History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo describes the history of the region that would later become the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo . Its borders were essentially shaped by the colonial power of Belgium .

The pre-colonial history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is mainly shaped by several Bantu empires. After over three centuries of looting by the European and Arab slave trade, they all went under under essentially Belgian colonial rule. After the end of 1960 and a subsequent civil war, the country suffered from a dictatorship that lasted more than three decades from 1965. The end of 1997 also marked the beginning of a series of wars which the former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the “ First World War in Africa ” and which - including the immediately following Kivu War - cost 5.4 million lives by 2008.

Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo map highlighted

Map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Prehistory and early history

The oldest human remains were found at the Ishango site ( see Ishango bones ). They go back to 25,000 to 20,000 years ago. Traces of settlement in the area of ​​today's Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have been known for a long time, date to around 10,000 BC. BC back. From 2,500 BC BC, inhabitants of the hunter-gatherer societies of the pygmies can be found in the rainforest regions . Around 800 BC Groups of Sudan and Nilots migrated from North and East Africa and brought the first livestock and agricultural techniques with them (see Imbonga horizon ).

Iron age

Expansion of the Bantu

From the 5th century onwards, the Bantu peoples , who initially only settled in the extreme northwest of Central Africa, gradually began to expand southwards. Its spread was accelerated by the transition from Stone Age to Iron Age techniques (which in Central Africa, unlike in Europe for example, only began at this time). While the peoples living in the south and south-west were mostly fishermen and woodland planters, whose technology was only slightly influenced by the development of metals, the metal tools developed during this period revolutionized agriculture and livestock farming and thus led to the displacement of the hunter-gatherer societies in the east and west Southeast. In the 10th century, the expansion of the Bantu in west-central Africa was complete. At the same time, increasing population numbers enabled local, later regional and supra-regional trade networks, which mainly traded salt, iron and copper.

Upemba cultures

In the Upemba Depression, a nearly 200 km long region along the Lualaba in the north of today's Katanga province , a cultural tradition began to develop in the fifth century. It ultimately flowed into the culture of the Luba Kingdom . This development was not without breaks, different societies and cultures followed one another; but they each emerged from the previous culture and used this as the foundation of their own society.

This tradition began in the fifth century with the emergence of the culture around Kamilamba on Lake Kabamba , which was replaced with the beginning of the Iron Age in the eighth century by the Kisali culture around the cities of Sanga and Katongo on Lake Kisale . This culture began in the ore-rich region with the processing of copper and iron . Especially in the late phase, these raw materials were processed with great skill, as were ivory and clay .

The combination of strong demand for metal products and the existence of an early but already extensive trade network (trade links stretched over 1,500 km to the Indian Ocean ) with good agricultural conditions and abundance of fish and game made the region so prosperous that cities could emerge and a centralization based on a chief system. This development became increasingly prevalent and culminated in the era of the Luba Kingdom, which began at the end of the 16th century.

Pre-Colonial Kingdoms

From the 13th century to the beginning of the 16th century, a number of kingdoms, some of which were very powerful, arose and passed away on the territory of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the most important being the Kingdom of the Congo , the Cuba Federation and the kingdoms of the Luba and Lunda .

Kingdom of the Luba

→ Main article : Kingdom of Luba

In the 16th century the kingdom of the Baluba emerged in the southeast of today's Katanga , which traced itself back to the mythical founder Kongolo, who conquered several chief villages with loyal followers and united them into a still growing empire. The Luba empire emerged from the tradition of cultures in the Upemba Depression and, unlike the surrounding chief societies, was organized centrally. The Luba kingship was powerful as an office, but not dynastically anchored. So there were repeated battles for the throne, which weakened the empire and contributed to its later collapse.

The founding father Kongolo was killed by Ilunga Mbidi at the end of the 16th century . The empire became restless and unstable. For the next hundred years or so, three dynasties ruled, which was a sign of the weakness of the monarchy. Nevertheless, the Luba empire reached its greatest extent to the shores of Lake Tanganyika at the end of the 17th century under Kumwimbu Ngombé .

In the middle of the 19th century, the kingdom ruled the south of Katanga into today's Zimbabwe , after which it gradually began to disintegrate due to the constant civil wars for the ruler's seat. In 1889 the royal line split and the kingdom disintegrated in the battle against the Chokwe .

One of the sons of the Congolese left the kingdom in the early 17th century and became the founder of the Lunda Empire .

Cuba Federation

→ Main article : Cuba Federation

The Cuba Federation with its capital Nsheng, today's Mushenge , was an association of around 20 ethnic groups, all of them Bantu . The Cuba got their name from their southern neighbors, the Luba.

The state of Cuba developed from the 16th century onwards from a decentrally organized tribal society of different peoples. the Luba, Leele and Wongo. Due to the relatively inaccessible location in the south of today's Congo, away from the Congo River, it was largely spared from the slave hunts of the Europeans and Afro-Arabs in the 18th and 19th centuries. By the second half of the 19th century, the federation, undisturbed by colonization in the west, had an area of ​​just over 100,000 km² (comparable to the size of the GDR) with around 150,000 inhabitants.

The Belgians had tried to gain entry to the Cuban Empire since the 1880s, but their gifts were always refused and King Kot aMbweeky aMileng threatened to behead any intruder. In 1892, however, the Afro-American Presbyterian missionary William Henry Sheppard was the first foreigner to penetrate the capital. Because of his black skin, he remained alive and was able to live among the Cuba for 4 months.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the empire became unstable and finally fell apart under the subsequent Leopoldine and later Belgian colonial rule .

Kingdom of the Congo

Historical map of the Congo

→ Main article : Kingdom of the Congo

The Kingdom of the Congo was probably founded around 1370. The founding father was Ntinu Wene (also called Lukeni). He was the first to conquer the kingdoms of Mbundu and Mpemba, where he founded the capital Mbanza Congo . He later contractually incorporated other kingdoms into his empire, which then represented a federation of four states.

At the time the Portuguese made contact, the empire extended with around 300,000 km² over parts of what is now Angola (three quarters), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (one quarter) and the Republic of the Congo (about 1%).

A Portuguese expedition sent by Diogo Cão after first reaching the Congo estuary in 1482 led to the first European contact with the king in 1489. In return, the incumbent King Nkuwu sent an emissary to Portugal, was baptized as João I in 1491 and received military help from the Portuguese in return.

After the death of Nkuwu / João I there was a power struggle. In the battle of Mbanza Congo, the Christian Mwemba, born around 1456, was able to prevail against his traditionally religious brother Mpanzu. As Dom Afonso I , he took over rule over the Congo in 1506. Mwemba / Afonso ruled over the Congo for 37 years and, as a pious Christian ruler, pursued a policy closely based on Portugal and the Christian brother states of Europe. His hope was to be permanently recognized by the Portuguese as equivalent through cooperation.

In 1512 the so-called Regimento of the Portuguese King Manuel I was issued , an instruction to his ambassador. It stipulated that the Portuguese should assist the King of the Congo in organizing his empire, including the establishment of a legal system and an army, missionary engagement and teaching the court in Portuguese etiquette. In return, the Congo was supposed to fill the Portuguese ships with valuable cargo, especially slaves, copper and ivory.

