on conditions for his departure. However, as rebel forces drew ever closer, Mobutu realized that his hopes of retaining any of his former power were misplaced, and he fled first to his hometown in the northern part of the country and then abroad. Kabila's forces entered the capital to a hero's welcome. Kabila announced that the country would return to using the name it had been known as from 1960 to 1970, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
While most citizens were glad to be rid of the brutal and corrupt government of Mobutu, and most Western nations were glad to be rid of an embarrassing remnant of the cold war, Kabila soon proved to be an ambiguous hero. Most of Kabila's top associates were Tutsis in 1997 and were implicated in alleged massacres of Rwandan Hutu refugees in the Eastern Provinces, which they had controlled since November 1996.
By August 1998, a full-fledged war, which eventually involved nine African countries, erupted. It began with a disagreement between Kabila and his Rwandan and Ugandan allies over their future participation in the Congolese state, which soon led to Rwandan and Ugandan attacks on the eastern towns of Goma, Bukavu, and Uvira. With SADC members Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe supplying troops and materials to Congo, and Chad and Sudan also backing Kabila, US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Susan Rice, dubbed the conflict, "Africa's first world war."
Initially, a Congolese faction called the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD), which included former Mobutu supporters and Kabila dissidents, claimed popular support against the Kabila government to establish democracy in the DROC. This group never achieved wide popularity and some analysts believe it was principally a Rwandan creation to overthrow Kabila by proxy. In April-May 1999, the RCD split into two factions with Ilunga claiming that Wamba dia Wamba no longer controlled significant forces. Shooting also broke out between sides of allied Ugandan and Rwandan forces in Kisangani leaving several dead. A third rebel group, the MLC of Jean-Pierre Bemba, controlled parts of Equateur Province and Province Orientale. The UN estimates that some 6,000 people died by the end of the first year of the Congo conflict, many of them civilians. The financial cost to Zimbabwe alone was estimated at $3 million per day.
In July 1999, all sides signed the Lusaka peace accords, and eventually the UN agreed to send some 5,000 peacekeepers under the MONUC mission to DROC to monitor the implementation of the accord. However, with more than half the national territory under rebel control, and with Kabila refusing to cooperate with the UN negotiator, a political and military stalemate ensued. The country fell further into economic chaos due to gross mismanagement of monetary and fiscal policy. On 16 January 2001, a presidential guard shot and killed Laurent Kabila. Kabila was succeeded by his son, Joseph, who was confirmed unanimously by his father's appointed parliament to be the new head of state on 27 January 2001. In mid-January 2003 the assassination trial was concluded, and despite questionable evidence, 29 people were found guilty and condemned to death.
In August 2002, Joseph Kabila succeeded in concluding a peace deal with Rwanda, and with Uganda in September 2002 and in March 2003. By April 2003, most but not all foreign troops had withdrawn, and Kabila had extracted commitments from his neighbors to respect pre-1997 Congolese borders.
Given his youth and inexperience, few observers thought Joseph Kabila could have orchestrated the power-sharing agreement signed in Pretoria on 17 December 2002 between his government, the Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo (MLC), the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCDGoma), the unarmed opposition and civil society. The agreement permitted Kabila to remain President of the Republic until elections were held, a condition on which he insisted throughout the Inter-Congolese Dialog (ICD) talks. However, despite the Pretoria agreement and the presence of several dozen French peacekeeping troops, fierce fighting has continued between the Hema and Lendu tribes over control of Bunia, a town in the northeast. France was expected to add to its troops strength, leading an eventual force of 1,400 troops under a United Nations and European Union mandate.
Fighting also continued into mid-June 2003 in other parts of the country. In early 2003, the MLC rebel faction was accused of mass murder, cannibalism, rape, and other human rights abuses committed against pygmies in Ituri located in the northeast. Fighting, raping, looting, and theft also were reported into June 2003 in towns and villages in the eastern Kivu provinces. Despite having signed a peace agreement in Sun City, South Africa in April 2003, the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma captured the town of Lubero in June 2003.
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