Congo, Democratic Republic of

Country in central Africa, formerly Zaire (1971–97), bounded west by the Republic of the Congo, north by the Central African Republic and Sudan, east by Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania, southeast by Zambia, and southwest by Angola. There is a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.

Government
Under its 2006 constitution, the country has a multiparty political system with a semi-presidential, or dual, executive, involving the division of executive powers between the president and the prime minister. The president is directly elected and there is a two-chamber legislature, an upper house, the senate, and a lower house, the national assembly. The senate comprises 106 members, elected by provincial parliaments. As well as a legislative role, the senate played a key role in drafting the 2006 constitution. The national assembly comprises 500 deputies, directly elected for a five-year term by proportional representation. The government is headed by a prime minister who commands a majority in the national assembly. There is an independent judiciary, headed by a supreme court, and power has been decentralized to 26 provinces, each with its own legislative assembly and governor.

History
The area was originally peopled by central African hunters and agriculturalists. The name Zaire (from Zadi ‘big water’) was given by Portuguese explorers who arrived on the country's Atlantic coast in the 15th century. The great medieval kingdom of Kongo, centred on the banks of the Congo River, was then in decline, and the subsequent slave trade weakened it further. The interior was not explored by Europeans until the arrival of Stanley and Livingstone in the 1870s, partly financed by Leopold II of Belgium, who established the Congo Free State under his personal rule in 1885. Local resistance was suppressed, and the inhabitants were exploited. When the atrocious treatment of local labour was made public, Belgium annexed the country as a colony, the Belgian Congo, in 1908, and conditions were marginally improved.

Independence
the country was given full independence in June 1960 as the Republic of the Congo. The new state was intended to be governed centrally from Léopoldville by President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, but Moise Tshombe immediately declared the rich mining province of Katanga (renamed Shaba in 1972) independent under his leadership. Fighting broke out, which was not quelled by Belgian troops, and the United Nations (UN) Security Council agreed to send a force to restore order and protect lives. Meanwhile, disagreements between Kasavubu and Lumumba on how the crisis should be tackled prompted the Congolese army commander, Col Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, to step in and temporarily take over the government. Lumumba was imprisoned and later released, and five months later power was handed back to Kasavubu. Soon afterwards Lumumba was murdered and the white mercenaries employed by Tshombe were thought to be responsible. The outcry that followed resulted in a new government being formed, with Cyrille Adoula as prime minister.

During the fighting between Tshombe's mercenaries and UN forces the UN secretary general, Dag Hammarskjöld, flew to Katanga province to mediate and was killed in an air crash on the border with Northern Rhodesia. The attempted secession of Katanga was finally stopped in 1963 when Tshombe went into exile, taking many of his followers with him to form the Congolese National Liberation Front (FNLC). In July 1964 Tshombe returned from exile, and President Kasavubu appointed him interim prime minister until elections for a new government could be held. In August the country was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

‘Second republic’
A power struggle soon developed between Kasavubu and Tshombe, and again the army, under Mobutu, intervened, establishing a ‘second republic’ in November 1965.

A new constitution was adopted in 1967, Tshombe died in captivity in 1969, and Mobutu was elected president for a seven-year term in 1970. The following year the country became the Republic of Zaire, and the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR) was declared the only legal political party in 1972. In the same year the president became known as Mobutu Sese Seko.

Reform and stability
Mobutu, re-elected in 1977, carried out a large number of political and constitutional reforms. He gradually improved the structure of public administration and brought stability to what had once seemed an ungovernable country, although he faced two revolts in Shaba province. The first, in March 1977, was put down with the support of Moroccan forces airlifted to Zaire by France. The second, in May 1978, was repulsed by French and Belgian paratroopers. Both invasions were instigated by the FNLC, operating from bases in Angola. The harshness of some of Mobutu's policies brought international criticism and in 1983 he offered amnesty to all political exiles. Marshal Mobutu, as he was now called, was re-elected in 1984 for a third term.

After continued pressure, multiparty elections were promised for 1992, and by January 1991, 19 political parties had registered.

Political deadlock and mounting civil strife
In September 1991, as the country's economy disintegrated and rebellious soldiers and mobs ransacked Zaire's cities, Mobutu agreed to share power and form an emergency government with the opposition. Etienne Tshisekedi of the Democratic Union for Social Progress was appointed prime minister. In October 1991, after public disagreement, Mobutu dismissed Tshisekedi, who then set up an alternative government in opposition to the president. Despite domestic and international opposition to his rule, Mobutu announced in December 1991 that he intended to remain beyond his seven-year mandate. Tshisekedi was reinstated as prime minister in August 1992, although opposed by Mobutu, and an interim parliament, The High Council of the Republic (HCR), set up in December. Rioting had re-erupted in October 1992 after Mobutu refused to accept proposed constitutional changes, and a pay dispute within the army in December resulted in widespread looting and killing, prompting France and Belgium to prepare for evacuation of their civilians.

