Republic of Angola

Republic of Angola

The Republic of Angola is situated in south-central Africa. The country is bounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the northeast, Zambia to the east, Namibia to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It has an area of 1,246,700 square kilometers and its capital city is Luanda. It is divided into 18 provinces, but one of them, Cabinda, is an enclave, separated from the rest of the country by the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The topography varies from arid coastal areas and dry savannas in the interior south to rain forests in the north and a wet interior highland. On the plateau, heavy rainfall causes periodic flooding. Overuse and degradation of water resources have led to inadequate supplies of potable water. Other current environmental issues are deforestation of the tropical rain forest, overuse of pastures, soil erosion, and desertification, which results in a loss of biodiversity.

Angola had approximately 12,127,071 inhabitants in 2006. There were around 90 ethnic groups in the country, and although Portuguese was the official language, Bantu and other African languages were spoken by a high percentage of the population. Although Roman Catholicism remained the dominant religion, there were evangelist and indigenous religions that were very strong.


Angola’s socioeconomic conditions rank in the bottom 10 in the world. Health conditions are inadequate because of years of insurgency. There is a high prevalence of HIV, vectorborne diseases like malaria, and other waterborne diseases. Although the agricultural sector was formerly the mainstay of the economy, it contributed only a small percentage of GDP, because of the disruption caused by civil war.

The products derived from this sector are bananas, sugarcane, coffee, sisal, corn, cotton, manioc (tapioca), tobacco, vegetables, and plantains. It also has forest products and fish. Food must be imported in large quantities.

Angola is one of Africa’s major oil producers. The oil industry is the most important sector of the economy and it constitutes the majority of the country’s exports. Angola has minerals: diamonds, iron, uranium, phosphates, feldspar, bauxite, and gold.

Angola civil war

But Angola is classified as one of the world’s poorest countries despite abundant natural resources. The reasons lie in the history of this country, which has suffered a 27-year civil war that was caused not only by ethnic factors but also by disputes over natural resources.

Angola was a Portuguese colony. In the 1960s liberation movements such as Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) began to call for independence. In 1961 the native Angolans rose in a revolt that was repressed.

In 1964 a group inside of the FNLA separated and created the National Union for Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). During the mid1960s and 1970s there were a series of guerrilla actions, which finished with the negotiation for independence in 1975.

Angola Map

But the postindependence period was distinguished by instability. The MPLA declared itself the government of the country so soon after independence that a civil war broke out between MPLA, UNITA, and FNLA, exacerbated by foreign intervention during the cold war. Angola, like many African countries, became involved in the struggle between the superpowers and many African political leaders resorted to U.S. or Soviet aid. The MPLA government received large amounts of aid from Cuba and the Soviet Union, while the United States supported first the FNLA and then UNITA.

In 1976 the FNLA was defeated by Cuban troops, leaving the competition for government control and access to natural resources to MPLA and UNITA. By the end of the cold war era, in 1991, a cease-fire was signed between the government and UNITA and both agreed to make Angola a multiparty state and called for elections.

In 1992 the MPLA was elected to lead the nation but UNITA disagreed and charged MPLA with fraud. This situation caused tensions and the war continued until 1994, when negotiations began, helped by South Africa and the United Nations (UN). The war finished in 2002 when Jonas Savimbi, the president of UNITA, was killed in battle.

As a result of the civil war, up to 1.5 million lives were lost and 4 million people were displaced. Since the war Angola has been slowly rebuilding, increasing foreign exchange and implementing reforms recommended by the International Monetary Fund.

Bandung Conference (Asian-African Conference)

Bandung Conference (Asian-African Conference)

The Bandung Conference, or Asian-African Conference, attended by 29 primarily newly independent nations, was held in 1955. The Indonesian leader Ahmed Sukarno hosted the conference of so-called Third World nations, most of which had become independent after World War II and were generally poor, agricultural, and economically underdeveloped. They represented over half the world’s population.

India’s leader Jawaharlal Nehru played a key role in the conference that adopted his principles of opposing imperialism and focusing on the development of local economies rather than reliance on either the Western world led by the United States or the Soviet bloc dominated by the Soviet Union. Participants of the conference also raised issues of race, religion, and world peace. Most were, however, authoritarian in their political orientations.


