History

“Congo’s population of 72 million consists of more than 200 ethnic groups, each speaking a different language.

“Before 1885 the vast rainforest stretching through the Congo River basin in the heart of Africa was a galaxy of tribal societies and larger independent kingdoms, with militaries, political systems and trade webs.

In the west — near today’s capital of Kinshasa — the powerful Kongo Kingdom predominated. From the 15th century through the early 20th century, the Kongo expanded into a highly developed society centered around fishing, mining and a massive trade network. The king levied universal taxes, appointed officers to specific term limits and established a federalized system of provinces. With the arrival of the Portuguese in 1483, the Kongo became a Christian monarchy and a transit point for a new trade — in human slaves.

In the southeast — near modern-day Lubumbashi on the Zambian border — the Luba Kingdom flourished. Starting in the 16th century, it became an empire organized around a divine monarch and an independent government, built on the export of copper, gold and traditional art, such as hand carved wooden masks and figures. By the 17th century its influence and trade network had spread to neighboring kingdoms, which adopted Luba customs. The Luba also began slave trading, but by the turn of the 20th century the kingdom had collapsed.

In the country’s far eastern region, among the fertile hills and pastures around Lake Kivu, a younger kingdom was emerging, the most relevant to today’s conflict. The Kingdom of Rwanda reached its peak in the late 19th century just before the arrival of Europeans in 1895. It was a highly structured and militaristically expansionist society of Kinyarwanda-speaking Tutsi cattle-herders and Hutu peasants, led by a divine dynasty in which the Mwami, or Tutsi king, was worshipped through elaborate rituals.

The kingdom became a powerful state, and by the early 20th century was divided rigidly by ethnicity and class. Unlike in other parts of Africa, the slave-trade never came to the Kingdom of Rwanda, and neither did Europeans, who often were banned from entering. Large populations of Tutsi and Hutu have lived in eastern Congo for generations, and the name of Lake Kivu — as well as the modern-day city of Goma — came from Kinyarwandan words.

Birth of Colonialism in Africa

In 1885, the European powers split up the continent at a conference in Berlin. Congo was given to Belgium’s King Leopold II; Rwanda and Burundi were given to Germany — essentially ripping the Kingdom of Rwanda into pieces.

Leopold immediately made the Congo his personal property — calling it the Congo Free State.

Leopold leased the lands out to private corporations seeking the valuable rubber and copper deposits. Once the inflatable tire was invented, world demand for rubber skyrocketed, and the Congolese population was brutalized in the quest for rubber. Mercenaries and soldiers enforced a “rubber tax” on residents, and the quotas were enforced with floggings, hostage takings, mutilation and murder. When the Congolese began to resist, soldiers were dispatched to kill the resisters but were forbidden from wasting bullets. So they collected the severed hands of victims to account for each bullet used. Eventually, they began collecting the hands of the living, sending them to headquarters in burlap sacks as “proof” of kills.

Leopold divided the Free State administratively into districts, zones, sectors and posts, each overseen by a European administrator. One of the most notorious officials, Leon Rom, lived lavishly in the Congo’s forests, enslaved villagers and decorated his property with the severed heads of the natives.

Ultimately, to end the atrocities, the Belgian government bought the Congo Free State from Leopold for more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $700 million.

With the transition from the Congo Free State to the Belgian Congo, the country began to be more humanely governed. In the coming decades it became a major source of the world’s copper.

By the 1950s the Belgian Congo was the most developed territory in Africa apart from South Africa.

Rwanda/Congo

Next door in Rwanda, which Belgium took from Germany after World War I, the highly stratified and complex native society attracted some of Europe’s most radical scientists at a time when racial science — or eugenics — was considered a legitimate field.

Tutsis/Hutus

The efficient and powerful ruling minority Tutsis, who were taller and lighter-skinned than the majority Hutus, were determined by European experts to be “racially superior” to the Hutus. Colonial doctors examined the population, measuring noses and skulls, and assigned each to an ethnic class, which was then listed on newly minted identification cards. The Belgians continued to favor the ruling Tutsi, which along with the new identity card, intensified existing tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi.

