3

Decolonisation of Africa: History and its Effects

The decolonisation of Africa followed World War II, when colonised peoples agitated for
independence and colonial powers withdrew their administrators from Africa. 1 The First World
War had seen the colonies of the Central powers including those in Africa redistributed among the
Entente Powers as mandates. World War II saw many British African colonies support the Allies
against the Axis powers with both military power and resources which was a continuation of
exploitation of the inter-war years. Many African colonies did not totally gain independence after
the war. Imperial Japan's conquests in the Far East caused a shortage of raw materials such as
rubber and various minerals. Africa was therefore forced to compensate for this shortage and
greatly benefited from this change. Another key problem Western Europeans faced were the U-
boats patrolling the Atlantic Ocean. This reduced and hindered the amount of raw materials that
could be transported from African colonies to Europe. As a result of the loss in trade, local
industries in Africa became more prominent. Local industries in turn caused the creation of new
towns; and existing towns to see a rise in economy and population. As urban community and
industry grew so did trade unions. In addition to trade unions, urbanization brought about
increased literacy, which allowed for pro-independence newspapers to prop up, further fuelling
local self awareness.
Decolonisation’s Legacy
On February 12th, 1941, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill met to discuss the postwar world. The result was the Atlantic Charter.
It was not a treaty and was not submitted to the British Parliament or the Senate of the United
States for ratification, but it turned out to be a widely acclaimed document. One of the provisions,
introduced by Roosevelt, was the autonomy of imperial colonies. After World War II, the US and
the African colonies put pressure on Britain to abide by the terms of the Atlantic Charter. After
the war, some British considered African colonies to be childish and immature; British colonizers
introduced democratic government at local levels in the colonies.
By the 1930s, the colonial powers had cultivated, sometimes inadvertently, a small elite
of leaders educated in Western universities and familiar with ideas such as self-determination.
These leaders came to lead the struggles for independence, and included leading nationalists such
as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Kwame Nkrumah (Gold Coast, now Ghana), Julius Nyerere
(Tanzania), Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal), and Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Côte d'Ivoire).

1
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 1. "The decolonisation
of Africa was one of the turning points in the history of the post-war world. It captured the imagination of a
new generation of idealists who enthusiastically proclaimed their belief in racial equality and individual
liberty."
74
 The decolonisation of Africa was one of the turning points in the history of the post-war
world. It captured the imagination of a new generation of idealists who enthusiastically
proclaimed their belief in racial equality and individual liberty. The liberation of Africa from
European rule followed on the heels of the independence gained by India and other colonies in
Asia. The struggle for political freedom by the peoples of Africa also helped to open the way for
the civil rights movement in North America. In the 1950s new and relatively young leaders,
Kwame Nkrumah in west Africa and Nelson Mandela in South Africa, stood in solidarity with
Jawaharlal Nehru, 2 the prime minister of India, and Martin Luther King, the apostle of black
freedom in the United States. 3 In the year 1960 (Fig 3.1) no fewer than 17 former African
colonies became independent members of the United Nations. These included Nigeria, Britain’s
densely populated west African territory; Somalia, the last Italian province in east Africa; Zaire,
the giant Belgian colony in central Africa; and almost all of the French possessions in western,
central and eastern Africa. The retreat of the tide of European imperialism seemed to be almost as
rapid as its rise had been 75 years earlier; yet the course of decolonisation was not always smooth.
The 1960 burst of decolonisation was the central and most dramatic episode in a long process of
political change that affected the whole of Africa, from Cairo to the Cape, and has lasted
throughout the twentieth century. Decolonisation was the mirror image of the colonisation that
had slowly brought European domination to Africa in the nineteenth century.
The roots of anti-colonial nationalism in western Africa, however, date back to the
earliest years of imperial domination. The nationalists did not, by and large, belong to the old
royal courts and aristocracies that had been either defeated by the colonial invaders or co-opted by
them to become their local agents of administration. The new political activists belonged instead
to a “modern” generation of men who had been educated in mission schools and government
colleges or had gained experience of life beyond the colonial world through travel. 4 Some went
abroad in the colonial armies recruited to help Britain and France to fight against Germany in one
world war and Japan in the other.5 Some trained as teachers in France or lawyers in Britain, and a
few went as far afield as the United States where they met a black middle class ambitious to
overcome the racial inequalities that governed both American and African societies.
The earliest phases of decolonisation took place almost before the colonial conquests had
been completed. Already in the nineteenth century black settlers in Liberia and white settlers in
the Cape were deemed by America and Britain to be capable of running their own internal affairs