Again and again, however, Afonso saw himself treated unequally. In the beginning he tried to master the “shameless” behavior of the missionaries and the slave hunt of the Portuguese with diplomatic means. But he was not heard in Portugal and so expelled the Portuguese from the country in 1526. Missionaries and officials did, but not the dreaded slave hunters. While Portugal shifted its interests in response to the southern kingdom of Luanda , the Congo, which had long since become dependent on Portugal, lost power and stability.

After Afonso's death in 1543, Diogo I followed. Originally a hostile to Portugal, he invited missionaries back into the country in 1546. An attack by the Jaga people in 1569 led to a cry for help from Diogo's successor, Alvaro I, to Portugal. But the liberation from the Jaga was a Pyrrhic victory , Alvaro I had to go into the vassal service of Portugal, and the Congo became tributary . With this step, the originally postulated equivalence of the two kingdoms ended formally. The now freely expanding slave trade depopulated entire regions and gradually let the Congo fall apart.

When Antonio I (from 1661) declared the treaties concluded with Portugal invalid in 1665 and demanded the return of all areas annexed by Portugal, a Portuguese army defeated the Congolese army at the Battle of Ambuila , beheaded Antonio and took final control of the country that was broken up into individual provinces. The subsequent heads of state of the Rump Kingdom were powerless puppets; the Kingdom of the Congo ceased to exist in its original form after almost 300 years.

Exploration and annexation

Last African states

Without an independent and functioning state that was large enough to withstand the increasing activities of the European colonial powers in the Congo Basin , Central Africa was largely defenseless. At the beginning of the 18th century, the slave trade by Europeans, Afro-Arabs and some African peoples was able to be expanded systematically and undisturbed. From the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 19th century, between 13 and 20 million people were shipped as slaves from Africa, including about five million from the coast of the Congo and Angola - a tremendous loss affecting large parts of the region socially and economically devastated.

Kingdoms in the Congo continued to exist until the end of the 19th and sometimes the beginning of the 20th century, for example in the northeast the Kingdom of the Mangbetu (1815 – around 1895) and in the north the Sultanate of the Zande (1860 – around 1912). These, however, only survived with European toleration as either dependent and tributary vassal states or the smallest units in the areas that were still terra incognita for the Europeans until they were completely visited .

Henry Morton Stanley

Exploration of the Congo by Europeans

Since Diogo Cão first came into contact with the Congo in 1482 , the Europeans had limited themselves to exploiting the country as a slave supplier. For almost 400 years, European traders only settled on the coasts of the continent, where they had slaves delivered by Afro-Arab and African middlemen. With the gradual abolition of slavery in the middle of the 19th century, this interest declined. So the interior of the continent remained hidden from the Europeans for a long time.

In the 50s of the 19th century it was David Livingstone , a Scottish missionary, who was the first to use the Congo Basin to explore the coastal regions of the Congo. In another expedition in 1866 he was considered lost. The British journalist Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) sent to him by the New York Herald went in search of him in 1867 and found him on November 10, 1871 in Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika , the northern end of which they subsequently explored together.

Stanley had traveled widely, but it was his first time in Central Africa. He frankly admitted: “I hate this country with all my heart,” which did not prevent him from inseparably linking his name with that of the Congo. Stanley researched the course of the Congo River from 1874 to 1877, making him the first European to tour the Congo extensively.

Belgian colonial rule

Map of the Free State from 1906: the areas of concessions to various rubber companies

→ Main article : Leopold II (Belgium)

Congo Free State

Stanley's goal was to incorporate the Congo into the British colonial empire with his expeditions. Since Stanley had a dubious reputation as an American and the general mood in Britain was more against colonies, the British government refused to take over the Congo. The Belgian King Leopold II, however, had long been fascinated by the idea of ​​a colonial empire. As early as September 1876 he organized a large geographical conference in Brussels , which was about the exploration of the Congo, and at the same time founded a philanthropic society for the exploration of the Congo, the International Africa Society ( French Association Internationale Africaine ). Leopold wanted to take the opportunity of British disinterest, so he literally wooed Stanley and finally concluded an agreement with him that would last for five years in 1878: Stanley was supposed to buy up the land and make the unsailable cataracts on the river bypassable with roads. Leopold would take care of the constitutional part. Stanley received large sums of money from Leopold for this, but also had to raise additional funds to finance the expedition. So he went z. B. on a lecture tour and was even able to get mission societies to donate money.

Stanley Leopold's husband was in the Congo for five years. Officially, they went their separate ways, but Stanley was secretly still on the king's payroll. On Leopold's behalf, Stanley succeeded in "buying up" large parts of the Congo from 1879 to 1885 through 450 purchase contracts for the land around the river with various Bantu chiefs. The chiefs, mostly illiterate, who signed legal papers in a language unknown to them, could of course not foresee the scope of their deed. The most momentous clause of the treaties said " that any work, improvement, or expedition which the named Association may initiate in any part of these areas at any time should be supported by labor or otherwise ." The future forced labor was based on this clause.

Stanley had a road built from the mouth of the Congo to Stanley Pool (now Pool Malebo ), from where the Congo was navigable. Small steamships were brought there piece by piece and assembled. Stanley founded a town which he named Léopoldville (now Kinshasa ) after his patron . Further stations were planned and built along 1,500 kilometers of the river. All of this, it was externally presented, in the service of science and in the fight against slavery by Arab slave hunters.

Congolese village leveled for the purpose of creating a rubber plantation

Through all of these activities, Stanley and Leopold were initially able to maintain their good reputation. In 1884 Stanley also took part in the international Congo conference that Otto von Bismarck organized in Berlin. Since the mood in Belgium was more against colonies, Leopold of the Congo was awarded the privilege of belonging to the Belgian crown , with the obligation to “monitor the preservation of the indigenous population and the improvement of their moral and material living conditions, with the suppression of slavery and the To participate in the Negro trafficking ”and“ to protect religious, scientific and charitable institutions and enterprises for the benefit of the natives ”. In this way, Leopold succeeded in playing off the European powers against each other and in recognizing his private acquisitions, although this aroused desires among many European powers. France , which through Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, had started to buy land in the Congo itself, was granted a kind of “right of first refusal” should Leopold's plans fail. Portugal , which for its part had begun to acquire land in Portuguese Congo , was not impressed by the prospect of having powerful France as a neighbor instead of Leopold's weak Congo state. The British were satisfied by the free trade guarantees Leopold gave them. For Bismarck, on the other hand, the Congo Free State represented a welcome buffer between the British, French and Portuguese claim areas in Africa. Therefore prohibited Bismarck to anticipatory self initiatives of Eduard Schulze at Nokki and Paul Reichard in Katanga German colonial acquisition in Congo. In addition, Leopold had only limited resources and as a monarch seemed harmless.

