The Democratic Republic of the Congo straddles the equator in the middle of Africa, one of only a few countries with boundaries established to occupy a single, large river basin. In the latter part of the 19th century Leopold II, king of the Belgians, used his private resources in an attempt to unite the entire basin of the Congo River. He did not succeed, as parts of the basin fell under the rule of Portugal (northern Angola), France (middle Congo), Great Britain (northern Rhodesia), and Germany (German East Africa). He acquired most of the basin, however, a country of some 905,365 square miles (2,344,885 square kilometers) with more than 250 ethnic groups.
Congo-Kinshasa is bordered on the north by the Central African Republic and Sudan; on the east by Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania; on the southwest by Angola; and on the west by Congo-Brazzaville. The western tip of Congo-Kinshasa fronts the Atlantic Ocean. In 1971 the river and country were renamed Zaire, a version of nzadi, meaning “river.”
Land and Climate
- The hydroelectric dam on the Congo River at Inga Falls, near Matadi, Democratic Republic of the …
The main physical feature of the country is the Congo River (
see Congo River). It stretches 2,900 miles (4,700 kilometers) through the heart of Africa. The river is impassable for 220 miles (350 kilometers) from its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean, where treacherous rapids and cataracts known as Livingstone Falls prevent any form of navigation. Yet at the top of these rapids lies a 15-mile- (24-kilometer- ) wide expanse known as Malebo Pool, which is the beginning of one of the longest stretches of navigable waterways in Africa. Kinshasa, the capital and largest city of the country, is located at Malebo Pool (
see Kinshasa).
Kisangani is situated at the next terminus of navigation—Stanley Falls, 1,071 miles (1,724 kilometers) away. Upstream from Kisangani the river is partly navigable—but only by perogues, or small boats—for 500 miles (800 kilometers) to another cataract called the Gates of Hell. The town of Kongolo then becomes a terminus for another long stretch of navigable waterway for 351 miles (565 kilometers).
Not only is the river system the most prominent feature of the landscape, it is also one of the most significant features of the country's economic life. With an extremely poor road and rail system—for example, the river is bridged only at Bukama and below Kinshasa, 1,740 miles (2,800 kilometers) apart—the Congo and its tributaries are the principal means of transportation, moving products and people over the vast expanse of forest and savanna.
The central basin is a vast depression of horizontal terraces that are deeply cut by the rivers. On the eastern edge is a chain of high mountains that are part of the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa. This valley includes Lake Tanganyika, which separates Congo-Kinshasa from Tanzania (see Tanganyika, Lake). A large plateau lies in the southern part, and the western edge comprises the lower, older Mayumbe Mountains. Another range, the Virunga Mountains, lie along the eastern border where Congo-Kinshasa meets the borders of Rwanda and Uganda. The Virunga range comprises eight volcanic peaks. Two of these, Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira, are active volcanoes, and they have produced a number of eruptions over the last century. A 1977 eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo killed roughly 2,000 people in the vicinity; the eruption that occurred in January 2002 produced lava flows that devastated the Congo-Kinshasa town of Goma, forcing the evacuation of its inhabitants and creating a refugee crisis.
The country has an equatorial climate with high temperatures (cooler in the higher plateau) and abundant rainfall in all seasons. This climate has produced an evergreen equatorial forest with a great variety of trees and vegetation. On the northern and southern edges of the Great Forest are areas covered by sparse forests with grasses and shrubs. While this climate seems favorable for agriculture, the area has poor soils. The abundant, warm rainfall has leached away soluble and valuable nutrients. The climate is also especially conducive to germs, fungi, and carriers of numerous pests and infectious diseases.
Economy
A relatively good start on development was achieved in the colonial era with close ties to Belgium for exports of agricultural products and ores. Very little has been accomplished, however, since independence. The economy is stagnant at best and fraught with enormous problems; however, the value of the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 1991 was 1.6 times greater than that of 1984. The share of mining of the GDP declined from 25 percent in 1984 to only 4 percent in 1991, and the share of services outside the productive sector declined from 35 to 25 percent in the same period.
During the 1970s and early 1980s there was a trend toward increasing urbanization of the population. However, between 1985 and 1995, the percentage of urban dwellers decreased from 44 percent of the population to 29 percent.
- Lunda children pounding cassava into flour, southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Agricultural production accounts for about 53 percent of the GDP. Like all developing countries, one or two crops dominate both the people's diet and the export trade. Cassavas and plantains dominate Congo-Kinshasa's agriculture with sugarcane, corn (maize), peanuts, rice, bananas, and sweet potatoes as secondary crops. The principal agricultural export is coffee. There is some trade in rubber and cotton products.