2
Goldschmidt Jr. Historical Dictionary of Egypt. Scarecrow Press, 2013. pp 13.
3
Botwe-Asamoah, Kwame. Kwame Nkrumah's Politico-cultural Thought and Policies: An African-
centered Paradigm for the Second Phase of the African Revolution. Psychology Press, 2005. pp 143.
4
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 18
5
Judith A. Byfield, Carolyn A. Brown, Timothy Parsons, Ahmad Alawad Sikainga. Africa and World War
II. Cambridge University Press, 2015. pp 27.
75
without cost to the colonising power. 6 In the 1940s the independence of the emperor of Ethiopia
was recognized by Britain, although British, and later American, influence remained strong. Soon
afterwards the Italian empire in Africa was gradually decolonised, although without any explicit
recognition that this was creating a precedent for Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal. After the
Second World War, with its rhetoric of freedom and self-determination in Europe, and its legacy
of decolonisation in Asia, the debate over independence for Africa could not be silenced. A
handful of worldly Africans admired the visionary Caribbean ideals of Marcus Garvey, who
dreamt of creating a pan-African empire in which black peoples would rule their own destinies. 7
In 1945 they met in a pan-African congress under the American chairmanship of W.E.B. Dubois
and discussed their hopes of a post-war world in which fragmented Africa would be decolonised
and united as a proud black nation.8 The first step had to be the winning of independence, and the
pioneer of decolonisation in Africa was to be Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, who had acted as an
organizing secretary to the 1945 congress.9
In the 1950s it was tacitly and naïvely assumed that African nationalism was a
homogeneous ideological and political force that was pushing Europe into decolonisation and the
former was ready to don the mantle of state government. But the precept of common interests
among colonial leaders was very far from the truth. In each of the colonies, anti-colonialism
provided a nationalist bandwagon onto which politicians of every persuasion were required to
climb to achieve credibility. The leaders, however, had wider political agendas for postcolonial
transformation. They sought support in the seething complexity of colonial societies splintered by
class, ethnicity and belief, which foreigners so readily simplified into black and white. The new
politicians faced a severe challenge in creating decision-making institutions. Colonialism had
provided little experience of creative dialogue between opponents. Instead, it had used an
authoritarian tradition for allocating scarce resources with a scant regard for equity. Democracy
was not one of the legacies of empire in Africa.
A legacy of colonialism that did survive was geographical division and a striking feature
of decolonisation was the lack of change that it brought to the map of Africa. Colonial Africa in
1946 had much the same shape as independent Africa in 1995.10 With very few exceptions the
boundaries that had been drawn so arbitrarily by the Victorians were retained two generations
later by Africa’s nationalist politicians. Indeed, it can be argued that the central feature of

6
Beyan, Amos. African American Settlements in West Africa: John Brown Russwurm and the American
Civilizing Efforts. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. pp 77.
7
Garvey, Marcus. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Vol. X:
Africa for the Africans, 1923-1945. University of California Press, 2006. pp 162.
8
Robert A. Hill, Marcus Garvey, Universal Negro Improvement Association. The Marcus Garvey and
Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: 1826-August 1919. University of California Press,
1983. pp lxxxvii. 187.
99
Martin, Guy. African Political Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. pp 58.
10
Verzijl, J. H. W. International Law in Historical Perspective, Volume 6. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers,
1973. pp 510.
76
nationalism in any African country was the common desire to oppose the colonial rulers within
their colonial frontiers. This anti-colonial nationalism, with rare exceptions, was not replaced by
any broader forms of national awakening that transcended the frontiers of the old “scramble for
Africa”. The Somali people, it is true, tried to create a greater Somali nation after decolonisation,
but they could not bring into one fold their brethren scattered in Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
Even the union of former British and former Italian Somali peoples was unsuccessful,
despite their cultural and linguistic uniformity. Elsewhere similar attempts to erase colonial
frontiers failed. Eritrea was absorbed by Ethiopia in the 1960s, but it rebelled to gain
internationally recognized independence in the 1990s11 within frontiers mapped out by Italy in the
1890s. Senegal repeatedly tried to absorb the independent river-republic of Gambia, which ran
through its territory, but never with more than limited success. Morocco marched into the Sahara
to lay claim to former Spanish territory, but Algeria protested and supported a movement seeking
recognition for an independent republic of Western Sahara. The one frontier that the new rulers
did abolish was in Cameroun where part of the British Cameroons became a province of ex-
French Cameroun. Ironically, the nationalists were restoring the old German colonial borders.
The new rulers not only preserved the frontiers of their colonial adversaries but also
frequently hitched their postcolonial fortunes to the former colonisers. Most French territories
became part of a francophone community chaired by the president of France, who kept a close
political grip on African affairs. The two French federations of western Africa and equatorial
Africa were politically dismembered and the individual territories were directly linked to Paris.12
Limited changes in international patronage enabled France to extend its influence to ex-Spanish
Guinea and to ex-Belgian Rwanda. The English-speaking territories, with a few exceptions,
joined a somewhat looser “commonwealth of nations” that was ceremonially presided over by the
queen of England, although common diplomatic and military policy was eroded to a much greater
extent than in French-speaking Africa. The influence of both Britain and France remained
significant even when former colonies fell temporarily into the hands of tyrants, as happened in
both the Central African Republic and Uganda. In the Portuguese colonies, by contrast, the
surviving influence of the old colonial mother country was more limited. Although the Portuguese
language remained the language of politics in Angola and Mozambique, foreign affairs fell
increasingly under the influence of the superpowers. The last phase of decolonisation became tied
up with the Cold War as USA and the USSR fought a destructive proxy war in Angola after their
departure from Vietnam. 13
One of the penetrating cultural transformations brought to Africa was the acceptance of
colonial languages as the languages of administration and justice in most of Africa’s successor