The Chinese prime minister, Zhou Enlai (Chou En-lai), was another key spokesperson at the conference. Aware of the different political and economic approaches of the participants, Zhou wisely did not push an aggressive communist program and succeeded in establishing ties with other Asian and African leaders. Other leaders at the conference included Kwame Nkrumah, prime minister of the Gold Coast (Ghana); Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese prime minister; and President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt.

The nations of North Africa also attended and condemned French imperialism. Nasser spoke about the role of Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism as well as the cause of Palestinian self-determination. Nasser, Nehru, and President Tito of Yugoslavia subsequently became personal friends and exchanged state visits with one another.

gedung merdeka in Bandung

Many of the participants of the Bandung Conference became leaders of the Nonaligned Movement in the early 1960s. The Nonaligned Movement sought to steer a middle or neutral course between the United States and the Soviet Union in the cold war.

Neither superpower endorsed the Nonaligned Movement, although the United States tended to be more hostile to the neutralism of nations seeking to maximize their own benefits rather than adopting policies that mirrored that of either superpower. Many leaders of African and Asian nations attended a conference in both Bandung and Jakarta marking the 50th anniversary of the conference in 2005.

Hastings Banda

Hastings Banda

Dr. Hastings Banda was a physician and prime minister, founding president, and former dictator of the African country of Malawi. After leading the country’s independence movement against the British, Banda became prime minister in 1963.

An authoritarian ruler, Banda became president in 1966 and president for life in 1971. In 1994 Banda authorized democratic elections. He was defeated. Banda died in a South African hospital in 1997; he was rumored to have been 101 years old.

The name “Malawi” was given to the country formerly named Nyasaland by Dr. Banda. Having read a French map that called the dominating lake of the country “Lake Maravi,” Banda decided he liked the sound and appearance of the name and chose a similar name.


Because of tribal migrations, several tribes make Malawi their home. The Tumbuka from the Congo and the Chewa from Zambia moved into Malawi during the 14th through the 16th centuries and remain there today. The Bantu peoples flourished in Malawi during the 18th century and the Yao moved into southern Malawi in the 19th century.

It is thought that the Yao used firearms taken from Arabian traders to capture weaker tribes for the growing slave trade. Although slave trading had existed in Africa for centuries, the international transatlantic slave trade drastically increased the practice.

The first Europeans in Malawi were Portuguese explorers, but the most famous explorer was the British Dr. David Livingstone in 1846. Dr. Livingstone would return to Malawi twice more to help establish trade routes and mission sites before his death in 1873. Livingstone’s Malawian legacy was the increased trade and missionary presence in Malawi, which eventually became a trade center.

During the late 19th century, Malawi became a British protectorate. During the next few decades, the British government officials in Malawi battled slave traders, oversaw the growth of European settlers, constructed a postal system, and built a railway line.

Local Malawian peoples were dissatisfied under the British colonial system and in 1915, the Reverend John Chilembwe led a violent uprising against European settlers living on formerly Malawian farmlands. By 1944 the growing elite consisting of Europeans, Americans, and Africans organized the Nyasaland African Congress in order to protect their new holdings. Britain joined the Central African Federation, a white-dominated organization, in 1953.

When he was young, Hastings Banda left Malawi for Rhodesia and South Africa. The son of peasants, Banda went to work in the South African gold mines and by 1925 had enough money to head to America for college. He studied on a scholarship at the Wilberforce Institute in Ohio and then went to the University of Chicago.

Hastings Banda and Presiden Tanzania, Julius Nyerere

After graduation, Banda went to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. Although he graduated in 1937, Banda was required to earn a second medical degree in order to practice medicine in the British Empire. In 1941 he graduated from the School of Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of Edinburgh.

After World War II, Banda established his medical practice in Scotland and London. His office soon became a meeting place for exiled African leaders. However, in 1953 Dr. Banda chose to return to Africa, establishing a medical practice in Ghana.

By 1958, Banda had returned to Malawi to campaign against the Central African Federation. In 1959 he spent time in prison for his political activities but was released in April 1960. In 1963, Banda and his Malawi Congress Party won the elections in a landslide victory. Dr. Hastings Banda became the prime minister on February 1, 1963.

The British still controlled all of Malawi’s financial, security, and judicial systems. In May 1963 a new constitution took effect, winning Malawi its independence from Britain. In 1966 Malawi became a republic with Banda as its president. Banda became increasingly autocratic, making himself president for life in 1971. Opponents were jailed, sent into exile, or killed.

