Lying in east central Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), known as Zaire from 1971 to 1997, is one of Africa's largest countries. The rainforested basin of the Congo River occupies 60% of the land area. On independence in 1960, civil war broke out. The notoriously corrupt Gen. Mobutu ruled from 1965 until his overthrow in 1997 by rebel forces under Laurent-Désiré Kabila. A rebellion launched in 1998 plunged the countryinto renewed chaos. Peace initiatives were revitalized by Joseph Kabila's succession in January 2001.

The Shaba mining area and major urban centers are densely populated, while the rainforests have a density of fewer than three people per sq. km, mostly subsisting on the margins of the cash economy. There is great ethnic diversity, with more than 12 main groups and around 190 smaller ones. The majority are of Bantu origin, but there are also large Hamitic and Nilotic populations, mainly in the north and northeast. The original inhabitants, the forest pygmies, today form a tiny and marginalized group.

Ethnic tensions inherited from the colonial period were contained under Mobutu until the 1990s. Ethnic violence in southeastern provinces in 1993 cost many thousands of lives, and a Hutu refugee influx from Rwanda the following year provoked serious tension among Tutsis in eastern areas; widescale revenge killings soon became commonplace. Regarded by Mobutu as foreigners, Tutsis provided the backbone of the 1996–1997 insurgency that overthrew him, and subsequently turned against Laurent Kabila also.

Strengths

Rich resource base. Minerals – notably copper, cobalt, diamonds – provide 85% of export earnings. Energy: oil; possibly Africa's largest hydropower potential. Rich soil; much unutilized arable land.

Weaknesses

Decades of mismanagement and corruption: $12 billion foreign debt; inadequate, disintegrating infrastructure; lack of food self-sufficiency. Political instability. Hyperinflation. Loss of export income. Mineral resources plundered by foreign troops.

Profile

Political instability, systematic corruption, long-term mismanagement, and outright civil war have brought what is potentially a leading African economy to a state of collapse.

By the mid-1990s real GDP was falling by 10% or more each year. The government budget ran record deficits, and inflation ran virtually out of control from 1994 onward. Lack of spares and power cuts have since closed many mines and halted most other industry. Strikes and riots over plummeting living standards hastened the flight of foreign capital. Subsistence farming and petty trade keep most people going.

The Kabila regime, despite its originally Marxist background, claims to want an effective free-market economy. Resumption of essential large-scale aid and debt relief will depend on difficult reforms and paying off arrears to the IMF and other creditors. Restructuring of state-owned enterprises in 2001 aimed to attract foreign investment back.

The authoritarian regime of Laurent-Désiré Kabila continues under his son.

Profile

Kabila overthrew Mobutu's 32-year dictatorial regime in 1997. However, his commitment to pluralist democracy soon came under question as he dissolved parliament and scrapped the constitution. A new Constituent and Legislative Assembly did not convene until August 2000. Meanwhile Kabila's ethnic Tutsi supporters rose in armed rebellion against him in 1998. As neighboring countries joined the fighting, the war became a regional crisis. The arrival of a UN peacekeeping mission was consistently delayed by Kabila in 2000.

Kabila's murder in January 2001 left a vacuum that exposed the extent of his grip on power. His son Joseph, head of the armed forces, was rapidly appointed as his successor and has promised to promote political pluralism and economic liberalization.

Main Political Issue

Securing peace and democracy

From 1990 promises of multiparty democracy were largely subverted as Mobutu clung to power. Positive change after his overthrow proved just as elusive. The 1999 elections did not take place as fighting spiraled, with the government in true control of only half of the country. Kabila's death in 2001 brought all factions together for talks but fighting continued. Peace talks in South Africa in 2002 again failed to make any real progress.

The protracted civil war which has devastated this huge country has irrevocably muddied the DRC's international relations. While the West has grown frustrated with the slow pace of peace, neighboring countries have been drawn into one of the continent's largest conflicts.

The collapse of the autocratic Mobutu regime in 1997 did not bring the long-hoped for stability, and instead prompted a savage rebellion by the erstwhile Rwandan and Ugandan allies of new leader Laurent Kabila. The vast potential wealth of the Congolese forests and mineral deposits prompted a quick spiral into regional war. Angola, Burundi, Chad, Namibia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe all sent troops, leaving the DRC divided into government- and rebel-controlled areas.

Fighting continued despite a 1999 cease-fire signed in Lusaka. Laurent Kabila attracted intense international criticism in 2000 for suspending the accords, taking an autocratic approach to a new transitional assembly, and obstructing the arrival of the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUC. Although some Ugandan, Rwandan, and Burundian troops were withdrawn amid talks after Kabila's death and the succession of his son in 2001, fighting continued, and in 2002, both Rwanda and Uganda reinforced troops.

The involvement of foreign firms in the running of the long-neglected mines in the south of the country has drawn sharp internal criticism.

