Earlier this month, the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) engaged in talks about a deal that would see the U.S. invest billions of dollars to explore minerals while helping to end years of conflict in the central African nation. The potential deal is seen by some as exploitative and retrogressive to the Congo, and it is important to know why.
In a perfect world, the DRC would be on your bucket list of must-visit countries. Home to the second-largest tropical forest on the planet, it rivals Brazil in natural beauty. The DRC could become an economic superpower through processing and exporting its rich mineral deposits critical in manufacturing mobile phones, computers, and electric cars. An agreement with the U.S. could give the world’s fashion capitals a run for their money with the DRC’s culturally rich, authentic fashion, not to mention its diverse tourism opportunities with abundant wildlife, mountains, rivers, food, and music.
However, the DRC, a country the size of Western Europe, has been held hostage by a war affecting roughly 1/3 of its territory and disrupting the stability of its governance. To understand how the DRC became home to the world’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War, we need to look back in time.
Congo started as the Kingdom of Kongo with an area covering modern-day Angola, Congo-Brazzaville, and Gabon. The contentious Eastern Congo, the site of decades of conflict, was not part of the Kongo empire. In the 1800s, King Leopold II of Belgium sent explorers to the Kongo to capitalize on huge demand for rubber and ivory. Rubber was used in making tires and other machinery products, and ivory in luxury items such as piano keys, carvings, and jewelry.
The availability of these materials in abundance inspired King Leopold to establish the Kingdom of Kongo as his private company, The Congo Free State. This company focused its energy on extraction of these resources to meet demand in Europe, and with it came a brutal regime of forced labour and punitive measures that included mutilation and executions of labourers to ensure compliance.
While the regime around the Congo basin controlled production, Arabs on the east side of the region controlled trade. Arabs who had taken control of the larger part of East Africa dominated ivory and slave trade. Their influence and control included parts of today’s Eastern Congo. But from 1892 to 1894, the Congo Free State sought to monopolize these resources for European profit. With Central Africa supplying 80% of the world’s ivory at the time, Leopold sought to corner the market, which led to a clash with Arab-Swahili networks.
This conflict laid the groundwork for future battles over resources and territorial control. It also meant some Tutsis were moved from Rwanda into (now) Eastern DRC as part of the labour market. They settled and became known as the Banyamulenge.
In the 1950s, Belgium lost control over the Congo and started preparing a 30-year plan for the country’s “self-rule”. A decade later, the Democratic Republic of Congo became independent. But peace and stability did not last long. A year into independence in 1961, prime minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated, the president Joseph Kasavubu had to contend with secession threats, and before he could consolidate power, Kasavubu was overthrown by army chief Joseph Mobutu.
Mobutu was in power for 32 years. His rule was characterized by nationalizing DRC’s resources and trying to make the nation more patriotic, a bid to wean the country of colonial influence. This included a change of name from Democratic Republic of Congo to Zaire. But default on loans, economic decline, corruption and a ban on multiparty politics put his rule on the edge.
In neighbouring Rwanda, another Belgian colony and Zaire’s neighbour in the East, something was happening that would lead to the demise of Zaire; the 1994 Rwandan genocide against Tutsis. Remember, some Tutsi had moved into Zaire? Despite the Banyamulenge being in the country at the time of independence, they were not recognized as part of the citizenry and were even denied citizenship.
So, when the Rwandan genocide took place in 1994, most Tutsis fled across the boarder into Eastern Congo, where they were welcomed by fellow Tutsis (the Banyamulenge). The 100-day genocide in Rwanda resulted to 1.4 million fleeing to Zaire. They included Tutsis at first, then the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), who had been defeated and overthrown by Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1994.
As RPF set up a new government in Rwanda, the runaway FAR and Hutu extremists were planning to return to power in Rwanda. They regrouped, rearmed, and started retaliatory attacks as Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda famously known by the initials FDLR.
They attacked and killed Tutsi refugees in DRC. Around the same time, Mobutu’s reign in Zaire was on the verge of collapse. Mobutu’s incapability to control FAR and his support of the fleeing rebels led to the first Congo war from 1996-1997. The war, led by Rwanda, had the blessing of Burundi and Uganda (which were fighting Allied Democratic Forces ADF, an extremist group in western Uganda-Eastern Congo), Eritrea, and Angola – all allied to Rwanda and which felt the threat of FDLR rebels in Congo posed a security threat to their own countries.
The combined forces supported Zaire rebels resentful of Mobutu’s corrupt rule. The rebellion was led by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Mobutu was overthrown, and Kabila became president. The FAR’s collapse marked the end of Hutu extremist rule in Rwanda and the rise of the RPF government, which still holds power today under Paul Kagame. However, former FAR elements remain active in eastern DRC, as does the FDLR, a persistent security threat.