As a result, on April 23, 1885, Leopold II declared the newly created Association Internationale du Congo (AIC) the owner of the Congo and issued a constitution for the Congo Free State . Since Leopold was the sole owner of the new company, the Congo was de facto his private property. In nominal terms, the newly created state was completely independent from the colonial power of Belgium. The Congo Free State had its own government in Boma , which only Leopold had to account for. With the so-called “ Force Publique ” he had his own army and his own diplomatic missions in other countries. This status was unique in colonial history. The local population was excluded from the political and military decisions that were reserved for the Belgian elite. The huge country, 75 times larger than Belgium, was gradually colonized and the existing Bantu empires smashed. In the course of taking possession of the territory, Christian proselytizing was promoted, which led to the establishment of schools and health centers.

In the following years Leopold invested large parts of his private fortune in the expansion of the state. New administrative outposts were set up and mission stations founded. At the same time, since Stanley's development, many children have been bought up from the clutches of Afro-Arab slave owners in eastern Congo. These bought up children and adolescents were sent to the administrative posts and missions as helpers, where they then, as mostly loyal subjects, helped to develop the country. Slowly the administrative and mission stations spread over the vast country. The mission stations in particular are of great importance in the history of the Congo, because for the first time in the history of the country people from different ethnic groups lived together and formed a new community. The Jesuits in particular took part in the missionary development of the country. Farms and new villages and settlements were built at the mission stations.

The state of Belgium, which granted him the 25 million francs (which were later increased by 7 million francs), now came de jure into contact with the politics of the Congo. At the same time, Leopold had free trade abolished, which was a catastrophe for the local population. While the population was previously able to sell ivory to European traders to earn a living, the nationalization of the country meant the complete collapse of the beginning economic cycle. Villages that used to hunt and fish to survive in addition to farming were now viewed as thieves who "stole" state property. If new fields were planted when the old ones became unusable as a result of intensive agriculture, this could be blamed on the people as "land grabbing". As a result, great famines broke out, affecting millions of people.

City foundations

During the time of the Free State and at the beginning of Belgian rule between 1880 and 1920, most of today's large cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were founded. They developed from the commercial, administrative and mission posts. Until then, there were only smaller towns at the mouth of the Congo River on the Atlantic. These were the port cities of Banana , Muanda , Boma and Matadi . These were rapidly expanded between 1880 and 1900 after the arrival of the Belgians. In the following years the Belgian inland founded in 1881 Leopoldville / Kinshasa , 1883 Stanleyville / Kisangani , Coquilhatville / Mbandaka , 1885 Luluabourg / Kananga , 1886 Goma , 1893 Kimwenza , 1903 Costermansville / Bukavu , 1907 Tshikapa , 1910 Bakwanga / Mbuji-Mayi and Élisabethville / Lubumbashi , 1937 Kolwezi , 1943 Jadotville / Likasi

traffic

At the time of the Free State, the Congo Current was the country's main means of transport. For this purpose, two railway lines were built in the west of the country. In 1898 the Matadi-Kinshasa Railway was put into operation, which connected the Atlantic with the inland. The Boma-Tshela Railway was built between 1898 and 1912 .

Between 1927 and 1937 the Belgians built the so-called Uelle railways in the north of the country . The Chemins de fer du Kivu line, which is now closed, was built in 1931 . Otherwise, from the 1930s onwards, the Belgians concentrated on expanding the new capital Léopoldville / Kinshasa . The first and so far only local transport system in the country was built here with the Kinshasa light rail system. To do this, they built Ndjili Airport and N'Dolo Airport .

The colonial army

In 1885 the " Force Publique " was created as the new army of the Free State. Recruits who joined the army were allowed to take their wives with them or to marry as soldiers, which was forbidden to soldiers in Belgium. These women were employed by the army and there was even a child allowance. In this way Leopold created a professional army that was unconditionally loyal to him , no longer had ties to their traditional ethnic groups and formed regular military clans, some of which have survived to the present day. At the same time, Belgian and foreign traders came into the country with free trade. A new caste of merchants was formed among the locals who bought ivory from the interior of the Congo , transported it to the coast and sold goods of lesser value in the villages along the way. During these years the character of the country changed. Previously, Stanley had primarily employed the English, alongside other Europeans, but now more and more Belgians took over the decisive functions in the new state.

The expansion of the " Force Publique " was the decisive step into terror. While it was a small but loyal and motivated professional army in the first few years, it was massively expanded in the following years. Administrative and mission stations had to provide a recruit for every 25th family . The military service lasted 7 years. For the local elite, this regulation was the ideal basis for getting rid of criminals and criminals. The new recruits were often not very motivated and completely undisciplined. At the same time, many former soldiers of the Afro-Arab slave traders were integrated into the army, who also had little loyalty, motivation and discipline. The slave traders had been subjected to several campaigns in Eastern Congo because many of them did not sided with the Free State like the Tippoo Tip . One of their greatest campaigns was the subjugation of the Azande people in 1904/05 in the border area with the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan , the so-called Zandeland.

The officers , who often came from the Belgian petty bourgeoisie and were often inadequately prepared for their tasks in Africa, often suffered from the murderous climate in remote, lonely posts, where they were not infrequently the only Europeans on hundreds of square kilometers. In 1908, only 3,000 Europeans lived in the Free State. 360 European officers were spread over an area of ​​Western Europe. In addition, there was an often hostile environment, which in turn promoted fear, loneliness, depression, and melancholy, which in turn were lived out in the end in omnipotence fantasies that remained without consequences in the law-free area.

Combating Slavery

In 1889 a large conference against slavery was held in Brussels . The slave traders were traditionally Afro-Arabs, the European slave trade was prohibited. The decisions of the conference therefore appeared to be unproblematic to the European participants. Leopold had Stanley appear at this conference in order to consolidate his own position and to put pressure on the Belgian parliament, which was to grant him a loan of 25 million francs. At this point in time, Leopold was on the verge of ruin. He had invested around 10 million francs, but only made 75,000 francs in income. Free trade prevented tariffs and the lack of a money economy made it impossible to raise taxes. The realization of the promises Leopold had made in 1885 was a long way off.

Children and adults whose hands were chopped off by the Belgian colonial rulers as a punishment. (From: King Leopold's self-talk by Mark Twain , 1905)

Congo horror

King Leopold II financed the development of the huge Congo by selling usage rights to companies. The concession companies pursued their economic goals with an unprecedented ruthlessness and brutality - even for the conditions at the time. These companies usually had Leopold as the main shareholder, or it was stipulated that the main profit had to go to the Free State, and thus ultimately directly to Leopold as its owner. The company Aversoise got z. B. an area over 160,000 square kilometers - twice the area of ​​Ireland - was awarded, which the company could exploit at will. Without exception, personalities from the Free State's political leadership sat on the administrative boards.

From the point of view of the ruling elites, natural rubber now meant the “ideal” tax for the population, as global demand for rubber increased. The provincial administrators began to demand a certain amount of rubber as a levy from the population. The locals had to move into the jungle to collect wild rubber. The Force Publique then collected this new rubber tax. The men who had to collect the rubber, however, were paid according to the amount collected. So there began a quest to maximize profits, which led to unprecedented tyranny. In 1891 100 tons of rubber were exported, by 1901 it was 6,000 tons. At the same time, this meant for the local population that they had less and less time to grow food. Anyone who did not deliver the required amount of rubber was shot. Hunting and fishing has been considered "poaching" since the country was nationalized in 1890. This led to famine, which in some areas fell victim to 60-90% of the population. The village of Lukolela, for example, had 6,000 inhabitants in 1891, compared to just 400 in 1903. Many people left the Free State or retreated into the jungle to escape the atrocities. The "Free State" was a state without free trade, free work and free citizens. Instead, forced labor and a monopoly economy prevailed.