President Mobutu's refusal to accept the HCR resulted in the creation of two rival governments, one appointed by the president and one by the HCR, which claimed the right to appoint the prime minister. Agreement between Mobutu and the HCR was finally reached and in June 1994 a reconstituted HCR, now known as the Council of the Republic–Parliament of Transition, elected Kengo Wa Dondo as prime minister, and this was accepted by Mobutu.

Background to civil war
From 1994, there was mounting ethnic strife, which developed into a bloody civil war that was to claim several million lives over the next decade. An initial trigger for this unrest was the mass influx, in the summer of 1994, of two million refugees from neighbouring Rwanda, escaping genocide in their homeland by the Interahamwe, the Hutu militia. In May 1995, the country's problems were exacerbated by an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. This was declared over by the World Health Organization in August 1995. A total breakdown in law and order threatened, with continuing secessionist activity in Shaba province and tribal clashes in Kivu province.

Rwandan refugee crisis
In one of the most dramatic mass movements of people of the 20th century, over half a million Hutu refugees returned to Rwanda in 1996, after two years of exile in Zairean refugee camps, after the Interahamwe had been dislodged by a new military force.

In October 1996, fighting between the Zairean army and Tutsi rebels from the Banyamulenge community of eastern Zaire forced refugees to flee their camps, and civilians to leave home. The Banyamulenge launched an insurrection in southern Kivu and a number of other non-Tutsi groups, with a shared hatred of Zaire's president Mobutu, started rebellions further north. The initial exodus was an attempt to escape the escalating war. By late November 1996 the crisis had eased and the deployment of a planned international force authorized by the UN to help refugees in Zaire was postponed. President Rwigema of Rwanda appealed to the UN to stop its planned military intervention and to use the money to support the reintegration of refugees in Rwanda.

The fall of Mobutu
From October 1996 the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL), led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, launched an armed rebellion aimed at toppling President Mobutu. The rebels rapidly established control over much of eastern Zaire. They captured the strategic city of Kisangani in March 1997. They then advanced on the southern, mineral-rich provinces of Kasai and Shaba, taking Mbuji-Mayi, centre of Zaire's diamond industry, and Lubumbashi, Zaire's second city, in April 1997.

President Mobutu, who had returned from medical treatment in Paris, sought to restore his grip by imposing a state of emergency. Government troops in the capital used tear gas, rifle butts, and batons against demonstrators supporting the opposition leader and former prime minister, Etienne Tshisekedi. But, in April 1997, Tshisekedi was returned to office by a transitional assembly as the rebel advances continued.

Kabila takes power
There were peace talks between Mobutu and Kabila, mediated by South African President Mandela. But the rebels, who continued to advance on the capital, Kinshasa, insisted that Mobutu resign and transfer power to Kabila. This occurred in mid May 1997. With Kabila's rebels poised to take Kinshasa, President Mobutu agreed to give up his powers. The rebels entered Kinshasa, the capital, encountering almost no resistance from Mobutu's troops. From Lubumbashi, the rebel headquarters, Kabila claimed victory and the presidency. Kabila renamed Zaire the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the country's name 1964–71) and banned all activities of political parties and public demonstrations in Kinshasa until further notice, citing a need to ensure security. In late May 1997, President Kabila took office, promising to hold general elections in April 1999 and to bury the legacy of the ousted Mobutu.

Renewed rebel fighting
The new government struggled to restore internal order and faced a series of challenges and rebellions. In November 1997, fighting broke out in Kinshasa between rival factions within the army. From August 1998, Kabila faced a mounting rebellion by Tutsi fighters in the east and west. His former allies, Rwanda and Uganda, backed this rebellion, while troops and aircraft from Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Chad intervened to help Kabila suppress the rebellion. The rebels launched an assault on Kinshasa, but were repulsed by Angolan and Zimbabwean aircraft and Congolese soldiers.

The UN Security Council called for a ceasefire. However, in September 1998 areas near the Ugandan border were bombed, either by Sudanese or Congolese forces, while Chad sent 1,000 troops and Namibia also sent forces to support President Kabila. Rwanda accused Kabila of arming Hutu extremists with a view to genocide. In October 1998, the anti-Kabila rebels captured Kindu, the government's main air base and headquarters in the east. In November 1998 the rebel forces agreed to a ceasefire but demanded direct talks with President Kabila. Later in the month the rebels vowed to fight on; unrest and atrocities continued into 1999. Fighting was especially fierce in the east of the country, where it was financed by revenues from illegal extraction of minerals, including diamonds.

Peace process
African leaders agreed in May 1999 in Libya on a peace deal that called for a ceasefire between Congo and the Rwandan-backed rebel fighters. This ceasefire did not hold, but fresh talks, held in June 1999 in Zambia, were more fruitful. South Africa agreed to send troops to police a ceasefire. A peace plan was signed in July 1999 by the six African governments involved in the 11-month war, but not by the rebel groups. It provided for a full ceasefire and the creation of a unified army after a three-month ‘national dialogue’ on the country's future. Peacekeeping troops would be sent by the UN, or by the Organization of African Unity (OAU; later African Union). Kabila said that there would be an amnesty for rebels and their supporters, but rebel leaders rejected the ceasefire and continued to fight.

