The name of the Congo has its origin in the native group, the Bakongo. Congo was the generic designation of any of the territories located near the river Congo, and for all of them together.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo relies on a rich and varied history that started with the first immigrants Bantus who came to the area, which would turn into the epicentre of the big Kingdom of the Congo halfway through the XVth century. This was the first state known in the region. It was called Kingdom Lunda, created by a warrior named Kongolo – it became Katanga later and nowadays it’s named Shaba.

Later, the explorations of doctor David Livingstone (between 1840 and 1870) brought to Europe the first news about this region.

In 1876, king Leopold II of Belgium founded the International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Congo. This king obtained a big fortune using the slave work of the native in the exploitation of gum and ivory. It is believed that 10 millions of Congolese died as a consequence of hard labour, famines and the systematically exterminations during the reign of Leopold II.

The extreme forms of exploitation were not modified substantially when the statute of the territory changed, in1908, into a Belgian colony. The military force was used constantly to submit the anti-colonial resistance and protecting the prosperous mining of copper and other metals of Katanga.

After the Belgian colonization, Congo became an independent republic in 1960. Patrice Lumumba was designated prime minister as he won the first free legislative elections. But after five years of extreme instability and civil dissatisfaction, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, general lieutenant at that time, with the support of the CIA, carried out a coup d'état which brought  him to  the power of the country in 1965. Under the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, the RDC changed its name and became Zaire. The transnational ones that were operating at the country thought that he was the man capable for imposing the necessary order to the RDC. But his dictatorship was characterized by the repression against the political dissent, the serious violations of the human rights and the enrichment of the elites mobutistes through the plundering of the natural resources in proper benefit (named period of the corrupt pax).

The fall of Mobutu at 1997, caused by the advance of the rebels in the whole country, led to a new leader -Laurent-Désiré Kabila- and provoked the beginning of a civil war that would degenerate into the First Big African War, one of the most complex wars of the XXth century due to the participation of different boarding countries, the interests of foreign companies and the internal conflicts of the RDC.

From 2003, a tense calmness lives through the country under the guidance of a government of transition directed by Joseph Kabila (son of the previous leader). In 2006 the first democratic elections were celebrated since the independence of the country. Kabila obtained 45 % of the votes and the support of the west of the country, and the ancient rebellious leader Jean-Pierre Bemba received the support of 20 % but with a clean victory in the provinces.

To see the chronology of the conflict

Sources:

Guía del mundo. www.guiadelmundo.org.uy/cd/

Ikuska. www.ikuska.com