Open mining in Shinkolobwe in the 1920s: men with wheelbarrows collect ore while a mine overseer looks on (1925)

Belgian Congo

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Belgian Congo with Rwanda-Urundi trustee area, after 1931

The brutal exploitation of the land and the population of the Congo Free State became known as the " Congo Abomination " and led to considerable unrest around the turn of the century. In the first years of the 20th century there were international protests, some of which were sparked by reports from missionaries reporting on atrocities committed by the colonial power. Under pressure from public opinion, Leopold II had to set up a commission of inquiry in 1904. After the commission uncovered the slave trade , forced labor and other abuses, the king was forced to implement reforms, but these were ineffective. In 1908 reports of the inhumane exploitation practices as so-called "Congo horrors" caused a stir and outrage internationally, alarmed the western nations and finally forced Leopold to sell the Free State of the Congo to the Belgian state . The latter paid the king 50 million Belgian francs , pledged the completion of the building projects supported by the king at the expense of 45 million francs and took over the state debt of 110 million francs. On November 15, 1908, it was converted into the Belgian Congo colony . The constitution, the Charte Coloniale , forbade any political activity in the colony and stipulated that the members of the government were not elected but appointed. Forced labor was also officially abolished on March 22, 1910. This measure was in fact ineffective, and the oppression of the local population continued. Between 1880 and 1920, the population of the Congo halved. Of the initially 20 million inhabitants, over 10 million died from violent colonial crimes, hunger, exhaustion from overwork and disease.

By exploiting the agricultural products rubber , palm oil and coffee from an expanding plantation economy as well as the mining products copper , lead , zinc and diamonds , Belgium succeeded in joining the group of successful colonial states. The powerful concession companies, above all the “Société Générale” founded in 1928, exerted a great influence on economic and political development in the Congo until the 1960s.

On August 5, 1914, the First World War began in Africa. In the following dispute between (mainly) Great Britain and the German Empire , Belgium supported the British offensive in German East Africa from June 1916 and occupied Rwanda-Urundi (today Rwanda and Burundi ). With the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 , the German Reich lost the colonies in East Africa under international law and Belgium received provisional administration via Rwanda-Urundi. In 1920 and 1923 the countries officially became the Belgian League of Nations mandate and on August 21, 1925, as mandate areas Rwanda-Urundi, administratively annexed to the colony of the Belgian Congo. In order to be able to better develop the Congo, which they consider to be underpopulated for the exploitation of raw materials, the Belgians promoted immigration mainly from Rwanda, which is still causing conflicts in the east of the country in particular.

Rwandan workers in the Kisanga mine, Katanga, 1928

Administrative division from 1933 to 1960

In the early to mid-1920s, a number of cults emerged, which were successfully established among the population in the following years and were rightly perceived by the colonial administration as a danger due to their recourse to African traditions and the establishment of nationalist ideas. Above all in the prophetic Kimbanguism that emerged around 1921 , which equated the situation in the Congo with that of Old Testament Israel and sought to establish a kind of "Kingdom of God on earth" with an independent African administration based on Christianity, as well as the Kitwala cult that emerged around 1925 Belgium saw a threat to colonial rule, so on February 11, 1926 a ban was issued against all African, including religious, organizations. At the same time the capital of the colony changed, the administration was moved from Boma to Léopoldville, today's Kinshasa .

Upswing in World War II

On October 28, 1906, the Union Minière du Haut Katanga company was founded and developed into a powerful monopoly company. It belonged to the largest Belgian trading company Société générale de Belgique , a group that gained considerable influence over the fortunes of the Congo in the years to come. The mining and finance company grew to enormous size in the boom of the 30s and 40s and organized the exploitation and plundering of the Congo. After the crackdown on secessionism in the mineral-rich province of the Katanga colony in 1931 and through World War II , the Congo's industry expanded; in particular the uranium , copper , palm oil and rubber industries experienced a great boom.

The Congolese army took part in the fight against the Axis powers in North and East Africa and in Southeast Asia during World War II . As a supplier of raw materials for the Allied war economy - including uranium for the US nuclear bomb program  - the Congo flourished economically during World War II. The infrastructure was expanded accordingly, and the first approaches to industrialization intensified urbanization tendencies . The African population received basic education and medical care, but was not involved in the administration. So until the 1950s there were no African leaders. The discontent of modern Africans grew. At the turn of 1941/1942 soldiers of the Force Publique shot at least sixty striking Congolese on a football field in Elisabethville .

In 1944, a treaty for the development of uranium deposits was signed with the USA, with Pierre Ryckmans, Governor General 1934-1946, playing a key role.

After the end of the war on December 13, 1946, Rwanda-Urundi was again administratively separated from the Congo as a UN trustee area under Belgian administration and released into independence on July 1, 1962. A repatriation of the numerous Rwandans who were brought to the Congo by the Belgians as “guest workers” was waived. Decades later, in the civil war of the 1990s, these became one of the sources of ethnic unrest in the east of the country.

post war period

The productivity of the colony continued to rise in the post-war period, but at the same time the authoritarian colonial policy of Belgium increased the resistance of the Congolese against foreign rule from the 1950s onwards. However, this was not to be understood as a nationalist striving for independence of the ethnically heterogeneous Congo, but rather as a common anti-Belgian movement.

To counter this, the Belgians initiated a series of reforms to take the lead from the resistance.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo was originally administered as the Belgian Congo by a legislative assembly and regional assemblies made up of only Europeans appointed by colonial authorities. By the late 1950s there was a greater turnout of Africans, but not full voting rights until independence when the colony was renamed Zaire . On December 8, 1957, the Congolese took part in local elections for the first time and won 130 of the 170 seats. From 1958 Belgium allowed the establishment of the first political parties, including those of the two most important parties in the future, the Abako ( Association du Bas-Kongo ) under Joseph Kasavubu , which had existed underground since 1950, and the MNC ( Mouvement National Congolais ) under Patrice Lumumba .

A congress of these as well as various ethnic-regional parties and national movements in 1959 demanded the immediate full independence of the Congo. The result was unrest to which the Belgian government reacted harshly. In October 1959, Lumumba was also arrested and tortured. After realizing that the Belgian government could not maintain control of the vast country, they released Lumumba on January 25, 1960. On January 1, 1960, the French government granted independence to neighboring Cameroon; in the course of 1960 it released another 13 French colonies into independence. Two days later, on January 27, 1960, Belgium announced elections and self-government and declared that it would withdraw from the Congo within six months. The promise was kept. The Congo gained its independence on June 30, 1960, after just under a month earlier, on May 25, 1960, the MNC had won the most votes in the Congo's first free elections.

independence

"Congo turmoil"

→ Main article : Congo crisis

Patrice Lumumba

The hasty withdrawal of Belgium from the Congo (only the military leadership remained in the hands of the Belgians) posed major problems for the independence movement because the country was in an extremely unstable state. Regional and ethnic leaders sometimes had more power than the central government in Kinshasa. This state of affairs was definitely intended by Belgium: In autumn 1959, the responsible Belgian colonial minister , August De Schryver, confided to a conversation partner that he was waiting to be “called for help in the ensuing chaos” (according to Van Bilsen, 1994).