With control over both Congo and Rwanda, Belgian authorities “transplanted” more than 100,000 Rwandans — both Hutu and Tutsi — to nearby parts of eastern Congo in a bid to alleviate Rwanda’s demographic pressure and meet Congo’s labor needs, further exacerbating ethnic tensions around Lake Kivu.

By 1960, a wave of independence movements was sweeping across Africa, pressuring the Europeans to give up their colonies. In May 1960, when hastily improvised elections were held in Congo, only 17 college graduates — out of a population of over 20 million — were available to rule the new country.

In Rwanda a populist surge caused Belgian authorities to reverse their support for Tutsi minority rule. In 1961, a year before Rwanda gained independence, a Hutu nationalist party won 78 percent of the vote. Pogroms against the Tutsi began, and thousands fled to neighboring Burundi, Uganda and Congo.”

“Just days after the Congo gained independence from Belgium in June 1960, popular independence leader Patrice Lumumba was elected Prime Minister. The southern copper-rich province of Katanga and the province of Kasai seceded, leading to a brutal civil war. In January 1961, Lumumba was deposed, and then assassinated, reportedly with the blessing of the Belgian and U.S. governments, who thought — apparently erroneously — that Lumumba had communist leanings. Waves of insecurity and civil war continued to rock Congo and in 1965, Lt. Gen. Joseph Désiré Mobutu seized power in a Western-backed military coup.

Mobutu began a nationalist movement called authenticite, which strove to recapture the Congo’s indigenous spirit and make the country economically self-sufficient. He nationalized major universities and key industries — specifically the mining companies — and expropriated more than 2,000 foreign-owned businesses.

Mobutu soon replaced King Leopold in running Congo as his personal kleptocracy. He depleted the state coffers and took over large chunks of private business contracts and foreign aid. He also promoted a culture of corruption among citizens through “Article 15,” a local expression referring to the use of any means necessary — even petty stealing — to solve one’s daily material needs. By the time Mobutu was toppled from power in 1997, Zaire’s gross-domestic product was roughly the same as it had been in 1950, even though the population had tripled in that time.

During Mobutu’s regime, simmering Hutu and Tutsi tensions around Lake Kivu grew increasingly unstable. To balance control, Mobutu played the ethnic groups off against each other, eventually leading to the outbreak of violence in North Kivu between the Banyarwanda and other communities in 1993 that left thousands dead.

Mobutu’s ethnic intrigue in eastern Congo exploded in 1994, when genocide broke out in Rwanda — the culmination of years of deep resentment toward the minority Tutsi among the majority Hutu and ostensibly triggered by a Tutsi rebel invasion in northern Rwanda. Eventually, the Tutsis, led by current Rwandan President Paul Kagame, pushed the genocidal government out of power. The Hutu perpetrators, responsible for murdering up to 800,000 people in four months, fled — along with nearly 1.5 million others — across Lake Kivu into eastern Congo.

The United Nations peacekeeping force had been established in 1999, when the conflict was at one of its worst stages. Child soldiers were regularly being conscripted, rebel groups and proxy-militias were running amok throughout the countryside and widespread human rights abuses were occurring. As the conflict continued, all combatants began to adopt a new and brutal strategy — the use of rape and sexual mutilation as a tool of war. The insidious tactic is considered an effective and inexpensive way to destroy families, communities and future generations.

A total of 5.4 million are estimated to have been died — the highest death toll of any war since World War II.”

 

Economics

The culture of impunity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — which continues today — has fueled the creation and evolution of armed groups who use violence to resolve disputes and gain control over the countries natural resources.

“Mining valuable industrial minerals in eastern Congo earns millions of dollars for warlords, politicians and rebels. The rebels alone are thought to garner up to $200 million a year from the trade. The profits are used to perpetuate the conflict in eastern Congo, while the minerals end up in computers and other electronics around the world. The most sought-after “conflict minerals” from the region are cassiterite (a source of tin), wolframite (a primary source of tungsten) and coltan (a source of tantalum, used in electronic equipment such as cell phones, laptops and iPods, military hardware and high-end watches).”

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Conflict in the Congo

Can the Violence be Stopped

by:Josh Kron