11
Leonard, Thomas M. Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Psychology Press, 2005. pp 577.
12
Thompson, Virginia and Adloff, Richard. French West Africa. Stanford University Press, 1958. pp 157.
13
Ohaegbulam, Festus Ugboaja. U.S. Policy in Postcolonial Africa: Four Case Studies in Conflict
Resolution. Peter Lang, 2004. pp 147.
77
states. In a few of the emerging republics the ruling classes even preferred French, Portuguese or
English in their social and political discourse and allowed their children to grow up ignorant of
traditional vernaculars. Education, especially higher education, remained predominantly in the
European mould, with European textbooks and teachers. A cultural influence even more pervasive
than language and education was colonial religion. Christianity spread far beyond the colonial
cities to affect the lives of rural peoples who still clung to their own languages and customs. The
decolonisation of political institutions was often relatively rapid, but the minds of many Africans
continued to work on colonial assumptions, making cultural, emotional and intellectual
decolonisation difficult for the heirs of empire.
The financial legacies of colonialism were also far reaching. In a few places
decolonisation brought the virtual disappearance of the monetary system, but for most
independent Africans coins and bank notes had become a permanent feature of a wage and trade
economy. For some, indeed, the coinage remained effectively colonial, controlled by external
bankers and supported by exports to Europe on terms chosen by white consumers rather than by
black producers. Under colonialism the terms of trade offered to individual farmers had often
been ungenerous but no alternative outlets were available to them. The cost of credit had also
been exorbitant and the penalties for defaulting brought draconian punishment. After
independence, nations found the terms of trade loaded against them and multinational agreements
offering only limited protection.
Nations also found that credit to the poor was expensive and the terms on which it was
offered severely limited their economic freedoms of choice. Africa had to pay dearly for the
foreign services in shipping, insurance and communications, which it was unable to provide for
itself. When the Arab nations succeeded, as the African ones did not, in breaking the colonial
nexus and determining for themselves the price of their exported oil, Africa was victimized yet
again as a consumer which could ill afford to pay a fivefold price increase for its petroleum.
African nations found their debts steeply mounting and the International Monetary Fund
intervened to supervise their accounting and dictate their fiscal policies.
The most direct form of foreign influence to survive in Africa was neither cultural nor
financial but military. 14 The new states bought their weapons and training programs from former
colonial rulers or from other powers interested in gaining influence in the region. They also
sought direct military help when facing crises. Britain and France gave overt and covert military
help to their chosen political heirs when the social contracts between politicians and people
appeared to be broken and rebellions threatened. In some cases politicians who could not depend
on military support from former colonial patrons borrowed regiments from third parties, or
recruited paid international mercenaries, to enhance their authority and repel foreign and domestic

14
Dibie, Robert A. The Politics and Policies of Sub-Saharan Africa. University Press of America, 2001. pp
37.
78
opponents. Not surprisingly, soldiers came to see themselves as the arbiters of independence and
all too frequently took power into their own hands. This outcome had not been foreseen during
the decolonising process. The last phase of colonial politics had been largely concerned with the
writing of sophisticated constitutions for the replacement of colonial regimes by democratic ones.
Democracy, however, did not instantly take root and the immediate political legacy of colonialism
was too often sternly authoritarian and even arbitrary.
Colonialism had left no institutions for resolving conflicts of interest peaceably. Granting
independence did not bring greater social harmony, or create new wealth, or reconcile the
aristocracy to losing the traditional status they had preserved under colonial rule. Independence
therefore brought attempted revolutions and class warfare to the mountain valleys at the very
centre of Africa. 15 It is however, worthwhile to examine the decolonisation process of each
colonial power in Africa as each empire had uniquely distinguishing characters and features.
British Decolonisation
Britain was the first imperial power to acknowledge that it could benefit by granting self-
government to its colonies. It also calculated that a negotiated transfer of power would avoid the
need to defend the colonies by force of arms when frustrated nationalist claims for independence
led to violent protest. The economic and strategic benefits of holding the colonies, it was thought,
could be maintained without the political and financial cost of direct control. Soon British opinion
of all shades was convinced that political decolonisation accompanied by economic partnership
was the only viable way of maintaining European influence in Africa. A few African examples of
decolonisation of each major colonial power are briefly enumerated below.
Egypt - Arguably the first country in Africa, where the process of decolonisation began was
Egypt. After the First World War, on 28th February 1922, the authority of the “protected” king of
Egypt was extended to grant him semi-independence, unilaterally by Great Britain, although
British troops remained on his soil, to the dismay of nationalist politicians; 16 Through this
declaration, the British government unilaterally ended its protectorate over Egypt and granted it
nominal independence with the exception of four "reserved" areas: foreign relations,
communications, the military and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 17 After the Second World War three
political traditions tried to win dominance in Egypt and restore the nationalist agenda of full
political, military and economic independence. The three traditions consisted of the Liberals of
the parliamentary monarch, the Muslim brotherhoods and a political tradition of young army
officers. In 1952 the military gained power in Egypt led by Nasser through a coup d’état that
gradually took the form of a revolution.