The result of the election made Lumumba's Mouvement National Congolais the strongest faction in the fragmented parliament with 33 out of 137 seats. This result was not wanted by Belgium and the USA, who suspected Lumumba as communists and wanted to prevent the most resource-rich and largest black African country from turning to the communist camp at all costs. Her favorite was the more moderate Kasavubu. At the same time, the alliance, which had hitherto only been held together by the independence movement, broke up and internal conflicts broke out.

Patrice Lumumba became the first Prime Minister and Joseph Kasavubu became the first President of the Congo. They represented completely opposite political ideas. Kasavubu, whose party was particularly strong in Congo Central , promoted more federalist aspirations, in contrast to Lumumba, who was a centralist. Nonetheless, both strove to rule the country despite mutinies, insurrections and violence, even though it had become almost ungovernable with the hasty withdrawal of Belgium and its administration. Hardly any Congolese was able to seamlessly replace the trained Belgian civil servants. Fewer than 30 Congolese graduated from university in 1960. Of the 4500 highest officials in the state, only three were African. Also, Africans hardly had any capital. At the end of the 1950s, they made up 99% of the population and only had 55% of the wages. This development had been foreseen by Belgium, and it was hoped and expected in Brussels to be “called for help” and to be able to reappropriate the Congo. The Belgian troops still stationed in the Congo were supposed to help with this endeavor .

On July 5th, 1960 (?) The Belgian general of the Force Publique, Émile Janssens , declared to the Congolese soldiers in Kinshasa that "after independence = before independence". This was understood to mean that their status and role would not improve, but it should possibly only emphasize the need to maintain discipline and order. This resulted in a mutiny that spread across the country over the next few days and led to riots among civilians. As a result of negotiations with the mutineers, Lumumba and Kasavubu decided to fire the Belgian commander in chief and his staff. They appointed Victor Lundula as the new commander in chief and Joseph Mobutu as chief of staff , which promoted Mobutu , who was already in contact with the Belgian and US intelligence services, to an extremely powerful position alongside the weak Lundula. The unrest, the Africanization of the officer corps and the offer of a job in Belgium by the Belgian government led to a mass exodus of the Belgians, which resulted in the complete collapse of the civil administration.

War of Secession 1960

→ Main article : Katanga (state)

Moïse Tschombé proclaimed the independence of the Katanga province on June 29, 1960, one day before the Congo became independent , and only revoked this declaration under threat of arrest. Although Tschombé had revoked the declaration of independence, he had in no way distanced himself from his goal, the independence of Katanga. Only a few days later, on July 10th, Belgian troops intervened at his request in Elisabethville, now Lubumbashi , the capital of Katanga. The next day Katanga declared itself independent, with the support of Belgium, which saw in an independent, moderate Katanga the best possibility for control over the most resource-rich region of the Congo.

Kasavubu and Lumumba asked the UN for help in the “war with Belgium”. The UN, under its Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, did not refuse, and in its first African mission ONUC it also sent blue helmet soldiers to relieve the Belgian troops in the Congo. At the same time they worked to the USA, which avoided direct involvement in the conflict out of concern about an escalation with the USSR, but were not prepared to tolerate a Congo under Lumumba. For example, the UN prevented Kinshasa from attempting rearmament against Katanga, passed on confidential information to the USA and declared itself neutral in the critical war of secession between the Congo and Katanga.

Belgium in turn stationed the "released" troops from the Congo in Katanga. On August 8, with the help of the Belgian mining company Forminière , the mining province of South Kasai under Albert Kalonji also declared itself independent. On August 25th and 26th, the Congolese army briefly captured South Kasai and captured the capital Bakwanga , Kalonji fled to Katanga and returned to South Kasai with Belgian units. Defense and another attack by the Congo Army failed. During the military operations of the poorly equipped and undisciplined army, there were serious massacres of the civilian population, which are probably also caused by the methods of the " French doctrine " taught by the French Colonel Roger Trinquier , who served briefly in Katanga .

Lumumba's end

In this situation Lumumba asked - as was to be expected, in vain - the USA for help and then turned to the USSR with his request for help . From the point of view of the USA, he was finally discredited as a communist. President Eisenhower ordered the CIA to kill Lumumba on August 18, and in a telegram dated August 28 to a local agent Allen Dulles wrote : “We have decided that the elimination of Lumumba is our primary goal and that this goal is subordinate the circumstances enjoys within our secret action priority. " . A corresponding attempt to poison Lumumba failed, however, and the instructions were overtaken by the coming events.

Kasavubu, under pressure from the UN, the USA, Belgium and the secessionist provinces, sacked Lumumba as prime minister on September 5. However, the parliament rejected Kasavubu's motion, in return Lumumba again dismissed Kasavubu, but this motion also failed in parliament. On September 13, Lumumba once again expressed its confidence in Lumumba, shortly afterwards he was overthrown by his previous confidante, Army Chief of Staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, with the support of the CIA and the UN. Kasavubu remained in his office as head of state, but Lumumba was placed under house arrest. His deputy, the Vice Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga , evaded together with parts of the legal government to Stanleyville (today: Kisangani ) on October 14th , proclaimed a lumumbist counter-government on December 13th and occupied with the support of General Victor Lundula and, who had been dismissed by Mobutu Divide the army into the eastern provinces of Kivu and Orientale . This government was able to extend its sphere of influence to northern Katanga at times. On November 24th, however, under massive pressure from the USA, the UN General Assembly recognized the government of Kasavubu as the legitimate government of the Congo, which meant that Lumumba's dismissal was also recognized internationally. Three days later, on November 27, Lumumba managed to escape from house arrest in Kinshasa. He wanted to go to Kisangani to join Gizenga there. Although the population supported him in his escape, he was arrested again after four days of searching by the CIA, the Belgian secret service and Mobutu's troops near Mweka and taken to a military camp near Kinshasa in Thysville , from which he was no longer able to escape.

The turn of the year brought the alliance of Belgians, Americans, UN and Mobutu into trouble: The Lumumbists under Gizenga in Kisangani achieved success after success and controlled almost half the country, on January 9th they even occupied northern Katanga. In addition, Lumumba succeeded in getting some of the soldiers in the Thysville military camp on his side. After this began a mutiny, Belgium feared that Lumumba would flee again, and the Belgian Africa Minister Harold d'Aspremont Lynden decided to start his assassination. For this, Lumumba was flown out to Katanga on January 17, 1961 in a Sabena DC4 , formally referred to as “extradition” to Tschombé. On the way, Lumumba and his two companions were severely tortured and shot by a Belgian-Congolese commando the following night in Katanga. Five days later, a purely Belgian commando drove again to the savannah to the place of execution, exhumed the bodies, chopped them into pieces and dissolved them in sulfuric acid .