While the potential for significant agricultural production is great, there are numerous obstacles. These include a sparse and widely dispersed population, primitive cultivation methods, such cultural handicaps as the unwillingness of men to undertake agricultural chores, and many bottlenecks in the marketing, transporting, and processing of products. Credit, savings, and private investments are virtually nonexistent.
For many years the economy was heavily dependent on mineral products, but by the mid-1990s such products generated only about 37 percent of foreign-currency earnings, down from 86 percent in the mid-1980s. Congo-Kinshasa's dependence on mineral exports, especially copper and cobalt, made the country highly vulnerable to fluctuations in international markets. Falling demand and low prices had significant adverse effects on the economy.
Congo-Kinshasa's manufacturing activities make up roughly 4 percent of the country's GDP. The industries are primarily consumer products destined for the domestic market: beverages, clothing, foods, soap, tires, and tobacco. There is also significant production of steel and cement. Half of the factories are concentrated in Kinshasa, and another quarter are in the principal mining centers of Shaba Province. Both areas are well supplied with inexpensive electric power.
Government and History
Prior to the penetration by European mercantilism, Congo-Kinshasa was politically organized into several major kingdoms: the Kingdom of Kongo, the Luba Empire, the Lunda Empire, the Lele and Kuba societies, and the Bola Group. The period of colonial conquest began during the latter half of the 19th century when King Leopold II of Belgium acquired the Congo Basin under the Treaty of Berlin in 1885. He was recognized by the European powers as the sovereign of the Independent State of the Congo. By the mid-1890s Leopold established control in most areas and aggressively pursued development plans for the exploitation of natural resources. Lacking sufficient funds to continue development, Leopold requested and received loans from the Belgian parliament, which annexed the Congo in 1908. This became the Belgian Congo.
Although such atrocities as forced labor, committed during Leopold's reign, ended under Belgian rule, the Congo was still subjected to European dominance. The colonial administration gave no significant roles in the government to Africans. They formed the labor force for the European-managed plantations and mining operations. The establishment of Christian mission schools throughout the country contributed to an increase in the literacy rate, but not until the 1950s, when two universities opened, were there Congolese educated past the primary level.
Economic expansion from the sale of strategic mineral resources during World Wars I and II and the Korean War led to a general transformation of Congolese society. In spite of an increased population and urbanization, active participation in the colonial political system by Africans did not occur until 1957. Congolese villages were then divided administratively and Africans given secondary responsibilities in the governing of their villages.
This decentralization and regionalization of the Belgian colonial structure created an ethnically divided and politically stifled African elite. Unlike many Africans under British and French colonial rule, the Congolese lacked a national ideology. The ethnic association of the Kongo people, however, was the basis for the formation of one of the first African political parties in the Congo, the Alliance des Ba-Kongo (ABAKO), under the leadership of Joseph Kasavubu. It was not until 1958 that the Mouvement Nationale Congolais (MNC) formed and began to work toward independence. Fast-growing political unrest led to independence on June 30, 1960, with Kasavubu as president and Patrice Lumumba as prime minister.
- Memorial in Kisangani to Patrice Lumumba, first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the …
From the outset, turmoil wracked the post-independence government as Kasavubu and Lumumba struggled for control of the government. The lack of central authority exacerbated the disunity that existed throughout the country, as regional warlords vied with the official government for control of the country. In an attempt to gain foreign economic and military support to hold the country together, Prime Minister Lumumba turned to the United States and the powers of Western Europe, but his overtures were rebuffed. Lumumba then turned to the Soviet Union. Eager to gain a foothold in Central Africa, the Soviet Union supplied military and economic aid to Lumumba, which he in turn used to attempt to put down revolts throughout the country. Wary of Lumumba's growing authority, President Kasavubu appealed to the United States and Belgium for support against Lumumba, charging that the prime minister was turning the Congo over to the Soviet Union. As the two leaders fought for power, ethnic tension spread throughout the country and a secessionist movement evolved in Lubumbashi, the capital of the southeastern province of Shaba. Less than four months after gaining independence, the Congo began to slip into a state of anarchy.
Into this fray stepped army chief of staff Col. Joseph Mobutu, who seized control in September 1960 with the firm backing of the army. Mobutu ousted Kasavubu and Lumumba and ordered the expulsion of all Soviets from the Congo. In doing so, Mobutu won the favor of many Western governments. More praise followed in December 1961, when Mobutu, having reestablished order in the government, returned Kasavubu to power.