15
Zeilig, Leo. Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa. Haymarket Books, 2009. pp 65.
16
Woodward, Peter. The Horn of Africa: Politics and International Relations. I.B.Tauris, 2003. pp 18.
17
King, Joan Wucher. Historical Dictionary of Egypt. Books of Lasting Value. American University in
Cairo Press, 1989 (first published 1984). pp 259–260.
79
Sudan - The second challenge to British colonial rule in northern Africa came from the Sudan, a
colony that was theoretically the joint responsibility of Britain and Egypt but which had in effect
been ruled by Britain since Egypt had gained self-government in 1922. In 1948 internal colonial
democracy was granted to the Sudan. The dominant northern politicians opted for independence
on the model chosen by Burma and in 1956 Sudan. The south was racially black in contrast to the
north, where a thousand years of Arab immigration had created a light-skinned population, and
educated southerners spoke English not Arabic and worshipped in Christian churches rather than
Muslim mosques. The two cultural traditions broke into two political traditions that soon came
into armed confrontation with each other and the Sudan spasmodically suffered from long periods
of civil war. The Second World War had brought a temporary reversal to the long-term trend of
British disengagement from northeastern Africa. 18 British soldiers and administrators moved into
neighbouring Italian spheres of influence in northeastern Africa and began a process of
decolonisation in Eritrea on the eastern flank and in Libya in the western desert.
Gold Coast (Ghana) - By 1945, the native population of the region was demanding more
autonomy in the wake of the end of the Second World War and the beginnings of the
decolonisation process across the world. By 1956, British Togoland, the Ashanti protectorate, and
the Fante protectorate were merged with the Gold Coast to create one colony, which became
known as the Gold Coast. In 1957 the colony gained independence under the name of Ghana.
Ghana was moderately prosperous with a level of wealth that almost attained that of some
non-industrial countries in Mediterranean Europe. It had a small but rising population of
university graduates. 19 The professional men were supported by a few African businessmen who
cautiously put a little of their money into organizing a political party called the United Gold Coast
Convention. The party hired Kwame Nkrumah, 20 as an organizing secretary who was a Catholic
trained schoolmaster. Nkrumah was a tireless campaigner and a brilliant speaker. The British
Government was forced to make a choice between repression and liberation as its strategy and it
chose liberation.21 Six years after Ghana’s independence, in 1963, when many of these politicians
met again in Ethiopia, the map of Africa had been transformed and a majority of them had won
independence. 22 The idea of surrendering power to a pan-African ideal no longer excited them,

18
Professor Birmingham David. The Decolonisation Of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 10.
19
Roberts, Andrew. The Colonial Moment in Africa: Essays on the Movement of Minds and Materials,
1900-1940. Cambridge University Press, 1990. pp 184. "In West Africa, despite the early pre-eminence of
Freetown, with its Fourah Bay College, owned by the CMS and affiliated with the University of Durham
since 1876, and with its concentration of secondary schools, the lead was taken by the Gold Coast, enriched
by its cocoa exports which in 1919 provided more than half the world's supply."
20
Birmingham, David. Kwame Nkrumah: The Father of African Nationalism (revised edition). Ohio
University Press, 1998. pp 13.
21
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation Of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 20.
22
Levitt, Jeremy. Africa: Mapping New Boundaries in International Law. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008. pp
78.
80
 PLATE III

Fig 3.1 Decolonisation of Africa Fig 3.2 Congo Crisis, 1961

Source: Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Kongo_1961_map_en.pn

http://howafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/decolonization-in-africa.gif g
however, and their agendas were parochially nationalist. Nkrumah was deposed in 1966. Among
those dissatisfied with his policies were members of both the police force and the army. 23
Nigeria - In 1960 the fragmentation of French western Africa had presented one challenge to the
ideals of pan-Africanism. In the same year a very different challenge came from the
decolonisation and consolidation of Nigeria. Nigeria was so large that it did not need pan-African
integration, and so complex that all its political energies were absorbed inwards. Although
Nigeria only covered about three per cent of Africa’s land surface, it contained almost a quarter of
its population. The British solved the problem of governing Nigeria in two ways. In the south they
had encouraged the spread of Christian education and created an English-speaking network of
Yoruba people in the west and Igbo people in the east who acted as intermediaries between the
vibrant local cultures and the foreign economic interests.24 In the north a different solution
allowed Islam to retain its supremacy and granted the Hausa Emirs of the fallen sultanate of
Sokoto the right to rule their kingdoms on behalf of Britain. In 1967 as a result of a coup, led by
the north, Nigeria broke out into civil war. 25
Kenya - The decolonisation of Kenya was one of the classic cases of African decolonisation. In
Kenya, white settlers persuaded the colonial administration to coerce neighbouring Africans into
working for them either by imposing taxes in colonial money that had to be earned on foreign
farms or, even more harshly, by expelling Africans from their lands so that they could no longer
survive as independent farmers and were forced to work on the colonial estates. This resulted in
the Kenyan revolution which had its roots in frustrated success rather than in persistent poverty.
The Mau-Mau rebellion that culminated in the decolonisation of Kenya began in 1952 when
subversive groups of disenchanted Africans came together and secretly swore to no longer co-
operate with the colonial authority. 26
Uganda - The decolonisation of Uganda, Kenya’s western neighbour, presented political
problems of a different kind from those encountered in a white settler colony. Although Uganda
had no white settlers it did have an influential community of Asian settlers that the British had
brought in to act as middlemen between peasants who grew cotton and companies that exported
it. 27 Cotton was never one of Africa’s most profitable exports and the farmers were very sensitive
both to reductions in crop revenue and inflation in consumer prices in Asian village stores after
the Second World War. 28 One Ugandan leader who caused the British anxiety was Mutesa, the