The foreign press was barred from entering the country. In addition to gaining almost total control of Malawi’s economics, Banda also made economic trade ties with South Africa. During apartheid in South Africa, Malawi was the country’s only African public trade partner.

Following rioting and the suspension of Western aid in 1992, Banda had no choice but to abandon the idea of one-party rule and even his life presidency in 1993. Open democratic elections were held in 1994, and Bakili Muluzi easily defeated Banda. Calculations report Banda accumulated over $320 million in personal assets during his rule. Another calculation reports that during his rule, over 250,000 people went missing or were murdered in connection with the government.

Biafran War (1967 – 1970)

Biafran War (1967 – 1970)

The Biafran War, also known as the Nigerian Civil War, was a political conflict waged from July 6, 1967, to January 13, 1970. It was a war rooted in ethnic conflicts between three main tribes in the country: the Igbo in the southeast, the Yoruba in the west, and the Hausa/Fulani in the north.

The war came about as a result of events that followed the independence of Nigeria in 1963. In 1964 elections were held, which were afterward condemned by non-northern Nigerians as fraudulent. In January 1966 a coup d’état was staged by mostly Igbo officers that put Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi in power at the head of a government that gave more favor to Igbo-related officers.

A countercoup was then staged by Lieutenant Colonel Murtala Mohammed that placed Lieutenant Colonel Yakubu Gowon (a northerner) in power on July 29, 1966. Because Igbos became suspect for the problems caused by the first coup, social unrest started that led to massacres of Igbo people, continuing into September of the same year.


Around 30,000 Igbo civilians were killed, and over 1 million Igbos began to relocate to the southeast to escape persecution. At the same time Hausas and other non-Igbos were killed in Igbo lands, causing a counter-exodus to escape retaliation.

Oil had been discovered in Nigeria in 1958, and the country’s oil industry was based in the Igbo-dominated southeast. Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, military governor of the eastern region, became the leader for the Igbo side. Based on Igbo appeals for secession from the federal government, he declared the independence of the Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1966.

Unwilling to lose the oil industry, the FMG advanced into Biafra on July 6, 1967, to force Biafra back into the fold of Nigeria. The Biafran forces repulsed the advance, then launched a counterinvasion into FMG territories, seizing key strategic locations. At the end of 1967 however, the FMG regained these territories, and the Biafran forces were again looking for breakthroughs into Nigeria.

For most of 1968 the forces were stalemated. The Biafran military enjoyed much support from foreign countries. French doctors and other volunteer groups airlifted supplies and medical assistance into Biafra. The Swedish eccentric Carl Gustav von Rosen fought as a mercenary on the Biafran side.

When Biafra was declared, the country was formally recognized by only Tanzania, Zambia, Gabon, South Africa, and Ivory Coast. Other African countries refused to recognize Biafra because they were opposed to South Africa.

FMG forces later took the town of Owerri, the capital of the Igbo heartland, and thought that victory was close. But Biafran forces reclaimed it later on, and the stalemate held again. By April 1969 the Biafran forces were heavily reduced, but they continued fighting. Ojukwu’s appeals for United Nations intervention in October were unsuccessful. The final push of FMG forces started in December of 1969.


On January 6, 1970, Owerri again fell to the FMG. On January 10 Ojukwu admitted defeat and fled Nigeria for the Ivory Coast. He left the country to the commander of the Biafran Army, Philip Effiong, who led a delegation to Lagos and formally surrendered on January 15, 1970, thus ending the existence of Biafra.

The Biafran War ended with 100,000 military casualties, while between 500,000 and 3 million Biafran civilians became casualties from starvation during the war. After the war, ethnic tensions continued to be a problem in Nigerian politics.

Habib Bourguiba - Tunisian Leader

Habib Bourguiba

Habib Bourguiba, known as the Supreme Warrior, was born in Monastir, Tunisia, in 1903 and died in April 2000 while under house arrest in his hometown. Bourguiba attended Sadiqi College in Tunis, where he graduated in 1924. He then went to France to study law and political science at the University of Paris.

Upon graduation in 1927 Bourguiba returned to Tunisia; a year later he was writing for multiple political newspapers on issues involving Tunisian nationalism. Bourguiba was a member of the Executive Committee of the Destour Party, but his disagreements with the party’s political approach led to his resignation. Habib Bourguiba formed the breakaway Neo-Destour Party in 1934.

