On November 24, 1965, Jose-Desire Mobutu seized power in a coup in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He would subsequently rule the next 32 years over a totalitarian government for. In his long reign, he mismanaged the country, which he renamed Zaire. His government corruption was corrupt, the country’s infrastructure was neglected, and poverty was widespread. And while the economy stagnated with a huge foreign debt, Mobutu amassed a personal fortune of several billions of dollars. In 1972, he changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (English:“The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake”), shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko, which was in line with state policy of “Zarianization” at that time, to rid the country of vestiges of colonialism and promote a Zairian pro-African national identity.
The 1965 coup was his second. On September 14, 1960, as then head of the country’s armed forces, he had seized power during the Congo Crisis. The Congo Crisi was a series of civil wars that began shortly after the country gained its independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960. Mobutu launched the coup following the impasse between President Patrice Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu after Lumumba had sought Soviet support to quell a Belgian-supported uprising in Katanga and South Kasai.
In 1997, he was deposed in the First Congo War.
(Taken from First Congo War –Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 1)
Background In the mid-1990s, ethnic tensions rose in Zaire’s eastern regions. Zairian indigenous tribes long despised the Tutsis, another ethnic tribe, whom they regarded as foreigners, i.e. they believed that Tutsis were not native to the Congo. The Congolese Tutsis were called Banyamulenge and had migrated to the Congo during the pre-colonial and Belgian colonial periods. Over time, the Banyamulenge established some degree of political and economic standing in the Congo’s eastern regions. Nevertheless, Zairian indigenous groups occasionally attacked Banyamulenge villages, as well as those of other non-Congolese Tutsis who had migrated more recently to the Congo.
During the second half of the twentieth century, the Congo’s eastern region was greatly destabilized when large numbers of refugees migrated there to escape the ethnic violence in Rwanda and Burundi. The greatest influx occurred during the Rwandan Civil War, where some 1.5 million Hutu refugees entered the Congo’s Kivu Provinces (Map 17). The Hutu refugees established giant settlement camps which soon came under the control of the deposed Hutu regime in Rwanda, the same government that had carried out the genocide against Rwandan Tutsis. Under cover of the camps, Hutu leaders organized a militia composed of former army soldiers and civilian paramilitaries. This Hutu militia carried out attacks against Rwandan Tutsis in the camps, as well as against the Banyamulenge, i.e. Congolese Tutsis. The Hutu leaders wanted to regain power in Rwanda and therefore ordered their militia to conduct cross-border raids from the Zairian camps into Rwanda.
To counter the Hutu threat, the Rwandan government forged a military alliance with the Banyamulenge, and organized a militia composed of Congolese Tutsis. The Rwandan government-Banyamulenge alliance solidified in 1995 when the Zairian government passed a law that rescinded the Congolese citizenship of the Banyamulenge, and ordered all non-Congolese citizens to leave the country.
War In October 1996, the provincial government of South Kivu in Zaire ordered all Bayamulenge to leave the province. In response, the Banyamulenge rose up in rebellion. Zairian forces stepped in, only to be confronted by the Banyamulenge militia as well as Rwandan Army units that began an artillery bombardment of South Kivu from across the border.
A low-intensity rebellion against the Congolese government had already existed for three decades in Zaire. Led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the Congo rebels opposed Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko’s despotic, repressive regime. President Mobutu had seized power through a military coup in 1965 and had in his long reign, grossly mismanaged the country. Government corruption was widespread, the country’s infrastructure was crumbling, and poverty and unemployment were rampant. And while Zaire’s economy stagnated under a huge foreign debt, President Mobutu amassed a personal fortune of several billions of dollars.
Kabila joined his forces with the Banyamulenge militia; together, they united with other anti-Mobutu rebel groups in the Kivu, with the collective aim of overthrowing the Zairian dictator. Kabila soon became the leader of this rebel coalition. In December 1996, with the support of Rwanda and Uganda, Kabila’s rebel forces won control of the border areas of the Kivu. There, Kabila formed a quasi-government that was allied to Rwanda and Uganda.
The Rwandan Army entered the conquered areas in the Kivu and dismantled the Hutu refugee camps in order to stop the Hutu militia from carrying out raids into Rwanda. With their camps destroyed, one batch of Hutu refugees, comprising several hundreds of thousands of civilians, was forced to head back to Rwanda.
Another batch, also composed of several hundreds of thousands of Hutus, fled westward and deeper into Zaire, where many perished from diseases, starvation, and nature’s elements, as well as from attacks by the Rwandan Army.
When the fighting ended, some areas of Zaire’s eastern provinces virtually had seceded, as the Zairian government was incapable of mounting a strong military campaign into such a remote region. In fact, because of the decrepit condition of the Zairian Armed Forces, President Mobutu held only nominal control over the country.
The Zairian soldiers were poorly paid and regularly stole and sold military supplies. Poor discipline and demoralization afflicted the ranks, while corruption was rampant among top military officers. Zaire’s military equipment often was non-operational because of funding shortages. More critically, President Mobutu had become the enemy of Rwanda and Angola, as he provided support for the rebel groups fighting the governments in those countries. Other African countries that also opposed Mobutu were Eritrea, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
In December 1996, Angola entered the war on the side of the rebels after signing a secret agreement with Rwanda and Uganda. The Angolan government then sent thousands of ethnic Congolese soldiers called “Katangese Gendarmes” to the Kivu Provinces. These Congolese soldiers were the descendants of the original Katangese Gendarmes who had fled to Angola in the early 1960s after the failed secession of the Katanga Province from the Congo.
The presence of the Katangese Gendarmes greatly strengthened the rebellion: from Goma and Bukavu (Map 17), the Gendarmes advanced west and south to capture Katanga and central Zaire. On March 15, 1977, Kisangani fell to the rebels, opening the road to Kinshasa, Zaire’s capital. Kalemie and Kamina in Katanga Province were captured, followed by Lubumbashi in April. Later that month, the Angolan Army invaded Zaire from the south, quickly taking Tshikapa, Kikwit, and Kenge.
Kabila also joined the fighting. Backed by units of the Rwandan and Ugandan Armed Forces, his rebel coalition force advanced steadily across central Zaire for Kinshasa. Kabila met only light resistance, as the Zairian Army collapsed, with desertions and defections widespread in its ranks. Crowds of people in the towns and villages welcomed Kabila and the foreign armies as liberators.
Many attempts were made by foreign mediators (United Nations, United States, and South Africa) to broker a peace settlement, the last occurring on May 16, 1977 when Kabila’s forces had reached the vicinity of Kinshasa. The Zairian government collapsed, with President Mobutu fleeing the country. Kabila entered Kinshasa and formed a new government, and named himself president. The First Congo War was over; the second phase of the conflict broke out just 15 months later (next article).