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The site of Joseph Conrad's gruesome "Heart of
Darkness," Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly
Zaire) is a country severely handicapped by a long
legacy of violence and dictatorship. By the late 17th
century, attacks from outside tribes and raids to supply
the Arab and European slave trade had destroyed a network
of prosperous Congolese city-states, including the
powerful Kongo kingdom. In the 1880s, the area came
under the control of Belgium's King Leopold II, who ran it
as his private colony, brutally stripping Congo of its
raw materials at the cost of thousands of lives.
Transferred to the Belgian government in the early
1900s, the Belgian Congo finally exploded in 1959 in an
uprising that sent the Belgians packing within six months.
Congo's first elected ruler, the left-leaning Patrice Lumumba, was murdered in a CIA-backed assassination plot. Strongman
Joseph Mobutu followed Lumumba, ruling for more than
30 years and siphoning off large portions of the country's
wealth to Swiss bank accounts and estates on the
French Riviera. In 1997, rebels led by Laurent Kabila
ousted Mobutu, and immediately renamed the country the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kabila ruled for just
under four years before a bodyguard's bullet killed him. His
son, Major-General Joseph Kabila, took his place, but Congo's troubles show no sign of abating. Since 1998, civil war has raged in Congo, with six countries joining the fray in a rush for diamonds, timber and other assets. Rebel groups backed by Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda control eastern and northern Congo, while government troops backed by Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia hang on to the west.
Photo Caption: The Village Of Kanyabayonga, Eastern Congo Credit: Sebastian Bolesch/Das Fotoarchiv, www.africa-Photo.com |
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