Pre-20th-Century History

The country's history is a tragic story of an incredible potential that's been brutally dashed by foreign interference and home-grown oppression. The incredible richness of Congo (Zaïre) in terms of natural resources has been the country's downfall. First the population was horribly exploited by ivory and rubber traders during the country's private ownership by Belgian King Leopold II.

'Dr Livingstone, I presume.' The self-promoting adventurer and explorer Henry Morton-Stanley allegedly spoke those words after his famous journey into Central Africa in search of the good Dr David Livingstone. Legend has it Dr Livingstone was surprised to find he was considered missing. After this 'coup', broadly publicised in newspapers around the world, Stanley continued along the Congo River, staking out the huge territory on its south bank for the Belgian King Leopold II in 1881. Congo then enjoyed the dubious position of being the only colony ever to be owned by one man. Leopold II, monarch of one of Europe's smallest countries, proceeded to exploit one of Africa's largest, amassing a vast personal fortune without ever once visiting the country. Hideous crimes were committed against the Congolese by Leopold's rubber and ivory traders. These included raiding villages and taking all the women and children captive as an incentive for the men to bring back ever-greater supplies of rubber from the forest. Those who did not bring back their quota often had their hands chopped off. All the while, in one of the earliest examples of a public relations campaign, Leopold passed off his Congo venture as a shining example of disinterested benevolent rule aimed at 'civilising the Negroes' and keeping the 'cruel Arab slave-traders' at bay. Eventually, the Belgian government agreed to buy the territory from the ailing King, but even then conditions for the Congolese scarcely improved. In a museum in Brussels dedicated to glorifying Belgian exploits in its former colony, documentation of these horrible atrocities is conspicuously absent.

Modern History

The independence movement under the leadership of the charismatic revolutionary Patrice Lumumba gathered pace in the late 1950s at a rate that surprised the Belgian colonialists. The Belgians pulled out in 1960, leaving a population they had never bothered to school or to train to take over the reins of government. But Belgium's intervention was by no means finished. Together with the US, the country was instrumental in having Lumumba - who was seen as too pro-Soviet - overthrown in favour of army chief Joseph Désiré Mobutu.

'The cock who leaves no hen untouched' and 'the all-powerful warrior who because of his endurance and inflexible will to win will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake' are among the various translations of the name Mobutu Sese Seko gave himself after renaming the country Zaïre. If Africa is a stain on the conscience of the world, then Belgium and the US are Lady Macbeth in this instance. By ensuring Mobutu's succession as leader they delivered newly independent Congo into the hands of a brutal dictator who proceeded to loot the country for personal gain for 32 years. Mobutu's institutionalisation of looting as a form of government caused Michaela Wrong, author of In The Footsteps of Mr Kurtz , to dub his rule a 'kleptocracy'.

'At least he kept the country together' is what Congolese weary of years of civil war often say of Mobutu. However, in 1997 Mobutu was toppled by rebel soldier Laurent Kabila, who marched on Kinshasa from the east with the support of Rwanda and Uganda. What hope he brought with him was soon dashed when Kabila outlawed political opposition while renaming the country - with no apparent irony - the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kabila then angered his former ally Rwanda by refusing to close down refugee camps where Hutus responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide were reforming. Anti-Kabila rebels with the support of Rwanda and Uganda then took control of several key border towns in the east of the country. But Angola and Zimbabwe waded in on the side of Kabila. Thus began a civil war now fought ostensibly between rival Congolese militias, but in reality between the proxy armies of Uganda and Rwanda. Often called Africa's first world war, the conflict has caused the death of an estimated 2.5 million people.

Recent History

The mining of diamonds and coltan (used in mobile phones) has proved too lucrative to tempt foreign forces - most notably Uganda and Rwanda - to pull out of the civil war they are supporting in the country's northeast. However, for the first time since independence, the future of Congo (Zaïre) is looking hopeful. In July 2003 a transitional power-sharing government comprising President Joseph Kabila and four vice-presidents (various rival rebel leaders and the civilian opposition) was sworn in to office, with the aim of bringing an end to the civil war so that elections can be held by 2005 - the last elections were held in 1970. However, Uganda and Rwanda show no signs of ending their support of proxy armies, and even as the new government took power in Kinshasa, hundreds of civilians were still being murdered in fighting between ethnic militias in the Ituri Region.