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Sub Saharan Africa

Congo (Democratic Republic)

 Flag of Congo (Democratic Republic)

Map of Democratic Republic of Congo Last reviewed: 17 March 2008

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HISTORY

DRC (formerly Zaire) gained independence from Belgium in June 1960. Following a period of political instability, General Mobutu, the Chief of the Army, came to power in an army coup in 1965 and remained largely unchallenged throughout the 1970s and 1980s. President Mobutu presided over endemic corruption and reputedly built up a large personal fortune. Moves towards democratisation in the early 1990s did not succeed in removing him from power. But an already-fragile state was further weakened by the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when in October 1996 dissident groups, led by Laurent Kabila and strongly supported by Rwanda and Uganda, rose in revolt. They entered Kinshasa on 17 May 1997. Laurent Kabila declared himself President. Mobutu fled to Morocco where he subsequently died.

Internal and external dissatisfaction with the new President grew until late summer 1998, when a new rebel group announced itself, again backed by Rwanda and Uganda, and a second conflict broke out. SADC states led by Zimbabwe and Angola intervened on the side of the Kabila Government. By mid-1999 front-lines had stabilised, with 3 belligerent groups respectively controlling a third of the country, each backed by different regional states. A cease-fire was signed in Lusaka in August 1999. The United Nations Security Council established a peacekeeping force known as MONUC to facilitate the implementation of the Lusaka Accord. It has a budget exceeding US$1 billion and is now over 17,000 strong making it the largest current UN peacekeeping mission.

In January 2001 President Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. His son, Joseph Kabila, took over as the new head of State on 26 January 2001 and proved more amenable to negotiations. Foreign forces gradually departed, and a protracted Inter-Congolese Dialogue led to an agreement between the belligerents and members of the political opposition on the formation of a transitional national government (TNG). This was agreed by the parties on 2 April 2003 in Sun City (South Africa). The TNG was promulgated on 30 June 2003, formally ending a war that had cost an estimated 4 million lives.

The Transitional National Government (TNG) was made up of 3 major belligerent groups, a number of smaller ex-rebel movements, civil society and political opposition representatives. The TNG had a '1 + 4' leadership, with a President (Joseph Kabila) and Vice Presidents (Jean-Pierre Bemba, Azarias Ruberwa, Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma and Yerodia Abdoulaye Ndombasi). The TNG was hindered by continuing violence in the east of the country, massive humanitarian needs, widespread corruption and periods of high tension between former belligerent groups who were making up the government.

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