Civil war 1961–1963 and time until 1965

In February 1961, President Kasavubu dismissed the college of commissioners set up by Mobutu during the coup and installed a new government under Prime Minister Joseph Iléo , Mobutu withdrew to his military function. After Kasai's secession ended in December and, on January 16, 1962, Congo and UN troops captured Kisangani , the capital of the Lumumbist government, and arrested Antoine Gizenga, Kasavubu ruled almost all of the Congo, except for Katanga, which was still secessionist. The new prime minister was now Cyrille Adoula . However, neither Belgium nor the USA had any further interest in independent provinces and withdrew their support to Katanga. With the help of the UN blue helmets, Katanga's state independence also ended in January 1963 and Chombé went into exile in Spain.

In 1964 the UN mission in the Congo ended and the blue helmets withdrew. Under pressure from European countries and the USA, President Kasavubu asked Tschombé to form a government. Immediately afterwards, uprisings began among remaining lumumbist associations with the aim of driving Belgians and Americans out of the Congo. In particular, the 1964 Simba rebellion, with Laurent Kabila playing a major role , was jointly put down by Belgians, Americans and the Congolese army under Tschombé with Operation Dragon Rouge and Dragon Noir , but the civil war continued.

The second parliamentary elections in May 1965 took place in a country traumatized and torn by war. Tschombé managed to forge a party alliance that actually helped him to power, but Kasavubu refused to entrust the victor Chombé with forming a government and instead appointed Évariste Kimba (1926-1966) on October 13 . His “election”, however, was rejected by parliament on November 14th, the state was blocked like in 1961, a situation that Mobutu used as an opportunity to put himself into power for the second time, this time for the last time, on November 24th.

Mobutu's dictatorship

Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu's coup marked the end of democracy and the beginning of more than three decades of dictatorship, which would prove to be one of the most brutal and corrupt regimes in post-colonial Africa. To consolidate his still young rule, he used a combination of violence, corruption and the early elimination of possible alternative centers of power, a combination that remained formative for all of his subsequent rule. Unlike the previous politicians in the young country, he did not find his power base in a party or an ethnic group (ie in any way the "people"), but in the military he controlled and in his ally, the USA. At the same time, in the years since independence, he had built up a far-reaching network of contacts, alliances, connections and obligations in the state apparatus and beyond, which made him almost invulnerable to his opponents and enabled him to gradually increase his opponents in the years to come after turning off. Ironically, it was precisely this invulnerability that initially made him popular with the people, because after the colonial era, the disappointed hopes of independence and the years of civil war, the people only wanted peace and therefore initially welcomed Mobutu's "purges".

Consolidation and "authenticity"

After "pacifying" the country, Mobutu began to consolidate his rule. He dissolved the regional parliaments, banned all ethnic organizations and all political activity for a period of five years. On March 22, 1966 he made the military Léonard Mulamba prime minister, elevated himself to president and assumed all legislative power. He had Evariste Kimba and several ministers of the legal government executed as a "spectacular example" (Mobutu). He temporarily shut down Tschombé and Kasavubu in order to "behead" a possible future opposition. Tschombé was again in exile in Spain and was convicted of treason in absentia. Kasavubu was deposed and retired to his home village. Léonard Mulamba took his office. Tschombé and Kasavubu both died in 1969, whether Mobutu was involved in their death is still unclear. Mobutu was also able to defeat a revolt by Chombé's mercenary army in 1967 , which had captured Bukavu from August to November 1967 .

Mobutu in Washington with US President Richard Nixon , October 10, 1973

At the same time he began with the ideological underpinning of his rule. In 1967 he had already founded his own party, the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution .

The Referendum Act N ° 67-223 Enactment Act of May 3, 1967 recognized the right of all Congolese, regardless of gender, to participate in the constitutional referendum. This introduced women's suffrage . The law on the elections to the legislative assembly and the presidential elections of April 17, 1970 gave men and women explicitly the right to stand as a candidate, as was provided for in the 1967 constitution.

The Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution declared the one-party state and all citizens to be members in November 1970 and elevated itself to the highest state organ. Already in the founding manifesto, the MPR propagated the authenticity , a Congolese variant of the Négritude . She referred to the "values ​​of the ancestors" and the misconception of the Congo as a cultural unit, as a result of which the country was, among other things, "Africanized". From October 27, 1971 , the Democratic Republic of the Congo traded as Zaire - a name originally a result of misunderstandings: When the Portuguese landed and asked for the name of the Congo River, the locals thought they wanted to know how to use “river” in the local language says. The answer was therefore "N'Zadi" = the river on Lingala , one of today's four national languages. The Portuguese understood "N'zaire". In February 1972 all Christian first names were Africanized and the abacost , a special suit, was made mandatory as a garment for men. This ideological substructure, corresponding to the time, was, however, a pure facade. The last big measure under their mantle was the zairization of the economy in 1973, i.e. the nationalization of the large corporations, which until then were mostly in Belgian hands, after which authenticity flagged . Temporary attempts were made to replace “Mobutism”, a religious transfiguration of Mobutu as a divine figure, which, however, failed grandly among the people; thereafter the leadership ended the attempt at ideological justification.

Sack of Zaire

Ousted politically by the USA and economically by Mobutu since the Zairization, the Belgians, who had ruled the Congo for so long, were from now on irrelevant. Under the condition of the USA to reserve the natural resources of Zaire for the West, Mobutu was now the absolute ruler of Zaire. There were always minor uprisings or attempts to overthrow, but Mobutu was usually able to put them down quickly through military intervention, and in some cases he also made use of foreign mercenary troops. Complete control of the country's extreme natural resources gave him the opportunity to enrich himself indefinitely, and in 1984 he had an estimated $ 4 billion in assets.

But Mobutu was not the only one to “make use”. Corruption, theft and embezzlement soon became a top priority for those in office. This attitude went so far that, for example, in 1994 several army generals secretly sold the Mirage aircraft of the Zairean Air Force. The state and its administration became inoperable within a very short time and only served to enrich the ruling class. Since no investments were made and development aid money usually disappeared directly into Mobutu's accounts, the productivity of the Zairean economy continued to decline. The country's copper production in 1995 was only eight percent of the 1984 output. At the end of the 1980s, the state was in complete economic decline.

Fall of Mobutu

With the collapse of the socialist states from 1989 and the end of the Cold War, the relationship between Mobutu's rule and the previous protective powers, the USA and France, also cooled dramatically. After internal unrest and external pressure at the beginning of the 1990s, Mobutu initiated a reform process and began to maneuver for power. In 1990 he was the first to announce the end of the one-party system. Over 200 parties came into being in a very short time, and in the following year Mobutu installed a “Sovereign National Conference” to which all parties were invited. However, he smashed this national conference under the pretext of “ethnic one-sidedness” in its composition and at the same time drove wedges between the individual groups by promoting ethnic conflicts. However, he was no longer able to reinstall his own power; his actions, sometimes with military force, prevented the democratization of Zaire, pursued by the new political parties, but not the erosion of his dictatorship. Rebel groups pushed their way into the power vacuum, especially in parts of the country far away from the capital, and from July 1994 this was particularly fueled by fugitive soldiers and militiamen of the local regime who fled to Zaire with hundreds of thousands of Hutu after the genocide in Rwanda.