23
Barany, Zoltan. The Soldier and the Changing State: Building Democratic Armies in Africa, Asia,
Europe, and the Americas. Princeton University Press, 2012. pp 291.
24
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation Of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 24.
25
Udofia, O. E. Nigerian Political Parties: Their Role in Modernizing the Political System, 1920–1966.
Journal of Black Studies 11 (4), 1981. pp 435 - 447.
26
Nissimi, Hilda. Mau Mau and the Decolonisation of Kenya. Journal of Military and Strategic Studies,
Vol. 8, Issue 3. General History Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel, Spring 2006. pp 3.
PDF
27
Arens, William. A Century of Change in Eastern Africa. Walter de Gruyter, 1976. pp 49.
28
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation Of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 33.
81
young king of Buganda, Uganda’s central province who went on to eventually become president
of an independent Uganda. 29 A coalition of Roman Catholics from the north and a people’s
congress of teachers and civil servants in the north sought to build a unified Ugandan nation,
rather than a federal one. In the final colonial election this coalition of diverse interests won a
parliamentary majority in 1962 and the congress leader, Milton Obote, became prime minister.
Tanzania - Like the neighbouring mountain kingdoms of Rwanda and Burundi, Tanzania had
originally been conquered by imperial Germany in the 1880s. When Germany was defeated in the
African campaigns of the First World War, Britain became the trustee in charge of the territory. In
contrast to most of Africa, in colonial Tanzania politicians could make speeches in Swahili and be
widely understood; Democratic socialism of the kind practiced in Britain after the Second World
War appealed to Tanzanian politicians. 30
Rhodesia - In 1953 Britain thought that controlled decolonisation might best be achieved in the
Zambezi basin by creating a federal structure similar to the old French federation in West Africa
or to the British-sponsored union in South Africa. 31 The three territories of Malawi (Nyasaland),
Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) and Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia, later Rhodesia) were very
different but complemented each other economically. The British Central African Federation
represented such an unequal partnership that it soon collapsed. 32 In 1959, the Malawi launched a
non-violent rebellion and white forces from Southern Rhodesia invaded and arrested the political
leaders. 33 A similar demand for freedom from white federal control immediately grew up in
Zambia, but Britain was more reluctant to surrender residual power there lest it lose its alleged
right to mineral royalties in the copper mines. 34 In 1964 Britain took the risk of transferring power
to black Zambian politicians. Nevertheless, the basic economic reality of Zambia was unchanged.
Farmers received little benefit from independence and the copper industry remained an economic
enclave effectively run from South Africa with South African skilled labour and South African
machinery.

29
Shorter, Aylward. East African Societies. Routledge, 2013. pp 28.
30
Shopen, Timothy. Languages and Their Status. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. pp 290. "As
during the German colonial period, knowledge of Swahili is a prerequisite for any African wanting to join
the ranks of the civil service, although most top-level jobs are held by people bilingual in Swahili and
English. The grass-roots development of the political party that led Tanzania to independence, uniting the
country's many ethnic groups, would not have been possible without Swahili."
31
Mungazi, Dickson A. The Last Defenders of the Laager: Ian D. Smith and F.W. de Klerk. Greenwood
Publishing Group, 1998. pp 121.
32
Glass, Bryan. The Scottish Nation at Empire's End. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. pp 55. 'The problem with
Rennie's claim is that MacLeod never stated before may 1959 that he wanted to bring the Africans of
Nyasaland immediate independence. MacLeod definitely felt that there was more work to be done in
preparing Africans for self-government, but a racially unequal Federation was not best suited for this
purpose.'
33
Kalinga, Owen J. M. Historical Dictionary of Malawi. Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. pp xxiii.
34
Rotberg, Robert I. Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa: The Making of Malawi and Zambia, 1873-
1964. Harvard University Press, 1965. pp 315–16.
82
 In 1965 the Rhodesian white supremacist leader, Ian Smith, led a white rebellion against
the British crown and unilaterally declared Rhodesia to be independent.35 In September 1968, the
Appellate Division of the Rhodesian High Court ruled that Ian Smith's administration had become
the de jure government of the country, not merely the de facto one. 36 To support his decision,
Chief Justice Sir Hugh Beadle used several statements made by Hugo Grotius, who maintained
that there was no way in which a nation could rightly claim to be governing a particular territory,
if it was waging a war against that territory. Beadle argued that due to Britain's economic war
against Rhodesia, she could not (at the same point) be described as governing Rhodesia.37 The
year 1970 began a decade of change that would gradually transform racist Rhodesia into a
multiracial Zimbabwe by 1980 and Robert Mugabe would become its President.
French Decolonisation
While Britain was predominantly responsible for taking the initiative in the controlled
decolonisation of northeastern Africa, France was the main foreign power in northwestern Africa.
French influence in the Maghreb (Arabic for ‘west’) had grown up in a series of initiatives
beginning with the conquest of the capital city Algiers in 1830. 38 It continued with the settlement
of European wheat farmers and wine-growers in the Algerian coastlands, and with the conquest of
the Algerian hinterland of mountains and deserts. In the 1880s French influence spread eastward
with the creation of French Tunisia. 39 In 1942 British and American forces opposed to Vichy, and
nominally sympathetic to the rival French government-in-exile of General Charles de Gaulle,
invaded the Maghreb via Morocco and Tunisia. The Second World War, fought to proclaim the
rights of nations to choose their own destinies, naturally led North Africans to believe that they
too would benefit from the principles of democracy and self-determination.
France challenged the pan-African ideal of postcolonial co-operation. After the Second
World War, French policy in western Africa tended towards the object of assimilating African
leaders into European culture, drawing the colonial territories together in a federal government