In January 1961, the outcast Lumumba was assassinated, allegedly by agents loyal to President Kasavubu. Supporters of Lumumba fled to the southeastern part of the country and initiated an insurgency against the Congolese government. No leader emerged to take the place of Lumumba, however, and the Marxist movement became widely factious. While many guerrillas continued to struggle under the banner of Lumumba's primarily Nationalist philosophy, others embraced a more radical Marxist path. One of the early supporters of Lumumba was a young revolutionary named Laurent Kabila. Kabila emerged as a nominal Marxist leader in the early 1960s, fighting briefly with a hero of the Cuban revolution, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Kabila, however, was just one of many regional guerrilla leaders with a band of supporters and a grudge against the Congolese government.
By 1965, as rebellions continued to flare in the southern and southeastern parts of the country, power struggles once again erupted between Kasavubu and his advisers. Joseph Mobutu, who had stayed in the shadows during four years of Kasavubu's ineffective rule, once again staged a bloodless military coup, deposing Kasavubu for good. In his bid for political power, Mobutu received the firm support of the United States government, and more significantly, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Mobutu emphasized the history of political instability in the Congo, and he employed the threat of Soviet influence in the Congo to win strong financial and military backing from the United States. Backed with Western money and arms, Mobutu attempted to crush the guerrilla movements in the east and south. Despite those efforts, however, these guerrilla movements remained a lingering threat to Mobutu's government.
While initiating economic and monetary reforms, Mobutu consolidated his power by establishing a presidential system with a strong centralized government. In 1967 he presented a new constitution, which created the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution whereby all citizens over 18 years of age automatically became members of the party. In 1971 Mobutu instituted the policy of “authenticity,” a series of measures designed to erase the last vestiges of colonial rule and establish a new sense of nationalism within the country. Part of the authenticity campaign involved the renaming of streets, towns, and cities. Mobutu renamed the country itself, abandoning the title of the Congo—a remnant of Belgian rule—in favor of the Republic of Zaire. A year later Mobutu changed his own name to the more African Mobutu Sese Seko (see Mobutu Sese Seko). In addition to the practice of renaming landmarks, the Zairean government also pressed the population to abandon such Western garb as suits and ties in favor of traditional African clothing.
Another aspect of the authenticity program involved the assertion of Zairean autonomy. Mobutu adroitly maneuvered to weaken the grip of his erstwhile political backer, the United States, by appealing to the Communist bloc. In order to free Zaire from foreign political influence, Mobutu, wary of Soviet intentions in Zaire, turned instead to the Soviet Union's rival for power within the Communist bloc, the People's Republic of China. In 1973 Mobutu traveled to China for a diplomatic meeting, a move that alarmed United States officials. Empowered by the increasingly warm relations with China, Mobutu confidently demonstrated his independence from the United States by expelling American ambassador Deane Hinton on the unsubstantiated charge that he had conspired with the CIA to plot the ouster of Mobutu.
Along with the cultural changes instituted by Mobutu during the authenticity campaign, he also undertook the task of restructuring many facets of Zairean economic and social life. In 1973, as he moved the country away from the United States sphere of influence, he also proceeded to nationalize key industries. Most significant of these nationalized industries was the mining industry in the mineral-rich southeastern province of Shaba, which had been fiercely fought over since the earliest days of independence. Following the example of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese ruler Mao Zedong, Mobutu encouraged the propagation of a “cult of personality” around himself. African folk myths and legends were employed by the state to legitimize Mobutu's rule. When support could not be won with manufactured myths, force was used; police agents, army supporters, and party strongmen combined to institute a reign of terror in Zaire, turning the country into an autocratic state with Mobutu at the helm. Likewise, Mobutu treated the nationalized mineral wealth of the country as his own personal property. By the mid-1990s, Mobutu's personal wealth, allegedly accumulated from the appropriation of state funds, was reported at more than 5 billion dollars.
The renewal of antigovernment rebellions in 1978 prompted Mobutu to turn once again to the United States for military and financial backing. Fear of a Marxist revolution in Zaire, or of another Zairean overture to the Communist bloc, prompted United States President Jimmy Carter, an outspoken critic of human rights violations in Mobutu's Zaire, to renew aid to Mobutu's government. Throughout the 1980s, this same concern over the possible spread of Communism into Zaire prompted the United States to back Mobutu in spite of his domestic policies.
