Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo

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The Democratic Republic of the Congo Portal

Flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo	Coat of Arms of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

DR Congo, officially the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as the DRC, Congo-Kinshasa or simply Congo, is a country in Central Africa. By land area, DR Congo is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 109 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous Francophone country in the world. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), Zambia, Angola, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean.

Centered on the Congo Basin, the territory of the Congo was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was settled in the Bantu expansion about 3000 to 2000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to 19th centuries. In the center and east, the empires of Mwene Muji, Luba, and Lunda ruled from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. King Leopold II of Belgium formally acquired rights to the Congo territory from the colonial nations of Europe in 1885 and declared the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. From 1885 to 1908, his colonial military forced the local population to produce rubber and committed widespread atrocities. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory, which thus became a Belgian colony.

Congo achieved independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960 and was immediately confronted by a series of secessionist movements, the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the seizure of power by Mobutu Sese Seko in a 1965 coup d'état. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a harsh personalist dictatorship until his overthrow in 1997 by the First Congo War. The country then had its name changed back and was confronted by the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which resulted in the deaths of 5.4 million people and the assassination of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The war ended under President Joseph Kabila, who governed the country from 2001 to 2019 and under whom human rights in the country remained poor and included frequent abuses such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties.

Following the 2018 general election, in the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence, Kabila was succeeded as president in a highly contentious election won by Félix Tshisekedi, who has served as president since. Since 2015, eastern Congo has been the site of an ongoing military conflict.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely rich in natural resources but has suffered from political instability, a lack of infrastructure, corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation, followed by more than 60 years of independence, with little widespread development. Besides the capital Kinshasa, the two next largest cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. The DRC's largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of its exports in 2019. In 2021, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 179th out of 191 countries by the Human Development Index and is classed as a least developed country by the UN. As of 2018^[update], following two decades of various civil wars and continued internal conflicts, around 600,000 Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries. Two million children risk starvation, and the fighting has displaced 4.5 million people. The country is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, COMESA, Southern African Development Community, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, and Economic Community of Central African States. (Full article...)

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The Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [kɔ̃ɡo bɛlʒ]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.

Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition of the Congo Free State in 1885. By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did by creating the Belgian Congo in 1908. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Democratic Republic of the Congo-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The endangered mountain gorilla; half of its population live in the DRC's Virunga National Park, making the park a critical habitat for these animals. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 2Mobutu with the Dutch Prince Bernhard in Kinshasa in 1973 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 3A Hemba male statue (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 4Lake Kivu in North Kivu province (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 5Mobutu Sese Seko and Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., 1973. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 6Population fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebels groups, Sake North Kivu 30 April 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 7Patrice Lumumba, founding member and leader of the MNC (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 8The map of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 9The leader of ABAKO, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, first democratically elected President of Congo-Léopoldville (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 10The Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lubumbashi (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 11Train from Lubumbashi arriving in Kindu on a newly refurbished line. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 12Patrice Lumumba, first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo-Léopoldville, was murdered by Belgian-supported Katangan separatists in 1961. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 13President Joseph Kabila with U.S. President Barack Obama in August 2014 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 14DR Congo's Human Development Index scores, 1970–2010. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 15A map of the major Bantu languages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 16Ndeemba Mask (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 17Refugees in the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 18Joseph Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from January 2001 to January 2019. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 19People fleeing their villages due to fighting between FARDC and rebel groups, North Kivu, 2012 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 20Memory Board (lukasa) - Luba Kingdom (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 21Democratic Republic of the Congo map of Köppen climate classification (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 22A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 23Roman Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 24Change in per capita GDP of Congo, 1950–2018. Figures are inflation-adjusted to 2011 International dollars. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 25Abeti Masikini in 1978 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 26Kasaï-Central province, where the Kamwina Nsapu militia clashes with security forces began. (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 27Flag of CNDP (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 28Map of rail network (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 29Map of the Kingdom of Kongo (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 30A classroom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 31Collecting firewood in Basankusu. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 32Government troops near Goma during the M23 rebellion in May 2013 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 33Mobutu Sese Seko (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 34The four Bantu languages with elevated "national" status. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 35Force Publique soldiers in the Belgian Congo in 1918. At its peak, the Force Publique had around 19,000 Congolese soldiers, led by 420 Belgian officers. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 36Development of life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 37Franco Luambo and his OK Jazz orchestra performing live at Zaire 74 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 38Congo Free State official Camille Coquilhat with the Bangala chief Mata-Buiké in c. 1888 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 39Ugandan President Idi Amin Visits Zaire and Meets Mobutu during The Shaba I Conflict (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 40Rough diamonds ≈1 to 1.5 mm in size from DR Congo (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 411908 photograph of a married Christian couple. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 42Arab slave raid on Nyangwe, circa 1870 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 43Branhamist worshippers in Kinshasa (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 44Congolese soldiers being trained by UN personnel. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 45A Congolese Christian. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 46Democratic Republic of the Congo's population between 1960 and 2017. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 47Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Bukavu (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 48A woman carrying bananas. (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 49Children mutilated during King Leopold II's rule (from History of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 50Belligerents of the Second Congo War (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 51Masque féminin Ngaady a mwaash, XIX-XXe siècles (from Culture of the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 52President Félix Tshisekedi with the president of neighbouring Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso in 2020; both wear face masks due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 53View of Leopoldville Station and Port in 1884 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 54Ituri Rainforest (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 55Breakdown of the largest ethnic groups in DRC (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Image 56Found in the Congolian rainforests, the okapi was unknown to science until 1901 (from Democratic Republic of the Congo)