35
Wood, J.R.T. So Far and no Further!: Rhodesia's bid for independence during the retreat from empire
1959-1965. Trafford Publishing, 2012. pp 389.
36
Laurel E. Miller, Louis Aucoin. Framing the State in Times of Transition: Case Studies in Constitution
Making . US Institute of Peace Press, 2010. pp 179.
37
Decision of the Appellate Division of the High Court of Southern Rhodesia. "Stella Madzimbamuto
(Appellant) v Desmond William Lardner Burke and Frederick Phillip George (Respondents)" (PDF).
Jurisafrica.org. pp 75. "XV. We have treated of him, who has now, or has had a right to govern; it now
remains, that we say something of him that usurps the government; not after he has either by long
possession, or agreement obtained a right to it, but so long as the cause of his unjust possession continues.
The acts of sovereignty exercised by such an usurper may have an obligatory force, not by virtue of his
right (for he has none), but because it is very probable that the lawful sovereign, whether it be the people
themselves, or a king, or a senate, *729 chooses rather that the usurper should be obeyed during that time,
than that the exercise of the laws and justice should be interrupted, and the state thereby exposed to all the
disorders of anarchy."
38
Sluglett, Peter. The Urban Social History of the Middle East, 1750-1950. Syracuse University Press,
2014. pp 16.
39
Cohen, William B. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530-1880.
Foreword by James D. Le Sueur. Indiana University Press, 2009. pp 124, 282.
83
and linking Africa ever more closely to France by providing it with a few elected seats in the
French parliament and appointing token African politicians to posts in the French Government. 40
41
Under a policy of ‘Balkanisation’, de Gaulle visited Africa dangling a carrot and
wielding a stick; the carrot was the offer of special privileges to colonial politicians, funds for
economic and educational development, and free access to Paris society where elite Africans felt
culturally at home. The price was the acceptance of membership of a French union that would be
much more closely knit than the British Commonwealth and in which France would make the
grand strategic decisions. 42 The stick was short and blunt: any colony that voted ‘Non’ (No) to de
Gaulle’s union would be cast out to fend for itself without access to the technical, financial or
philosophical comforts. All but one of France’s tropical African colonies accepted de Gaulle’s
limited form of semi-independence in 1958. 43
Morocco - The kingdom of Morocco had, unlike the other territories obtained by France, proudly
maintained its independence since the Middle Ages and never been conquered by the Ottoman
empire. 44 The northern and southern provinces of Morocco were partitioned off and given to
Spain, 45 which made claims dating back to the age of Columbus. From the relative safety of
Tangier, a Moroccan free port under international control, the sultan of Morocco began
subversively to proclaim his country’s right to escape from French tutelage and join the
independent Arab nations of the Islamic world. In 1956 France, having lost one colonial war in
Indochina and embarked on another in Algeria, gave way and the sultan returned to become the
independent King Mohamed V of Morocco. 46
Algeria - Algerians, who celebrated the end of the European war in May 1945, imagined that
independence would now be theirs, but their demands turned into a riotous threat to colonial
order. Decolonisation in northwestern Africa was delayed by ten years. 47 The decolonisation of