By the 1990s, decades of economic mismanagement and political corruption had led to chaos—marked by riots, massacres, and mutiny. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the subsequent end of the Cold War, removed Mobutu's strongest piece of political leverage from his dealings with the West. United States aid, as well as economic support from other Western-bloc countries, dried up. Political groups in Zaire called for democratic reform and the end of one-party rule, and Mobutu, faced with civil disorder, agreed to a nominal redistribution of power in 1991. He also agreed to appoint long-time pro-democracy advocate Étienne Tshisekedi as prime minister. After several disagreements with Tshisekedi, however, Mobutu removed the prime minister from his post and attempted to reconsolidate his own power.
The outbreak of civil war in neighboring Rwanda and Burundi in 1994 provided Mobutu with a chance once again to emerge as the unquestioned strongman in Zaire. The wars in Rwanda and Burundi between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis resulted in a mass refugee crisis, as the victorious Tutsi governments in those countries forced the emigration of more than 1 million Hutus. Many of these Hutu refugees, during the brief period of Hutu dominance in Rwanda and Burundi, engaged in a bloody campaign of massacres against ethnic Tutsis, and animosities between the two groups remained high. The international community proved unwilling to enter into the ethnic fray, and Western leaders once again relied on Mobutu to play a stabilizing role in the region. More than willing to comply, Mobutu allowed Hutu refugees to settle in United Nations camps in eastern Zaire.
The ethnic tension that sparked the massacres in Rwanda and Burundi spilled over into the country of Zaire. In the fall of 1996, sporadic violence erupted between the Zairean government and the Tutsi population of eastern Zaire. The Tutsis of eastern Zaire also began to conduct raids on the Hutu refugee camps in the region. Zairean officials accused the Rwandan government of instigating and aiding the Tutsi uprising in eastern Zaire, and on October 8, the Zairean government ordered the expulsion of all Tutsis from the country. Zairean Tutsis, known as the Banyamulenge, whose ancestors had emigrated to Zaire in the 18th century, ignored the order and responded by launching another series of raids against Zairean hospitals and refugee camps. The fighting between the Zairean government and the Banyamulenge sparked another refugee crisis, as some 220,000 Hutu refugees fled from refugee camps near the eastern Zairean town of Uvira. Some Hutus returned to their native countries, while others fled into the hills of eastern Zaire in search of safe havens.
As the Tutsi rebellion spread throughout the eastern part of the country, the Zairean government attempted to shore up its weakened army by actively recruiting mercenary soldiers from abroad, many of whom served in the Serbian army during the bloody war in the Balkans. It was widely reported that many of these Serbian mercenaries had fled from Yugoslavia in order to evade prosecution for war crimes committed during the campaign against Bosnia and Herzegovina. The ragtag army launched a long-awaited counteroffensive against the Tutsi rebellion in February 1997. Dissension in the ranks of the army, prompted primarily by the vast discrepancy in the amount of money paid to the mercenaries as opposed to the pay received by the regular Zairean soldiers, caused the Zairean offensive to collapse. The rebels gained large amounts of territory in the wake of the routed Zairean army.
More information about the nature of the rebel movement began to surface in the weeks following the outbreak of hostilities. Perhaps the most surprising of all the pieces of information concerning the rebel movement was the identity of the movement's leader. After years of failed revolutionary scheming and activity, the long-time rebel Laurent Kabila had resurfaced to lead the Tutsi rebels. While not denying the fact that they received support from the Tutsi government of Rwanda, Kabila downplayed the ethnic ties between the rebels and the Rwandan government and claimed that the rebels fought as part of an alliance of Zairean minorities united against Mobutu's despotic rule. Kabila also downplayed his own history of leading Marxist-leaning movements, choosing instead to invoke the legend of slain independence leader Patrice Lumumba in order to gain popular support for the rebellion. Kabila claimed that the rebels sought to establish the type of democratic state that Lumumba had supposedly envisioned in the earliest days of the Congolese independence movement. During the course of the rebel advance, however, numerous reports of executions of Hutu refugees at the hands of the Tutsi militia surfaced, prompting many foreign observers to speculate that part of the driving force behind the Tutsi rebellion was the desire to hunt down and annihilate ethnic Hutus.