Although the military strongly backed Mobutu's regime, it offered no real resistance when Laurent Kabila's insurgents swept the country in 1996–1997. Government troops, poorly paid and undisciplined, but supported by foreign allies, have been fighting in the civil war since 1998, led by Kabila's son and successor Joseph Kabila. The UN peacekeeping force, MONUC, had established a small presence by 2001.

What should be a prosperous country, with its rich resources, is instead one of the world's poorest states, exploited and mismanaged by its rulers for decades and plundered further by occupying forces during the civil war. In the 1980s, the country was the world's largest cobalt exporter and second-largest industrial diamond exporter. Since 1990, copper and cobalt output has collapsed and diamond smuggling is booming. There are oil reserves and hydroelectric installations with sufficient potential capacity to export power, but instead lack of maintenance has shut down many turbines and most urban areas face power cuts. Despite rich soils and the fact that 60% of people are involved in farming, the country is not even self-sufficient in food.

Rainforests cover over 60% of the country, representing almost 6% of the world's and 50% of Africa's remaining woodlands. They are home to several endangered species. The poor transportation network has so far prevented large-scale commercial exploitation of timber, but clearance for fuelwood is a problem. The collapse of many urban refuse and sewage disposal systems has led to major health and pollution problems. Environmental damage caused by the civil war is estimated at $320 million.

The Congo River and its many tributaries provide the main means of communication. The size of the country and the fact that most of it is covered by dense rainforest have severely limited the development of road and rail networks. Many forest settlements are inaccessible except by air. Road maintenance, always poor, has virtually ceased outside the main towns since 1990, isolating even more settlements away from the main rivers.

State services have now virtually collapsed. Disease and death rates are rising, especially in rural areas. A new health insurance plan was announced in 2001, designed to enable greater access to health care. As of December 1999, just over one million people were estimated to be HIV/AIDS infected.

In 1997 just over 37% of secondary age children were attending classes, but this figure has dropped sharply during the civil war. State provision, as with health care, is patchy and has faced sharp budget cuts since 1980. About 70% of schooling is now provided by the Roman Catholic Church.

Political crisis and economic collapse exacerbate long-standing problems of corruption and human rights abuses. Violence and crime of all kinds, including extortion, robbery, rape, and murder, are widespread and on the increase, and in war zones most law and order has broken down. Ethnic violence, suppressed after 1965, resurfaced in the 1990s, in the south and between the Hema and Lendu tribes in the northeast.

Before his death in exile in 1997, ex-dictator Mobutu was one of the world's richest men, worth an estimated $4 billion. Most of his former subjects live in poverty, exacerbated by civil war.

Political turmoil and widespread anarchy since early 1997 ensure that the country remains off the itinerary for most travelers.

Potential tourist attractions consist mainly of scenery – mountains and lakes – and wildlife, but there are few facilities for tourists even in the capital. The Congo, 16 km (10 miles) wide in places, is Africa's longest river after the Nile. Visitors were formerly also attracted by the vibrant music of Kinshasa's many bands.

The once-large number of visitors on business has also collapsed as a consequence of the chronic instability of the 1990s.

The modern Congo was the site of the Kongo and other powerful African kingdoms, and a focus of the slave trade. Belgium's King Leopold II claimed most of the Congo basin after 1876 as his personal possession.

• 1885 Brutal colonization of Congo Free State (CFS) as King Leopold's private fief.
• 1908 Belgium takes over CFS after international outcry.
• 1960 Independence of Republic of Congo. Katanga (Shaba) province secedes. UN intervenes.
• 1963 Katanga secession collapses.
• 1965 Gen. Joseph-Désiré Mobutu seizes power.
• 1970 Mobutu elected president; his MPR becomes sole legal party.
• 1971 Country renamed Zaire.
• 1977–1978 Two invasions by former Katanga separatists repulsed with Western help.
• 1982 Opposition parties set up Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS).
• 1986–1990 Civil unrest and foreign criticism of human rights abuses.
• 1990 Belgium suspends aid after security forces kill prodemocracy demonstrators. Mobutu announces transition to multiparty rule.
• 1991 Opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi heads short-lived "crisis government" formed by Mobutu.
• 1992–1993 Rival governments claim legitimacy.
• 1994 Combined High Council of the Republic–Transitional Parliament established.
• 1995 Regime demands international assistance to support a million Rwandan Hutu refugees.
• 1996 Major insurgency launched in east by Alliance of Democratic forces for the Liberation of the Congo (AFDL) including Laurent Kabila's Popular Revolutionary Party (PRP), with disaffected ethnic Tutsi Banyamulunge.
• 1997 Forces led by Kabila sweep south and west. Kabila takes power. Country renamed DRC. Mobutu dies in exile.
• 1998 Banyamulunge join Kabila's opponents and launch rebellion in the east, backed by Rwanda and Uganda. Southern African states, give military backing to Kabila.
• 2000 UN approves peacekeeping mission; arrival stalled by Kabila.
• 2001 January, Laurent Kabila assassinated; succeeded by son Joseph. Peace talks start, with troop withdrawals from front line.
• 2002 April, peace talks inconclusive. May, 180 massacred in Kisangani by Rwandan-backed forces.