40
Shillington, Kevin. Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set. Routledge, 2013. pp 262. "The Loi
cadre (enabling act) of 1956 granted some internal self-government to French West Africa. Universal
suffrage was introduced, and African representation in the territorial assemblies increased. Executive
power, however, was still concentrated in the hands of the high commissioner (formerly governor general)
in Dakar."
41
Christian Grabas, Alexander Nützenadel. Industrial Policy in Europe After 1945: Wealth, Power and
Economic Development in the Cold War. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. pp 242.
42
Ikeda, Ryo. The Imperialism of French Decolonisaton: French Policy and the Anglo-American Response
in Tunisia and Morocco. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. pp 120.
43
Titley, Brian. Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa. McGill-Queen's Press, 2002. pp 15.
44
“Empire Cherifien, Official Bulletin. Traitè conclu entre la France et le Maroc le 30 mars 1912, pour
l'Organisation du Protectorat Français dans l'Empire Chérifien". Bulletin officiel de l'Empire chérifien :
Protectorat de la République française au Maroc (French, Rabat). ("Treaty between France and Morocco
March 30, 1912 , the Organization of the French Protectorate in Chérifien Empire". Official Bulletin of the
Sherifian Empire Protectorate of the French Republic in Morocco). 1st November 1912.
45
Okoth, Assa. A History of Africa: African societies and the establishment of colonial rule, 1800-1915.
East African Publishers, 2006. pp 307.
46
Naylor, Phillip C. Historical Dictionary of Algeria. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. pp 391.
47
Barnett Singer, John Langdon, John W. Langdon. Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French
Colonial Empire. Univerity of Wisconsin Press, 2008. pp 424-425.
84
Algeria caused a prolonged and destructive confrontation between Europe and Africa. The
“savage war of peace”, as Macmillan’s biographer, Alastair Horne, famously called it. 48
Tunisia - On Algeria’s eastern flank Tunisia underwent a similar confrontation with France,
although the traditional ruler, the Bey of Tunis, did not play a comparable role in ending the
protectorate to that achieved by the sultan of Morocco. The nationalist leadership was rooted in an
old and well-established urban bourgeoisie whose traditions dated back to the great days of
Carthage before the Roman conquest.49 French politicians, on their side, were anxious to avoid
the expense of repressing yet another colonial rebellion, but could not ignore the stridency of
French settlers in Tunisia anxious to preserve their social and economic privileges.50 French
settlers opposed to even gradual political reform blocked the establishment of a Tunisian
parliament. 51 As in Morocco, however, France soon decided to reverse its policy, released the
martyred but essentially moderate statesman, conceded internal self-government, and finally
granted independence in 1956. 52
Guinea - De Gaulle’s blueprint for French decolonisation was defiantly challenged by Guinea,
which did not vote “Oui” (Yes) in the referendum. 53 Its leaders had not emerged from the
assimilated Francophile elite but from a trade-union movement that had much less cause to be
beholden to France. They mounted a vigorous referendum campaign and Guinea voted for total
independence and against the French union. 54 De Gaulle carried out his threat and withdrew all
French assistance. 55 The pan-Africanists counter-attacked by giving Guinea diplomatic and
financial assistance and sponsoring its admission to the United Nations. 56 De Gaulle rapidly
improved the terms that he had offered to his loyal colonial followers. In 1960 remaining French
colonies were given a form of independence that entitled them to a seat at the United Nations.
Niger and Ivory Coast - The territory of Niger was nominally decolonised but remained
effectively under French military control.57 The Ivory Coast, which had been largely neglected in
colonial times and whose leaders had been particularly reluctant to accept independence rather
than pursue integration with France, adopted a policy of attracting colonial-style settlers to create

48
Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962. New York Review Books, 2006. pp 2
preface to 1977 edition.
49
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation Of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 12.
50
Ibid.
51
Wondji, Christophe, Ali A. Mazrui. Generale History of Africa: Africa since 1935. UNESCO, 1993. pp
130.
52
Irving, R. E. M. Christian Democracy in France (Routledge Revivals). Routledge, 2010. pp 153.
53
Ibid
54
Duara, Prasenjit. Decolonisation: Perspectives from Now and Then. Routledge, 2004. pp 233.
55
Titley, Brian. Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa. McGill-Queen's Press, 2002. pp 15.
56
Schmidt, Elizabeth. Cold War and Decolonisation in Guinea, 1946–1958. Ohio University Press, 2007.
pp 176.
57
Schmidt, Elizabeth. Cold War and Decolonisation in Guinea, 1946-1958. Ohio University Press, 2007. pp
272.
85
wealth. 58 Ivory Coast became an autonomous member of the French Community in 1958 and
gained independence in 1960.
Senegal - Senegal had Africa’s oldest links with France and faced the hardest task of postcolonial
adaptation. The first difficulty of decolonisation arose when the city of Dakar lost its
administrative role as the capital of the disbanded federation of French western Africa and the
elite had to seek new outlets for their talent and training. 59 One political and economic oddity of
Senegal was that the region’s only navigable river, the Gambia, had fallen to the British during
the Anglo-French wars of the slaving era, 60 and although Senegal tried to claim it, both during the
colonial partition and after decolonisation, it remained an autonomous English-speaking
enclave. 61
Madagascar - In 1940 the French colonial administration of Madagascar, in common with the
French West African administration in Dakar, but in contrast to the French equatorial African
administration in Brazzaville, chose to support Marshal Pétain rather than General de Gaulle.62 As
a result, Britain invaded Madagascar, as it had invaded Ethiopia, in order to remove a hostile
colonial regime. The British brought with them a representative of de Gaulle but effectively
remained in control of the island until 1946.63 Upon British withdrawal, many people were
dismayed that the departure of the British brought instead a restoration of French colonial rule.
The restoration of formal French political authority in Madagascar lasted barely ten years. Several
factors combined to reopen the independence debate. When a constitutional framework for the
tropical colonies was approved in Paris in 1956,64 new political parties sprang up on the island.
Compromises were made and in 1960 Madagascar, like other French tropical colonies, accepted
the terms available.
Cameroun - The decolonisation of Cameroun was the most difficult case for France to tackle
amongst all its colonies. The country was almost as diverse in its cultural and ethnic make-up as
neighbouring British colony of Nigeria. Moreover, the western part of Cameroun was under
British colonial trusteeship and had been governed as part of Nigeria. 65 Reintegrating those parts
of the western provinces that wished to leave Nigeria, and rejoin a greater Cameroun that roughly
covered the old German territory, presented one of the most delicate prospects of decolonisation.