"Dynasty" Kabila and the Congo War

→ Main articles : First Congo War  and Second Congo War

Laurent-Désiré Kabila

In September 1996, fueled by the influx of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi , a rebellion began in eastern Zaire under the leadership of Laurent-Désiré Kabila , with military support from Rwanda and Uganda. Although he was not taken seriously for a long time, Kabila managed to overthrow the old, seriously ill and internationally isolated Mobutu on May 16, 1997; he moved into Kinshasa and declared himself new president on May 29th. Mobutu went into exile in Morocco , where he died on September 7, and Zaire was renamed Congo again.

Areas of power in the DR Congo

But this change of power should not stabilize the Congo. Rwanda and Uganda were not interested in a stable government, tried to damage Kabila's rule by supporting various rebellions and thus started the Congo War . In August 1998, this led to Kabila's break with his neighbors and former supporters, with support from Zimbabwe , Angola , Namibia , Chad and Sudan , whose governments he guaranteed access to the country's natural resources. For example, Zimbabwe received shares in the production of the Congolese diamond mines in exchange for military aid. An attempted coup against Kabila in Kinshasa failed because Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia intervened militarily on Kabila's side. On July 10, 1999, the Kabila government and the rebels signed a ceasefire agreement in Lusaka , but this was repeatedly broken by fighting. As a result, the country split into several domains. The fighting lasted until June 2000.

On February 24, 2000, Security Council Resolution 1291 created MONUC ( United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ); their headquarters were set up in Kinshasa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo was divided into six sectors, each with a MONUC headquarters. However, Kabila did not agree to the stationing of blue helmet soldiers until the UN conference in Lusaka in August 2000. With the exception of Uganda, all warring parties also agreed to withdraw their troops from the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On January 16, 2001, Kabila was assassinated , allegedly by his bodyguard.

Joseph Kabila and the rebuilding

Joseph Kabila

Immediately after his father's murder, Kabila's son Joseph initially took over his father's official duties temporarily. On January 26, 2001, he officially “inherited” his position as President of the DR Congo. As one of his official acts, he pushed the peace process and allowed the UN blue helmets to be stationed along the front line to the rebels. In December 2002 the government and rebels signed a peace agreement in Pretoria and in July 2003 they formed a joint government. The first democratic elections in the country's history were announced for 2005, but not held until one year later, in 2006. In 2002 there was a humanitarian catastrophe when one of the Virunga volcanoes erupted in the east of the country, which had already been devastated by the war , claiming 147 lives and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless.

In May 2003, a conflict between militias of the Hema and Lendu peoples, which had been smoldering since 1999, intensified in the Ituri district in northeastern DR Congo , and bloody massacres broke out in the district capital, Bunia . As a result, as part of the EU Artemis mission , a French reaction force with logistical help from Germany was sent to the region for three months, a mission that ended in September 2003. On June 10, 2004, there was an attempted coup against Joseph Kabila. The uprising by a major in the Presidential Guard was quickly put down after he occupied the Kinshasas hydroelectric power station and radio station .

Reconstruction was made more difficult by the almost complete disintegration of the country's infrastructure, administration and economy and, in particular, by the plundering of the extremely resource-rich eastern provinces of the Congo, in which the central government is almost completely powerless, mainly by Ugandan , Rwandan and Burundian forces. During this time, Kabila was able to fend off several uprisings, uprisings and revolts.

According to the International Rescue Committee, 3.9 million people died in the Congo from 1998 to 2004, the majority however due to illness and a lack of food. Nowhere else have so many people died in such a short period of time since World War II. The UN estimates that 1,000 people are victims of violence every day. In the province of South Kivu alone, around 10,000 women were systematically raped between 2003 and 2005 - unofficial estimates put as many as 500,000 rapes.

First elections 2006

Polling station under the guard of Finnish blue helmets

→ Main article : Election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2006

The elections originally planned for 2005 were to be seen as the central event of the country's consolidation. Voter registration was to begin in mid-June and the election was to take place in the course of the year. On May 17, 2005, the new constitution required for this was passed by Parliament, which replaced the two-year-old transitional constitution. To come into force, however, this had to be confirmed in a referendum, which postponed the elections until 2006; Two ballots were now planned for parliamentary and presidential elections on April 29 and June 2, 2006.

It was feared, however, that the elections could lay the seed for new military conflicts and fuel the war again. Three candidates were seen as promising rivals for the office of president, namely next to Kabila the politically close Mobutu Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba and the former head of the central bank Pierre Pay-Pay . The opposition leader and former Prime Minister Etienne Tshisekedi did not run. All candidates had a strong military base, for example Kabila controlled Katanga province, Tshisekedi controlled Kasai province and Pay-Pay an alliance of politicians in Kinshasa and some militia leaders. The elections and the democratization process should therefore be protected by a UN mission. At the beginning of 2006, around 17,000 military observers and soldiers were involved in the Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (MONUC).

Joseph Kabila managed to win the election after a runoff against Bemba; Despite isolated riots, there were no serious military conflicts.

In June 2007, Bemba caused a sensation with the decision not to return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for security reasons after a stay abroad. While the stay abroad was initially viewed as a measure of relaxation, there are fears that the absence of Bembas in the country could weaken the opposition and thus create an imbalance.

Eastern Congo conflict

The following important information is missing from this article or section:

See Democratic Republic of the Congo # Conflict in Eastern Congo

Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

→ Main articles : Third Congo War  and Movement March 23rd

Elections 2018 and Tshisekedi's presidency

→ Main article : Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2018

Kabila postponed the presidential and parliamentary elections due in 2016 several times - according to the constitution, he was no longer allowed to run. Finally, the elections took place on December 30, 2018 . In a controversial vote, Félix Tshisekedi , who was said to have a secret agreement with Kabila, won. In the simultaneous parliamentary election, Kabila's PPRD won an absolute majority of the parliamentary seats.

proof

• Bernd Ludermann (Hrsg.): Congo - history of a battered country. World Mission Today. Landesheft, 55th Hamburg 2004, ISSN  1430-6530 (Very good overview of the history, culture and society of the Congo.)

Pre-Colonial History

• Roland Oliver, Brian M. Fagan: Africa in the Iron Age, C. 500 BC to AD 1400. Cambridge 1975, ISBN 0-521-09900-5 (About the Iron Age in Africa).
• Graham Connah: African Civilizations - An Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge 2001, ISBN 0-521-59690-4 (Archaeological findings on pre-colonial cultures in Africa, including Upemba cultures).
• Peter N. Stearns (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of World History. Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Boston 2001, represent: Bantua expansion and Upemba cultures
• Jan Vansina: The Children of Woot: A History of the Kuba Peoples. Wisconsin 1978, ISBN 0-299-07490-0 (History of Cuba).