The French colonial authorities reacted to Bourguiba’s growing power by exiling him for two years. This would prove to be the first of many times Bourguiba would be imprisoned and released by the French during the struggle for Tunisian independence.


In April 1938 pro-nationalist demonstrations broke out in Tunisia and the French authorities opened fire on the crowds. Shortly thereafter, Bourguiba was imprisoned by the French on charges of sedition. In 1945 as the war ended, Bourguiba embarked on a series of tours through Arab nations, the United States, and parts of Europe to publicize the Tunisian cause.

When Bourguiba returned to Tunisia, he reorganized and resumed control of the Neo-Destour Party. In January 1952 armed resistance broke out in parts of Tunisia and Habib Bourguiba was again arrested and imprisoned in France. Beleaguered by the ongoing war in Algeria, the French released Bourguiba in 1955 and granted independence to Tunisia in 1956. Bourguiba became Tunisia’s first president.

He promptly embarked on a program of reform and development. Tunisia’s constitution called for a secular state. Women were granted equality, and ambitious educational and health care programs were instituted; however, early attempts to collectivize agriculture failed and economic difficulties beset the nation.

Bourguiba was sympathetic to independence movements in developing countries, but his calls for negotiations with Israel in the mid-1960s led to riots in Jordan and Lebanon. In 1975 Bourguiba was named president for life. Habib Bourguiba was seen by many as a passionate orator with a charismatic personality but he also had a reputation as a shrewd politician who outmaneuvered his political opponents.

The economy continued to decline during the 1980s as Islamist political groups gained support. As his health failed, Bourguiba seemed increasingly unable to deal with the mounting political, economic, and social problems of the nation. In November 1987 a bloodless coup led by Zine el Abidine Ben Ali took over the government and ousted Habib Bourguiba.

Ben Ali proclaimed that Habib Bourguiba, at the age of 84, was too old and senile to serve as president. Bourguiba lived under house arrest for 13 years until his death in 2000. Although Ben Ali promised a return to democracy and held elections, he too became increasingly authoritarian and continued to rule Tunisia into the 21st century.

Ghana

flag of Ghana

Ghana celebrated its independence from Britain on March 7, 1957. Ghana, formerly the Gold Coast, merged with a part of British Togoland, a former part of German West Africa ceded to Britain after World War I. Ghana was the first nation in Africa south of the Sahara to overthrow a colonial power; its independence was a momentous event for the people in the new nation and for people in the African diaspora everywhere.

Ghana was deliberately named to highlight its historical political situation as the sixth African nation to receive independence from a major colonial power. Ghana’s leaders sought to link their nation to one of the great West African kingdoms of the past. This name represented both a political victory and a symbolic hope for black people everywhere. Held up as a symbol of black intelligence, self-determination, and power, Ghana’s independence led to many idealistic expectations.

Its new leader, Kwame Nkrumah, had spent time in prison in the struggle for independence, and he led a nation with many contradictory expectations. Fueled by the positive outcome of his many years fighting for independence and imbued with a Pan-Africanist ideology, a nationalist outlook, and mounting racial pride, Nkrumah liked neither the capitalism of the West nor the communism of the East.


He articulated a nationalist ideology that celebrated and encouraged traditional African culture and dress. In addition, he embraced the Pan-Africanism he had been exposed to as a student in the United States and London. He supported the development of racial identity and linked himself to the ideals of Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois.

What became known as “Nkrumahism” started out as a hybrid economic and social philosophy that combined the best practices from both systems. Nkrumah’s “African Socialism” became the model for organizing society in Tanzania under Julius Nyerere and in Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta.

Nkhrumah’s articulations of selfdetermination also influenced the doctrine of Pan-Arabism championed by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nkrumah demanded free education on all levels and the development of rural health care as well as the construction of bridges, roads, railroads, and waterways to build up Ghana’s economy.

Ghana’s independence had major consequences for global politics and the lessening of European hegemony. In the decades following Ghana’s independence, many linked the dissolution of the British Empire, the end of Portuguese colonial power in Africa, and the destruction of the apartheid system in South Africa to Ghanaian independence.

map of Ghana

Nkrumah instituted many customary practices to help maintain order and restore stability. While utilizing the British model of government at the superstructure level, Nkrumah sought to empower local chiefs and elders by restoring respect for and interest in traditional structures of society.