In September 1999 the rebel leaders also signed the peace plan. But there remained intermittent breaches of the ceasefire by rebels and uncertainties over the next stage of the peace process. In January 2000, troops from Uganda and Rwanda, supporting different factions of the Congolese rebels, ignored an agreement to an internationally supervised withdrawal from the rebel-held city of Kisangani, and continued to fight. Faced with UN threatened sanctions, the two countries stepped back and agreed to withdraw their troops from Kisangani.

In August 2000, government troops mounted offensives against rebels in the northwest as Kabila announced the temporary suspension of the peace accord. By early November 2000, only 250 of a promised 5,500 UN peacekeeping soldiers had been deployed and fighting between government and rebels continued. In December 2000, Rwandan-backed rebels captured the city of Pweto, which was being defended by Zimbabwean troops supporting Congolese forces, causing more than 10,000 refugees to flee to Zambia.

Drive for peace process after assassination of Kabila
On 16 January 2001, President Kabila was shot and killed by one of his bodyguards. The Congolese authorities delayed announcing his death for several days. Parliament unanimously approved the appointment of his son, Maj-Gen Joseph Kabila, in his place, and he was sworn in on 26 January 2001. He pledged to promote economic liberalization and political pluralism, and to hold free elections at a future date.

The new president showed a determination to end the civil war. He met with the South African and French presidents, the US secretary of state, and the United Nations secretary-general in late January 2001 in a mission to bring peace to the Congo. He also met with the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, who supported rebels in the east of the Congo. In February 2001, Kabila made concessions to Rwanda and Uganda in peace talks held in Lusaka, Zambia. The two countries withdrew some troops from east Congo. In March 2001, the first armed UN troops arrived and confirmed that all warring parties were pulling back.

In April 2991, Kabila ousted several allies of his late father from government, improving the hopes for peace. Mwenze Kongolo became national security minister, Matungulu Kuyamu economy and finance minister, and Mira Ndjoku interior minister. Kabila also lifted restrictions on the formation and operation of political parties.

However, disarmament of rebel groups, including 58,000 foreign rebel groups, proceeded slower than planned and threatened to spread conflict into Angola, Burundi, and Rwanda.

In May 2002, the International Rescue Committee, a US aid agency, estimated that 2.5 million people had died in the Congo from malaria, dysentery, and violence since August 1998.

Peace agreement
In July 2002 President Kabila signed a South African-brokered peace agreement with Rwanda. The agreement required Rwanda to pull its troops out of the eastern Congo in return for the government disarming and repatriating for trial the Rwandan Hutu extremists (the Interahamwe) responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The Rwandan forces withdrew in October 2002, and in December 2002 all remaining warring parties signed the Pretoria Accord to end the fighting and establish a government of national unity. Under this Global and All-Inclusive Agreement, all parties agreed to a plan to reunify the country, disarm and integrate the warring parties, and hold elections.

The three rebel groups supported by Uganda signed a ceasefire agreement at the end of December 2002 to immediately stop fighting and accept UN military observers.

Transitional government
The internal situation remained unstable, but in July 2003 a transitional government was set up. Kabila remained as president, but was supported by four vice-presidents representing the former government, former rebel groups, and the political opposition. Work began on framing a new constitution, involving greater decentralization, and preparations were made for elections.

Despite the formal end of hostilities, there remained violent outbreaks. The International Rescue Committee reported in mid 2004 that the conflict was killing 1,000 people a day. Some rebel groups, notably the Hutu militant Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), had not been disarmed in line with the 2002 agreement and in late 2004 Rwanda threatened to send its troops back into the country. Troop numbers in the UN peacekeeping force, known by the acronym MONUC, were increased in October 2004 from 10,000 to 16,000. In January 2005, the UN reported that Uganda and Rwanda continued to arm insurgent groups in eastern Congo, in violation of the UN arms embargo in the area.

Victory for Kabila in multiparty elections
The continuing instability delayed the holding of the first elections to the national assembly from June 2005 to July 2006. A new constitution was adopted in February 2006 and was later approved overwhelmingly in a national referendum in December 2006, and a new national flag was also adopted.

Free multiparty legislature and presidential elections were held in July 2006, the first in 46 years. MONUC peacekeepers ensured internal order during the elections, but the veteran opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, boycotted the poll. Joseph Kabila won 45% of the vote in the presidential contest, finishing ahead of Jean-Pierre Bemba, leader of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), a Ugandan-backed rebel group turned political party. Disputes over the results led to two days of street fighting by rival groups in Kinshasa, claiming 16 lives.

A run-off presidential election, held in October 2006, involved rioting in polling stations in the east and a revolt over burned ballots in the north. Kabila won by a 58% to 42% margin. Bemba's supporters became involved in riots, but Bemba accepted the result and took his seat as official opposition leader.

The national assembly elections resulted in many minor parties winning seats in parliament. In December 2006, Antoine Gizenga, who had finished third in the first round of the presidential election, became prime minister. His Unified Lumumbist Party (dedicated to the legacy of Patrice Lumumba) was part of an Alliance for the Presidential Majority, based around Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Development (PPRD), which held an overall majority in the national assembly.