Howard Barrell
l Berlin conference of European powers in 1885 declares what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo the private property of King Leopold II of Belgium. Ruthless colonial plunder follows. Belgian government takes control of colony in 1908.
l The vast territory of the Congo and what are now Rwanda and Burundi were sites of ancient ethnic rivalries, among others between Hutus and Tutsis. These enmities were exacerbated by the colonial administration. Belgian authorities outlawed any cross-ethnic political organisation by Congolese and encouraged mainly Tutsis from what is now Rwanda to settle on territory in the eastern Congo, which was claimed as ancestral land by other groups. These settlers from Rwanda were known as the Banyamulenge.
l Belgium grants independence to the desperately underdeveloped, ethnically complex Congo in 1960. Within a fortnight, the army mutinies, the mineral-rich province of Katanga tries to secede and a rebellion is launched in the east. Years of chaos follow.
l Simultaneously, serious ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda led to another influx of Rwandans into Kivu province in eastern Congo.
l In the early 1960s, as the Organisation of African Unity is formed, the Congo and the Great Lakes region to the east of it emerge as the earliest and most serious threats to the organising principle of the map of Africa: the retention of colonial borders between states. Most of the nine countries bordering on Congo – namely Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Angola and Sudan, Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic – experience their own ethnic, religious or anti-colonial conflicts, which impact on and are in turn affected by Congo’s internal conflicts. Only neighbouring Tanzania and Zambia are stable.
l A Colonel Joseph Mobutu stages a successful coup in Congo in 1965, changes the name to Zaire, creates a one-party state, leading to decades of misrule and plunder by the unscrupulous autocrat and his henchmen. Mobutu’s form of rule is to instal a henchman as governor of a district of a country with unrestricted rights of plunder, provided suitable tributes reach Mobutu himself and the henchman does not emerge as a rival. This is government by banditry, and no institutions of state or civil society are fostered.
l Cold War allies Belgium, France and the United States support Mobutu as a bulwark against communism. In 1977 and 1978, Zairean insurgents operating from Angola and Zambia invade Shaba province in an attempt to topple Mobutu, who is backed by France and Belgium.
l Mobutu salts away billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts before, sick with cancer, he eventually bows to pressure and hesitantly sets about reforms in 1991. The next year, a Sovereign National Conference installs veteran opposition politician Ethienne Tshisekedi to oversee transition to democracy, but the attempt fails and Mobutu remains in charge.
l In the early 1990s, Tutsi-Hutu rivalries explode in Rwanda and Burundi. Hutus mount anti-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. Ugandan- backed Tutsi forces enter Rwanda, drive Hutu chauvinists out of the country and take power. They then invade eastern Congo, where they join up with their local Tutsi kin among the Banyamulenge to destroy remnants of Hutu militias and create a buffer against further genocide.
They press on towards Kinshasa, the capital, where they instal a group of Congolese, Rwandans and Ugandans with no local political base or experience of government. This leadership group is headed by a one-time anti-Mobutu rebel leader and latterday brothel-keeper Laurent Kabila.
Kabila renames Zaire the Democratic Republic of Congo, has himself declared president, outlaws other political activity and rules by decree.
l Kabila disappoints his Rwandan and Ugandan backers by failing to act against Hutu militias in eastern Congo. Kabila responds to pressure from Tshisekedi and other Congolese to break with his foreign backers and Tutsi-Banyamulenge allies, who are not accepted as true Congolese by other groups. Kabila announces the expulsion of foreign troops. Feeling betrayed, Rwanda and Uganda provoke a second rebellion – this time against Kabila.
l A major vehicle of this second rebellion is the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), heavily backed by Rwanda’s mainly Tutsi government, which takes east-central Congo.
A second rebel group, around Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former senior officer in Mobutu’s regime, receives backing from Uganda and operates in northern Congo.
Both major groups contain a myriad different ethnic and personal tensions. They also form a working alliance with Unita guerrillas operating against the government of Angola from bases in south- western Congo.
l Angola, afraid of having a pro-Unita regime in Kinshasa, gives heavy military backing to Kabila. He also gets armed support from Namibia, Chad, Zimbabwe and Sudan, which has a longstanding dispute with Uganda.