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Democratic Republic of
In early August 1998, anti-Kabila rebels (reportedly with the support of Uganda and Rwanda,
Kabila's former allies) took control of several key border towns in eastern Congo and began
pushing toward the capital, Kinshasa. Angola and Zimbabwe jumped into the game,
bolstering Kabila's forces with guns and soldiers, and the rebels were halted at the city's borders.
The ensuing years of bloodshed have left Congo's security situation 'unstable' and its
infrastructure in shambles;
an estimated 1.7 million people are believed to have died because of the conflict.
On January 16th, 2001 Kabila fell to an assassin's bullet, fired by one of his own bodyguards.
The government has since sworn in his son, Major-General Joseph Kabila, and the
Lusaka peace accord of 1999 has at last been resurrected.
The withdrawal of around 2200 Zimbabwean (acting for the government)
and Ugandan troops (acting for the rebels) in April 2001, and the expected deployment
of 2000 UN troops to the frontline, has raised hopes that peace could at last be on the horizon.
For the time being, however, the DRC remains a no-go zone for travellers.
The economy is a total wreck, the infrastructure is a shambles and inflation is
rampant.
The Congo has hit bottom, and it is uncertain how long it will remain there and
how
long it will be before the country will be stable enough to attract visitors.
The Belgian Congo, as it was known in Joseph Conrad’s day, when it inspired
him to write
'The Heart of Darkness', gained its independence from colonial rule and from
the colonial
excesses that, in part, inspired the novel, but the country never really had a
chance
to emerge from the chaos and greed that continued to fester after the colonial
era.
The sense that the nation is out of control forms as soon as a traveler arrives:
It’s almost impossible to make it to one’s hotel without being accosted for
bribes and threatened with physical harm at a variety of stages.
(Be especially cautious when dealing with the drunken
soldiers who jump into your taxi
to protect you en route to your hotel;
they’ll demand hundreds of dollars as a service fee at the other end of the ride.)
With its incredible range of natural wonders, 250
different tribal groups and an
amazing array of art and music, the country has enormous
potential as a travel destination.
One of the country's main sources of foreign currency was Kahuzi Biega National Park,
where you could see the magnificent mountain gorillas.
The Congo was originally occupied by Pygmies, who were joined by Bantus
and Nilotic settlers in the 7th and 8th centuries.
Portuguese explorers set up trading posts on the western fringe of the country
as early
as 1482 and later developed the slave trade to furnish labour for their Brazilian
colonies.
In the last century, Belgium’s King Leopold commissioned Henry Morgan Stanley
to explore the upper reaches of the Congo River to see what commercial
potential the
land might have. The enormous territory Stanley explored became a private
possession
of the king in 1885.
The incredibly brutal treatment accorded the natives, as well as massive
financial scandals,
forced Leopold to turn his private estate over to the national government.
Unfortunately, Belgium didn’t do any better than Leopold in developing the
Congo.
The country was woefully unprepared for self-government when independence
came in 1960.
No native Congolese had ever attended university, and less than a dozen had the
equivalent of high school educations.
As a result, the country has had a very difficult post-colonial period.
Total chaos was averted in 1965, when strongman Mobutu Sese Seko took
power in a coup,
but chaos was traded for rapacious corruption; rumors abounded that the so-
called
President-for-Life Seko, who was finally overthrown in 1997, and died in exile
in Morocco
3 months later, may have diverted as much as US$10 billion to his own private,
overseas accounts, while other officials are said to have stolen lesser amounts.
Most of the country is covered in tropical rain forest, though the south
contains some stretches of savanna.
The country’s main rivers are the Congo, the Kasai and the Oubangui.
Parts of this text were borrowed from Lonely Planet.