Elders, healers, and local officials were all enlisted in his effort to make Ghana a stable nation. Although many blame Nkrumah for destroying the country with his socialist polities and making it ripe for coups, his vision led to Ghana’s independence and also defined the ethos of the new nation.

Many of Nkrumah’s policies failed. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction with his government in the years leading to his ouster in 1966. Sixteen years of instability followed his exile.

In 1981 Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings seized power in a countercoup. He suspended the constitution and banned political parties. In 1992 a new constitution was approved, free elections were held, and Rawlings was elected to two four-year terms.

Under the terms of the 1992 constitution, executive power was vested in the president, who was named head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. Rawlings was reelected president in 1996. Legislative power was vested in a single parliamentary chamber consisting of between 160 and 200 members chosen through direct adult suffrage for renewable four-year terms.

Given that Rawlings could not be elected to a third term, John Kufuor, a rather unknown politician, was elected president in 2000. An effective leader, he was reelected in 2004. The politics of modern Ghana followed two trajectories: a doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism and the socialist-inspired revolutionary practices of Nkrumah.

Kufuor expanded and refined a third political tradition, introduced by Rawlings: He continued policies of universal rural development while simultaneously opening up the private sector to external development and foreign investment.

Much of the current economic and social optimism in Ghana is tied to an enlightened ruling class with close ties to the United States and Great Britain, and a successful diaspora of almost 2 million people who send almost half a billion dollars to Ghana every year. With a multilanguage, multiethnic, and diverse population, Ghana is a pluralistic society. Ghana has also been successful in attracting foreign investments from India, China, Lebanon, and other nations.

Ghana also has a highly educated population of about 20 million people. It operates a 12-year preuniversity educational system and has five public universities, private universities, eight polytechnics, and 22 technical institutions as well as many educational exchange programs around the globe.

Ghana has substantial economic potential. As a stable nation with a credible government, a working infrastructure, and a highly trained population, Ghana’s future seems bright. Although cacao is Ghana’s best-known crop, other major exports include bauxite, diamonds, gold, foodstuffs, handicrafts, and timber. As a popular tourist destination, Ghana is well known internationally.

Darfur

Map of Darfur

In 1989 a civil war began in the African nation of Sudan after an officer in the Sudanese army, Omar al-Bashir, seized power through a coup d’état. The roots of this war are complex, including struggle over limited resources following a serious drought and famine in the mid-1980s, conflicting conceptions of the use of land, ethnic tensions between southern and northern peoples, and religious tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims.

In addition, in a more recent development, the cultivation of oil fields in southern Sudan led the government to engage in widespread destruction of longstanding villages to profit from the production and sale of oil.

Throughout the entire process the government used food and resources as weapons, often pitting different ethnic groups against each other and withholding humanitarian aid to force the population to abide by its policies. In the 17 years after the civil war began, fighting displaced more than 4 million Sudanese and killed at minimum 2 million, many of them targets of ethnic cleansing and starvation by their own government.


After 2003, government brutality focused on the western region of Sudan, known as Darfur. The tensions in this region were directly linked to the ongoing struggle between pastoral and sedentary communities over land use. In 1989 this region was divided into three states: North Darfur, with its capital at Al-Fasher; South Darfur, with its capital at Nyala; and West Darfur, with its capital at Al-Jeneina.

In February 2003, in response to insurrection, the, government sent in its troops, bolstered by Arab paramilitary groups known as janjawiid (roughly “armed men on horseback”), predominantly drawn from this region.

In retaliation for the continued insurgency and the defiance of the civilian population, these two forces implemented a scorched-earth policy, eliminating both people and communities in a wide swath of destruction. They burned villages, destroyed crops, and stole livestock. Satellite imagery indicates that almost 50 percent of villages were completely destroyed in the western and southern regions of Darfur.

Government forces and the janjawiid bombarded communities with aerial assaults, confiscated property, and poisoned local water supplies in order to displace millions of people. In addition to all these acts of destruction, government troops and the janjawiid murdered civilians, abducted thousands of villagers, and participated in hundreds of rapes of women and girls.

Conservative estimates place the death toll in the collective region of Darfur at 200,000; other estimates range to 400,000. The majority of the deaths were due to starvation and disease, exacerbated by the government’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid, safe passage, and distribution.

In early 2006 violence persisted in the region as government troops and the janjawiid destroyed non-Arab villages and drove refugees into camps along the neighboring border with Chad.