The fall of Mobutu was consequential. While it ended one of Africa’s strongest dictatorships, it opened doors to the deadliest war on the continent. Laurent Kabila’s rise to power exposed the fault lines in Eastern Zaire that have been a source of unending conflict. Kabila’s role coming to power was to stay loyal to those who helped him take over the government, mainly by eliminating FAR remnants in Zaire. But this would prove very challenging.
To show he was in control, Kabila changed the country’s name from Zaire back to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). There was disquiet about Kabila being a puppet for Rwanda and Uganda, DRC’s two main neighbours to the East. Kabila refused to “play ball” and ordered the departure of Rwandan and Ugandan troops from Eastern DRC. Refusal to align with people who put him in power led to the Second Congo War (1998–2003), in which Rwanda aimed to create a buffer zone along its border.
Rwanda backed the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), which took control of border city Goma. Uganda backed the Jean-Pierre Bemba-led Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), which fought alongside RCD in seeking to remove Kabila from power.
One year into his reign. Kabila got the backing of his trading block South African Development Community (SADC) with Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia sending troops to back the government in repelling the rebels. Kabila also got support from Sudan and Chad.
On November 6, 1998, Rwanda admitted for the first time that Rwandan forces were assisting the RCD rebels for security reasons. RCD would split in 1999 and form RCD-Goma with its base in Goma. This five-year war claimed the lives of millions of Congolese through fighting, disease, hunger and violent attacks including on women and children.
There was also unabated plunder of minerals from the Eastern DRC, including gold, diamonds and coltan. Several mediation processes were organized in Libya, and later Zambia’s capital Lusaka. The six countries involved in Congo’s second war agreed to a ceasefire, and later the rebel groups joined.
However, peace continued to be elusive, and a UN resolution sent peacekeeping troops to the DRC to monitor the ceasefire agreement in 2000. In 2001, Laurent Kabila was shot dead by his bodyguard, sparking another round of violence.
Laurent’s son Joseph Kabila would replace his father as president and actively pursue peace. In 2002, Joseph’s forces signed the Luanda Agreement, which called for all sides to stop military operation. But RCD-Goma violated the ceasefire agreement repeatedly. A year later, Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese-Tutsi and a former intelligence officer in the Rwandan Patriotic Front who fought in Rwanda in 1994, took the helm of RCD-Goma.
The war would end in 2003, with Nkunda integrated in the Congolese army. A year later, he fell out with the government and went into the forest, emerging years later with new rebel/political outfit the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP). Nkunda recruited other rebel groups and leaders including Bosco Ntaganda.
CNDP’s position was to defend the Tutsi population and claimed to be combatting the FDLR. At the same time, DRC experienced relative peace and even organized its first general election, which saw Joseph Kabila elected. This weakened Nkunda’s influence, leaving him to making threats of attacking Kinshasa, the home of government some 1,500 km west of Goma. In 2009, Nkunda was arrested, and Ntaganda took the reins of CNDP. Ntaganda would lead CNDP to integration in the national army in a deal struck on March 23, 2009. The goal of army integration was to initiate joint operations with Rwandan forces against the FDLR remnants.
But the local population was not happy with the move. They viewed CNDP leaders as perpetrators of crimes committed in the CNDP rebellion. CNDP rebels soon turned against the government, citing poor conditions in the army and the government’s unwillingness to implement the peace agreement. They also resisted government efforts to redeploy them outside entrenched power bases, which led to the creation of a third Tutsi-led rebel movement after RCD and CNDP.
M23 was born in 2012, named after the date of the March 23, 2009, peace deal. Since its creation, M23 has captured significant territory in eastern DRC, but it has faced pushback from the government. It resurfaced in 2021, launching an offensive that has captured key cities including Goma and Bukavu. The conflict has led to widespread displacement, human rights abuses, and a humanitarian crisis.
M23’s demands from the DRC government include greater political autonomy for Tutsi communities, protection against discrimination, and the implementation of past agreements. The group also seeks the withdrawal of foreign military forces from the region.
The DRC government has made various efforts to achieve peace, including engaging in regional mediation processes such as the Nairobi and Luanda talks. The government has sought support from international organizations and neighbouring countries to address the crisis.
Direct peace talks this month facilitated by Qatar marked a potential step toward resolving the conflict. However, just a few hours prior to this article being published (April 23), delegations representing the DRC and M23 left the negotiating table after failing to make progress toward a ceasefire. Neither side has indicated interest in returning to the talks.
