The Congo from Leopold to Kabila summary

The new Belgian rulers of the Congo were pretty contented. As far as they were concerned their “model colony” was just that. Unfortunately, this perception was far removed from reality.

For starters, they were still colonizers employing all the usual tricks of repression. Most notably this included a divide and rule strategy designed to preemptively strangle any possibility of revolt. As part of this, they bribed local kings to betray their own subjects to the colonizers.

Lumumba was installed as the new Prime Minister, but it didn’t take long for the first cracks in his government to form; the “Congo Crisis” had begun.

What precipitated the crisis was a power vacuum. Only a few trained bureaucrats remained after Belgian administrators left in 1960, which meant that tribal leaders suddenly found themselves more powerful than Lumumba’s own government.

The Congo Crisis had come to an end. However, US interference had not succeeded in putting the cork back in the bottle. After all, this new “moderate” government was simply taking instructions from abroad, and it stank of neocolonialism. It did not take long before a “second independence” movement emerged. Like the first, it demanded democracy, economic rights for the non-ruling class and freedom from foreign powers.

The second independence movement began in earnest in 1963, with resistance revolving around two separate fronts.

For champions of democracy, the repression of the second independence movement might have seemed like the light had gone out. However, in the mid-1960s it briefly looked as though the momentum would swing back in their direction. In 1964 Tshombe and his moderate allies enacted a new constitution. Then, in May 1965, the first national elections without violence or need for outside observers since independence were held.

The US, however, had other ideas. For them, parliamentary democracy was too “chaotic.” They saw this new moderate leadership as too weak to prevent the country dissolving. In the name of stability, then, the Western powers went in search of a strongman to keep the region secure and amenable to their interests.

Ironically, external forces would ultimately be how Mobutu’s dictatorship was brought to an end. The groundwork was laid, nevertheless, by numerous Congolese factions and organizations that fought for multiparty democracy.

The struggle had been building since the first decades of Mobutu’s rule, with the Catholic Church and political groups in exile playing no small part. A student movement also pushed democratization of processes on campuses.

The CNS did not operate by halves. Its 2,842 delegates came from all rungs of society, with TV and radio broadcasters gathering to communicate proceedings to the entire country. Everyone felt that it was sure to be a major landmark in Congolese history but, ultimately, it was unsuccessful.

The conference sought to examine the country’s past, evaluating how expectations for independence had fallen flat. Then, it aimed to look forward, to find a way out of the political, social, economic, cultural and moral crisis that engulfed the country.

The failure of the CNS signaled the return of dictatorship to Zaire. Things were also taking a turn for the worse in the neighboring states of Rwanda and Uganda.

The roots of the ethnic violence that emerged lay in the colonial era. Rwanda had been home to two once amicable ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. However, once it became a Belgian territory, individuals’ ethnicities were required to be stated on identity cards. The Belgians also decided that they would rule Rwanda through the Tutsis, turning them into a ruling elite.

The country – now renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo – was left weakened after the war with Rwanda and Uganda.

The Congolese people were vulnerable; a new enemy had emerged in the shape of their own president. Kabila refused to act as a puppet for Rwanda and Uganda in their desired control over the Congo’s resources, as had been intended. Instead, Kabila was keen to be seen as a president in his own right, cutting off ties with the Rwandans and Ugandans to establish his dictatorship.