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> Zaire [Democratic Republic of Congo]
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History and Government
History: The Belgian Congo was established in 1885. Having colonised the country the Belgians did virtually nothing other than establish the minimum infrastructure necessary to support the extraction of the country’s vast mineral wealth. In 1925, under a League of Nations mandate, the territories of Rwanda and Urundi (now Burundi) were incorporated administratively into the Belgian Congo. After World War II, with the mandate lapsed, the Belgian Congo was little more than one other African colony whose embarrassed owners, in this case the Belgians, were trying to dispose of with the minimum of fuss and maximum of future commercial advantage. Independence came swiftly in 1960.
The first post-independence government, headed by Joseph Kasavupu and the legendary African political leader Patrice Lumumba, formed a short-lived government in 1960. However, under the pressure of factional and tribal disputes, backed by superpower interests which worried about the allegedly pro-Western or pro-Soviet inclinations of the main contenders, that government fell within six months. Inevitably, it was an army strongman, in this instance Colonel Joseph D Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) who emerged as the main Western-backed military candidate able to guarantee stability in the country. With Mobutu’s support, a civilian government was established under Cyrille Adoula in 1961. This government lasted for four years before Mobutu, by now the army Chief of Staff, took control for himself and established the military regime which ruled Zaire (as the country was renamed) for the next three decades. The regime, under its self-styled philosophy of ‘Mobutuisme’, was remarkable for the blatant nepotism and gargantuan larceny in which Mobutu, his family and principal supporters engaged.
From the perspective of the Cold War, however, Zaire was a valuable strategic ally preventing the encroachment of communism in southern and central Africa. Once the Cold War ended, Mobutu’s relationship with the West – no longer of any significant use – went into precipitous decline; after the political settlement in South Africa, it effectively ceased to exist. The campaign which brought about Mobutu’s demise began in the remote north-eastern part of the country: it was spearheaded by the Rwandan military whose main objective was the destruction of Hutu rebel bases (see Rwanda section for more detail). However, the Rwandan incursion took on a different character as pro-Mobutu forces melted away and a diverse coalition of long-term exiles, veterans of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (see Rwanda section) and others with a grievance against Mobutu coalesced around the Rwandans.
Laurent Kabila, a little-known Zairean opposition figure based for several decades in Uganda, emerged at the head of the coalition. Within nine months, beginning in the autumn of 1996, the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaire (AFDL) had completed their takeover. (Mobutu had already left for Morocco where he died shortly afterwards.) However, once in power, Kabila soon proved unable to handle either the multifarious elements in his anti-Mobutu coalition or tackle the huge problems facing the country, which was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That said, 30 years of Mobutu had reduced Zaire to the point where it barely functioned at all as a coherent nation state.
The splits in the coalition led to the outbreak in July 1998 of full-scale fighting in the eastern part of the country between disenchanted Banyamulenge (ethnic Tutsis based in Zaire) troops and forces loyal to Kabila. The new Government appealed to its neighbours for support: Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia came in on Kabila’s side; Uganda and Rwanda against him (although these two have since fallen out and are now fighting each other on Congolese soil). Overall, the fighting has been inconclusive. A settlement brokered in Lusaka in the summer of 1999 is honoured only in the breach. The struggle is no longer a war as such, having degenerated into a series of isolated conflicts in which the participants are principally concerned with securing access to the country’s still substantial mineral resources. Most of the rest of the world seems to have given up on this benighted country. In January 2001, Laurent Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards: his son, Joseph, has taken over the presidency.
Government: A constitutional decree issued in May 1997 placed all executive and legislative powers in the hands of the President of the Republic.
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