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Civilian victims of mutilation by Free State authorities

From 1885 to 1908, many atrocities were committed in the Congo Free State (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo) under the absolute rule of King Leopold II of Belgium. These atrocities were particularly associated with the labour policies, enforced by colonial administrators, used to collect natural rubber for export. Combined with epidemic disease, famine, and falling birth rates caused by these disruptions, the atrocities contributed to a sharp decline in the Congolese population. The magnitude of the population fall over the period is disputed, with modern estimates ranging from 1.5 million to 13 million. The atrocities have been variously referred to as the Rubber Terror and by some as the Congolese Genocide, though the latter characterization is disputed.

At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the European powers recognized the claims of a supposedly philanthropic organisation run by Leopold II, to most of the Congo Basin region. Leopold had long held ambitions for colonial expansion. The territory under Leopold's control exceeded 2,600,000 km² (1,000,000 sq mi), more than 85 times the territory of Belgium; amid financial problems, it was directed by a tiny cadre of administrators drawn from across Europe. Initially the quasi-colony proved unprofitable and insufficient, with the state always close to bankruptcy. The boom in demand for natural rubber, which was abundant in the territory, created a radical shift in the 1890s—to facilitate the extraction and export of rubber, all vacant land in the Congo was nationalised, with the majority distributed to private companies as concessions. Some was kept by the state. Between 1891 and 1906, the companies were allowed free rein to exploit the concessions, with the result being that forced labour and violent coercion were used to collect the rubber cheaply and maximise profit. The Free State's military force, the Force Publique, enforced the labour policies. Individual workers who refused to participate in rubber collection could be killed and entire villages razed. (Full article...)

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Belgian Congo in World War II Abir Congo Company Yellala Falls South Kasai Free Republic of the Congo Congo Crisis Congolese Independence Speech Common eland Barthélemy Mukenge Antoine-Roger Bolamba Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere Steve Zakuani Laurent Eketebi William Henry Sheppard Okapi Battle of Rejaf

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Swedish UN peacekeepers led by Major Sture Fagerström plan their attack on the town of Kamina during the operation

Operation Grandslam was an offensive undertaken by United Nations peacekeeping forces from 28 December 1962 to 15 January 1963 against the forces of the State of Katanga, a secessionist state rebelling against the Republic of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in Central Africa. The Katangese forces were decisively defeated and Katanga was forcibly reintegrated into the Congo.

The United Nations had tried several times to reconcile the government of the Congo with the State of Katanga, which had declared independence under Moïse Tshombe with Belgian support in 1960. Though initially limiting its actions, the United Nations Operation in the Congo became increasingly impatient towards Katanga and Tshombe, drawing up plans to resolve the situation through force. Tshombe continuously violated agreements he had made with the United Nations and the Congolese government by building up his forces and bringing foreign mercenaries into the conflict. The situation reached a breaking point in December 1962 when Katangese gendarmes attacked peacekeeping forces in Katanga. United Nations Secretary-General U Thant authorised a retaliatory offensive to eliminate secessionist opposition. (Full article...)