The Sudanese government was directly connected to this process. The Sudanese government refused to allow humanitarian aid to flow freely into the region, to disband the janjawiid, to investigate consistently mass violence against civilians, to allow observers from the United Nations or nongovernmental agencies to document the crisis, or to permit United Nations peacekeepers on its soil.

Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaïre)

Democratic Republic of the Congo flag

This country, located in central Africa, is bounded by the Republic of the Congo to the west; Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda on the east; Zambia and Angola on the south; and Sudan and the Central African Republic on the north. The capital city is Kinshasa, which changed its name from Leopoldville in 1964.

The topography varies from tropical rain forests to mountainous terraces, plateau, savannas, dense grasslands, and mountains. Its region is dominated by the Congo River system, so it has a main role in economic development, transportation, and freshwater supply.

This country has equatorial location; as a consequence the climate is hot and humid with large amounts of precipitation in the central river basin and eastern highlands, but it presents periodic droughts in the south.


The majority of the population is Christian, predominantly Roman Catholic but Protestants also. There are other indigenous beliefs. Although French is the official language of the country, 700 local languages and dialects are spoken because DRC has over 200 ethnic groups, mainly of Bantu origin. The population was estimated at 58 million in 2004 and has grown quickly.

The DRC has a vast potential of natural resources and mineral wealth such as cobalt, diamonds, gold, copper, coal, uranium, crude oil, and tin. Most of these are export commodities. The agricultural production basis of the DRC is diversified; the wooden resources are quite large, and it holds an enormous hydroelectric potential.

Democratic Republic of the Congo map

The programs and policies of structural adjustment set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have a ruling presence in the country. In the 1980s, the IMF played a leading role in the economic policies adopted by the DRC. In exchange, the country‘s external debt was reconsidered and the IMF awarded a considerable loan.

In 1989 the DRC was forced to establish a new economic reform due to economic instability. On the whole, the adjustments have improved the macroeconomic conditions in some countries, but the population’s living standards have worsened.

Relative peace in the country in 2002 let President Joseph Kabila, son of the first DRC president, begin implementing an economic plan, helped by the IMF and World Bank; exports increased, improving the situation. But a country with immense economic resources continues to be dependent on external donors.

In 1959, as an answer to the increasing demands for complete independence by the main nationalistic parties, the DRC’s government announced the forthcoming elections with the aim of establishing an autonomous government. In 1960 the Belgian Congo proclaimed its independence and was renamed Republic of Congo. In 1966 the country became Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The post-independence period was distinguished by instability. Ethnic disputes and military revolts had provoked violent disorders, all of which intensified when the prime minister of the mineral-rich province of Katanga proclaimed his independence from the country and asked Belgium for military help.

A United Nations peacekeeping force was called to restore order. However, Col. Joseph Désiré Mobutu, chief of staff of the army, took over the government and declared himself president. In 1971 he renamed the country the Republic of Zaïre.

During the cold war, Mobutu continued to enforce his one-party system of government, but at the end of this period the regime suffered from external and internal pressures, and he acceded to implement a multiparty system with elections and a constitution. In fact, Mobutu continued ruling until 1997.

Between 1994 and 1996 Zaïre was involved in the Rwanda conflict, hosting large numbers of refugees in its border territory. This situation caused trouble when the presence of Hutu refugees, among them several responsible for the Rwanda genocide, provoked the Tutsis to revolt.

This rebellion, supported by the United States, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and Angola, spread over the Zaïre territory, weakening Mobutu’s regime, which was supported by France. This first war in Congo ended when rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, declared himself president and changed the name of the nation back to Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But relations between Kabila and his foreign backers deteriorated, and in 1998 Kabila’s government was subsequently challenged. Troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad, and Sudan intervened to support him. The series of wars in this nation was determined not only by ethnic factors but also by natural resources.

The control of diamonds and other important minerals has contributed to encourage both wars as well as the maintenance of the authoritarian governments. In 1999 a cease-fire was finally signed, but Kabila was assassinated in 2001. He was succeeded by his son Joseph, who signed a peace agreement with Rwanda the next year and established a transitional government.

With the United Nations presence, a new constitution was formally adopted in 2006, and on July 30 the first free multiparty elections were held. In November 2006 Joseph Kabila won the presidency in the country’s first democratic elections since 1960.