Eastern Congo -- Roots of the Crisis

The Democratic Republic of the Congo had a brutal colonial history. Beginning in the 1880s, Belgian King Leopold II treated the territory as his personal kingdom, exploiting the country's vast natural resources through indigenous forced labor. Leopold transferred control of the "Congo Free State" to the Belgian government in 1908.

In the lead up to parliamentary elections in May 1960, following an upsurge in nationalist sentiment and a growing demand for independence, Belgium accepted Congo's independence in June 1960, with Patrice Lumumba as Prime Minister and Joseph Kasavubu as President. Within two weeks of independence, however, Congo's new government faced a nationwide army mutiny and threats from secessionist movements in Katanga (backed by Belgian mining interests) and in the southern Kasai provinces.

Cold War tensions increasingly played into a hostile face-off, with the U.S. fearing that the charismatic Lumumba and his supporters would allow the break-up of the Congo and the subsequent Soviet domination of central Africa. Lumumba appealed to the UN Security Council to send a peacekeeping force to help contain the secessionist crises and ONUC, the first force charged to keep the peace, was sent to Congo in 1961.

The political crisis in Kinshasa deepened as Kasavubu and Lumumba began to battle for power in the country. Lumumba's use of the army to brutally – but unsuccessfully – put down the Kasaian rebellion and his appeal for Soviet help alarmed his opponents. Supported by Belgium and the U.S., Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba, who was later arrested and, with active U.S. and Belgian complicity, handed over to his enemies in Katanga. He was assassinated in 1961.

UN troops sent to contain the Katangan insurgency began disarming Katangan rebels in August 1961, but the situation quickly deteriorated into sporadic fighting. Moise Tshombe, the head of breakaway Katanga, was finally forced out of the province in 1963, but co-opted into the political system. He returned as Congo's Prime Minister in 1964, in the context of another crisis in eastern Congo, where rebels determined to restore the legacy of Patrice Lumumba opened new fronts in Kisangani, the Kivus, and Bandundu.

Supported by the U.S. and Belgium, Colonel Joseph Desire Mobutu began his 32-year rule of Congo in 1965 when he ousted both President Kasavubu and Prime Minister Tshombe in a coup. Mobutu brutally quelled new rebellions and established his own party, the Mouvement Populaire pour la Revolution, or MPR, which quickly became his personal instrument of power. Congo was transformed into a single-party state.

In 1971, Mobutu changed the name of the country to Zaire as a symbol of indigenization. He systematically used Congo's mineral wealth to consolidate power, to co-opt potential rivals, and to enrich himself and his allies through an expansive patronage system.

With the end of the Cold War, the suspension of international economic aid and the global collapse of raw commodity prices at the end of the eighties, Mobutu began to loose his grip on the Zairian state. Under strong internal pressure to democratize, he reluctantly agreed to hold a national conference in 1991 and restored multiparty politics.

Following the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Mobutu attempted to regain international support by providing shelter and protection to the two million refugees who had fled to eastern Congo. Encouraged by France, Mobutu sided with the remnants of the Hutu power regime, but he lost the war waged by Rwanda, Uganda, and Laurent-Désiré Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, or AFDL, in July 1996. The ailing Mobutu was finally ousted from Kinshasa in May 1997 as Laurent-Désiré Kabila took over the country.

War broke out again in August 1998 when Kabila attempted to gain independence from his regional backers and moved to purge Rwandan elements from his government. Backed by Rwandan and Ugandan troops, a newly-formed rebellion known as the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) invaded Congo, taking control of the Kivus and targeting the diamond towns of Mbuji-Mayi and Katanga, the economic lifelines of Kabila.

Uganda also sponsored an alternative rebel group, the Mouvement de Liberation du Congo, led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, which advanced to Kinshasa through Orientale province and Equateur. Kabila called on Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia for help and with their military support managed to stop the invasion. By mid-1999, a front line was stabilized, cutting the country through Equateur, the Kasais, and Katanga into two.

A ceasefire agreement was reached and signed in Lusaka in July 1999, and was built around three main pillars: the disarmament of the external armed groups that were using Congolese territory as a sanctuary; the withdrawal of all foreign troops; and the convening of an inter-Congolese dialogue that would lead to a new political dispensation. Fighting continued, however, until Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 and was replaced by his son, Joseph Kabila.

Peace negotiations were re-launched and by the end of 2002, the Angolan, Zimbabwean, Rwandan, and Ugandan troops had fully withdrawn from DRC. In December 2002, all Congolese belligerents, civil society groups, and the unarmed opposition signed an agreement in South Africa, leading to a three-year transition which began in June 2003 and during which Kabila shared power with four vice-presidents.

The transition has now ended. A new constitution was adopted by a referendum on December 18, 2005, and national assembly and presidential elections were held between July 30 and October 28, 2006. Joseph Kabila was elected for a five-year term with 58 percent of the vote, and his alliance won a substantial majority in both the national and provincial assemblies.

On December 6, 2006, Joseph Kabila was sworn in as the first democratically elected president since Congolese independence. While this landmark electoral process was largely free of major violence and serious irregularities, the country still has many challenges to surmount. The new government has weak and barely functioning institutions, significant internal political challenges remain, and the international community, which provided decisive support to the peace process, must continue to help it overcome serious security and political challenges.

Approximately four million lives were lost due to conflict in Congo between 1998 and 2004, mostly from war-related diseases and starvation. The establishment of a transitional government failed, however, to stop local conflicts, specifically in the Ituri district and in the North Kivu, South Kivu, and Katanga provinces. Rebel groups, including dissident members of former rebel movements and untamed militias, continued to fight the government and local enemies, often seeking to maintain or establish control of mineral wealth.

The sustained level of violence throughout 2004 alongside extensive internal civilian displacements led the UN in March 2005 to describe eastern Congo as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis." The efforts of the UN Mission for the Congo, or MONUC, to protect civilians – initially undermined by a lack of progress in establishing an integrated national army – were reinvigorated in September 2004 with the expansion of its force from 10,800 to 16,700 troops and the granting of a more aggressive Chapter 7 mandate, allowing the force to take stronger measures to protect civilians. However, because of continued instability, over 800,000 internally displaced Congolese have yet to return to their homes in this troubled Central African country.