United behind Kabila, the rebels succeeded in capturing numerous strategic points throughout the country during March and April of 1997. On March 15, the rebels captured the northeastern city of Kisangani, the third largest city in Zaire. On April 13, the rebels delivered the most decisive blow to date to Mobutu's government when they captured, with barely any resistance, Lubumbashi, a city of more than 580,000 inhabitants. Along with Lubumbashi, the rebels took control of Zaire's economic heartland, seizing all of the country's precious diamond, copper, gold, and cobalt mines. As Kabila's armies advanced on Lubumbashi, mutinies were reported among the troops supposedly loyal to Mobutu, and town after town greeted the expanding rebel army as liberators who would bring an end to three decades of dictatorship under Mobutu. Heartened by the swelling popular support, Kabila issued an ultimatum, demanding President Mobutu's resignation and stating that if the president did not resign, then Kabila's troops would begin to march on Kinshasa, the nation's capital.
Mobutu, who returned to Zaire during the last week of March 1997 following a five-year period of ruling in absentia from France, rejected Kabila's demand. Despite failing health brought on by advanced cancer, Mobutu vowed to reassert his authority, declaring martial law throughout the city of Kinshasa. Mobutu also dismissed his longtime nemesis Étienne Tshisekedi, whom Mobutu had appointed once again to the post of prime minister less than a week before his return. Tshisekedi's dismissal sparked a work stoppage in the capital, as supporters called for Tshisekedi to seize power from Mobutu and negotiate a peace with Kabila.
With rebellion brewing in the capital and with Kabila's army marching toward Kinshasa, Mobutu finally called for a peace conference between the warring factions. Negotiations between Kabila and Mobutu faltered, however, when Mobutu refused to turn control directly over to the rebels and insisted instead upon the holding of democratic elections to choose Zaire's next leader. Kabila simply ignored the suggestion and repeatedly postponed meetings with mediators and peacemakers, providing his armies with enough time to advance upon the capital and decide the issue by force. As Kabila's troops closed in on the Zairean capital from three directions, and with his own army in complete disarray, Mobutu announced on May 16, 1997, that he would leave Zaire and abandon power after more than three decades in power.
Following the flight of Mobutu, rebel leader Kabila claimed the title of president and declared the founding of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reverting to the name that the country held prior to Mobutu's rule. Urging the people of the capital to continue about their business, Kabila stated that the new regime would tolerate no acts of retribution against former political supporters of Mobutu. Kabila also reiterated his vow that the new government of Zaire would be inclusive and made up of members drawn from the entire ethnic and political spectrum of the country's population. Despite his guarantees, Kabila's actions raised concerns in the country's capital, as he adamantly refused to allow the popular Tshisekedi to take part in the “national salvation government” that Kabila vowed to form. Kabila also promised to begin the process of creating a constituent assembly to serve as a legislative body and to draft a new constitution for the country. Declaring that the Congo needed two years of stability in order to begin the process of recovery after years of mismanagement, Kabila stated that democratic elections would not take place until 1999.
The country never gained that stability, however. Cooperation between Kabila's government and the Tutsi-led government of Rwanda began to dissipate in the early months of 1998. Tensions between the two countries increased in July, when Kabila expelled all Rwandan Tutsis from the country. Some political analysts believed that Kabila might have feared a military coup from the large Rwandan military presence still stationed in the Congo. Rather than stifling a rebellion, the move sparked revolts of ethnic Tutsis throughout the country. Among those areas that rose in revolt were the Banyamulenge stronghold regions of Goma and Bukavu, where the ethnic violence that ultimately helped to topple Mobutu's regime began in 1996. In a statement issued over radio networks in their control, the Banyamulenge announced on August 2 that they had “taken the decision to remove President Laurent Desire Kabila from power.” The rebellion was backed by the governments of neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, and the conflict soon became a regional one as Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia came to Kabila's help. International observers raised concerns that the war could expand even further, leading to “Africa's first world war.”
A United Nations–brokered cease-fire signed by all parties in the summer of 1999 failed to hold. In subsequent negotiations, in fact, all of the parties involved in the conflict admitted to breaking the agreement. The desire for the outside nations to control rebel forces and to continue exploiting the Democratic Republic of the Congo's natural resources seemed to overcome the impetus for peace. For these reasons, the United Nations Security Council, while voting to approve an initial peacekeeping force in February 2000, made it clear that the peacekeepers would not be sent until there was some real semblance of an end to the fighting. The peacekeepers had not yet been deployed when the situation was thrown into further turmoil in January 2001 with the assassination of Kabila. His son was quickly named his successor, but it remained to be seen what effect Kabila's death would have on the country and the ongoing conflict. Population (2001 estimate), 53,625,000.