Colonial and Post-Colonial History

• Adam Hochschild : Shadows over the Congo - The story of an almost forgotten crime against humanity. Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-91973-2 (On Leopold's rule and its end).
• Michela Wrong : In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. Mobutu's rise and Congo's fall. Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89320-058-4 (journalistic work on the structures of the Mobutu dictatorship).

present

• Dominic Johnson : Congo? No thanks! and what a mission in the Congo is about. in: the daily newspaper . Berlin January 28, 2006, p. 2 ISSN  0931-9085

further reading

Pre-Colonial History

• Pierre de Maret: The power of symbols and the symbols of power through time: probing the Luba past. In: Susan Keech McIntosh (Ed.): Beyond Chiefdoms - Pathway to complexity in Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1999, ISBN 0-521-63074-6 , (On the history of the Luba).
• William Sheppard : Presbyterian Pioneers in Congo. Presbyterian Committee of Publication, Richmond VA 1916, (right objective report on Sh.'s time in the Congo and his first contact with the Cuba).

Colonial and Post-Colonial History

• Emile Banning: L'association internationale africaine et le comité d'études du Haut Congo 1877–1882. Institut national de geographie, Brussels 1882, (on the work of the Association Internationale Africaine).
• White Paper, presented to the German Reichstag in the 1st session of the 6th legislative period (1885). Heymann, Berlin 1885, (contains the text of the Congo Act).
• Roger Trinquier , Jacques Duchemin, Jacques Le Bailly: Notre guerre au Katanga. Editions de la Pensée Moderne, Paris 1963.
• Jef Van Bilsen: Congo, 1945–1965. Het einde van een colony. 2. volledig herziene druk. Davidsfonds, Leuven 1993, ISBN 90-6152-599-3 , ( Historische reeks - Davidsfonds 11), (Insider report on the end of the Congo Colony).
• Ludo De Witte: Government Commission Murder. The death of Lumumbas and the Congo crisis. Forum-Verlag, Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-931801-09-8 , (documents the involvement of the Belgians in the Lumumba assassination).
• George Nzongola-Ntalaja: The Congo from Leopold to Kabila. A People's History. Zed Books, London et al. 2002, ISBN 1-84277-053-5 , (History of the Congo in the 20th Century, Congolese author).
• Robert B. Edgerton: The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo. St. Martin's Press, New York NY 2002, ISBN 0-312-30486-2 , (anthropologically colored history of the Congo).
• Kalala Ilunga Matthiesen: The Democratic Republic of the Congo. An analysis from the point of view of state theory, constitutional law and international law . Waxmann, Münster 2005. ISBN 3-8309-1459-8 .
• Dominic Johnson : Congo. Wars, Corruption and the Art of Survival. Brandes & Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-86099-743-7 .
• David Van Reybrouck : Kongo: Eine Geschichte Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-518-42307-3 .
• Nancy Rose Hunt: A Nervous State. Violence, Remedies, and Reverie in Colonial Congo . Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, USA 2016, ISBN 978-0-8223-5946-3 .

Filmography

• Beyond the Ruwenzori . Indie Feature Film, USA, 1961, with Roger Moore , director: Gordon Douglas .
• The laughing man. Documentary, GDR, 1966
• Lumumba - death of the prophet. Film essay, Germany, 1991, directed by Raoul Peck
• Mobutu - King of Zaire. Belgium, 1998, directed by Michel Thierry
• Lumumba. Feature film, France, Belgium, Haiti, Germany, 2000, director: Raoul Peck
• Colonial Murder - Patrice Lumumba, an African Tragedy. FRG, 2000, director: Thomas Giefer
• The price for peace. Documentary, France, 2004, directed by Paul Cowan
• White king, red rubber, black death . (OT: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death. ) Documentary, Belgium, 2004, 90 min., Director: Peter Bate, summary by arte .
• Shadows over the Congo. (OT: King Leopold's Ghost. ) Documentation, USA 2006, 95 min., Script and director: Pippa Scott, production: Linden, German first broadcast: May 5, 2008, WDR , synopsis from WDR, film website (award-winning documentary after the book of the same name ( King Leopold's Ghost ) by Adam Hochschild.).
• Katanga , mercenary film with Rod Taylor, Jim Brown and others Directed by Jack Cardiff from 1968. The film was shot during the turmoil of the Congo and so reflects the current situation in Katanga at the time. After the hasty withdrawal of the colonial power Belgium from the Belgian Congo, the country plunged into a vortex of violence and anarchy. Despite the involvement of the United Nations, the Congo became the plaything of the two great powers of the Cold War and today suffers from the failures of the past, the consequences of decades of dictatorship and repeated battles.

Web links

Commons : History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wikimedia Atlas: Democratic Republic of the Congo  - geographical and historical maps

Wikisource: Agreement between the German Empire and the International Society of the Congo (1884)  - sources and full texts

• Karl Wirtz: Congo: History and State. In: LIPortal .
• Gertrud Kanu, Iseewanga Indongo-Imbanda: The history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In: Kongo-Kinshasa (private website).
• Digital congo. TV channel (French, English; history, background and current information).
• Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Country information from the Federal Foreign Office .

Individual evidence

1. ^ I. Crevecoeur, A. Brooks, I. Ribot, E. Cornelissen, P. Semal: Late Stone Age human remains from Ishango (Democratic Republic of Congo): New insights on Late Pleistocene modern human diversity in Africa , in: Journal of Human Evolution 96 (2016) 35-57.
2. ↑ European Institute for Political, Economic and Social Questions (Ed.): Internationales Afrikaforum. Volume 4, Weltforum Verlag, London 1968, p. 35.
3. ↑ whole section: Erwin Herbert, Ian Heath: Small Wars and skirmishes 1902-18 ; Nottingham 2003; ISBN 1-901543-05-6 , pp. 44-48.
4. ^ Ron Vaughan: The Force Publique of the Belgian Congo ; in: Soldier and Savage, Volume 7, No. 3
5. ^ Robert Harms: The Origin of Value . The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets. Ed .: William N. Goetzmann, K. Geert Rouwenhorst. Oxford University Press , 2005, ISBN 0-19-517571-9 , King Leopold's Bonds, pp. 357 ( online ).
6. ↑ David Van Reybrouck: Congo. A story. Paperback edition, Suhrkamp: Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-46445-8 , pp. 219ff.
7. ^ David Van Reybrouck: Congo. A story. Paperback edition, Suhrkamp: Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-46445-8 , p. 232.
8. ↑ BR1 - 50th Anniversary - The very first beginning (English) ( Memento from April 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
9. ↑ 1952-2002 - Brochure on the 50th anniversary of the Belgian Nuclear Research Center ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), page 6
10. ↑ June Hannam, Mitzi Auchterlonie, Katherine Holden: International Encyclopedia of Women's Suffrage. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-57607-064-6 , p. 6.
11. ^ Church Committee: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. , United States Government Printing Office , Washington 1975
12. ↑ - New Parline: the IPU's Open Data Platform (beta). In: data.ipu.org. April 17, 1970, accessed September 30, 2018 . 
13. ^ Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 88.
14. ^ The first elections in 2006. In: Kongo.info .
15. ↑ John James: DR Congo's Bemba to stay abroad ; BBC News of June 10, 2007.
16. ↑ An evil broom dance in FAZ of 14 September 2016 Page N3

This version was added to the list of excellent articles on December 4th, 2004 .