58
Hargreaves, John D. Decolonisation in Africa. Routledge, 2014. pp 84.
59
Josef Gugler, William G. Flanagan. Urbanization and Social Change in West Africa. CUP Archive, 1978.
pp 44.
60
Anthony Appiah, Henry Louis Gates. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American
Experience. Oxford University Press, 2005. pp 721-722.
61
H.J. de Blij, Peter O. Muller, Jan Nijman. The World Today: Concepts and Regions in Geography. John
Wiley & Sons, 2010. pp 255.
62
Ginio, Ruth. French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa. University of
Nebraska Press, 2006. pp 169.
63
Sellström, Tor. Africa in the Indian Ocean: Islands in Ebb and Flow. Brill, 2015. pp 78.
64
Urwin, Derek W. A Political History of Western Europe Since 1945. Routledge, 2014. pp 117.
65
Ayim, Martin Ayong. Former British Southern Cameroons Journey Towards Complete Decolonisation,
Independence, and Sovereignty: A Comprehensive Compilation of Efforts. Vol One. AuthorHouse, 2010.
pp 298.
86
In almost all other parts of Africa, including the partitioned German colony of Togo in western
Africa, the latest colonial boundaries were preserved during the decolonising process.66 In
Cameroun two territories with contrasted French and British colonial traditions were brought
together and the institutions of education, of justice, and of law enforcement had to be
harmonized. After independence Cameroun became one of the most successful of France’s
African clients and expanded the plantation economy it had inherited from the German period. 67
Chad - In the French colony of Chad to the north-east of Cameroun, potential investors were
attracted by mineral prospects, but neither the politicians nor the French were able to hold the
country together after independence and war-lords ruled shifting fiefs with funds and weapons
supplied by foreign supporters. 68 Chad was granted independence on 11th August 1960 with the
Chadian Progressive Party’s (PPT) leader, François Tombalbaye, a member of the ‘Sara’ ethnic
group as its first president. 69
Gabon - The smallest and richest of France’s equatorial colonies, and the one where the least
power was transferred to African politicians in the process of decolonisation, was Gabon. Gabon
had been founded as a settlement for liberated slaves and had later attracted one of Europe’s most
famous medical missionaries, Albert Schweitzer. 70 Such was the mineral wealth of Gabon that
when France’s appointee as local president was threatened with dismissal by rival local interests,
de Gaulle’s army invaded the new republic in 1964 to restore the chosen postcolonial order.71
Neocolonialism in Gabon had acquired a tone of imperial expansionism. Libreville even became a
supply centre for the giant American oil platforms off the coast of Angola, far to the south. 72
Spanish Decolonisation
By 1962 the largest, richest and most populated of the territories of northern Africa had
gained independence. There remained, however, one last footnote to the region’s programme of
decolonisation. This concerned the Spanish colonies along the Atlantic shore of northern Africa.
Spain had been an early colonizer, and acquired the Canary Islands from Portugal where the
dwindling population of local Berbers was absorbed into a much larger European immigrant
population. As mentioned above, on the adjacent African mainland Spain acquired colonies in
northern Morocco, in southern Morocco and in the Rio de Oro territories of the Western Sahara.
Gradually the Spanish claims were whittled away by Moroccan territorial expansion, although the
constitutional position of the Western Sahara remained in dispute and two fortress towns in the

66
Anderson, Ewan W. International Boundaries: A Geopolitical Atlas. Psychology Press, 2003. pp 136.
67
Salif Diop, Jean-Paul Barusseau, Cyr Descamps. The Land/Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone of
West and Central Africa. Springer, 2014. pp 171.
68
Falola, Toyin. The Power of African Cultures. University Rochester Press, 2008. pp 109.
69
Decalo, Samuel. Historical Dictionary of Chad (2 ed.). Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1987. pp 248-
249.
70
Brabazon, James. Albert Schweitzer: A Biography. Syracuse University Press, 2000. pp 234.
71
Paine, Sarah C.M. Nation Building, State Building, and Economic Development: Case Studies and
Comparisons. Routledge, 2015. pp 258.
72
Professor Birmingham, David. The Decolonisation of Africa. Routledge, 2008. pp 43.
87
north remained under Spanish control, eyeing Gibraltar from the African shore of the strait. The
offshore Canary Islands, although historically and geographically part of Africa, remained
culturally, economically and politically part of Spain.73
Italian Decolonisation
Eritrea - Eritrea had become an Italian colony during the scramble for Africa and tens of
thousands of Italians had settled in the cool highlands above the Red Sea salt deserts. In 1941
Britain invaded the colony and imposed a temporary military government until a decision about
the colony’s future could be settled internationally. 74 Eritreans were politically divided between
Christians and Muslims and between those who saw their future as linked to the neighbouring
empire of Ethiopia and those who sought independent statehood. 75 In 1962 Eritrea was formally
absorbed into Ethiopia. Some Eritrean Christians and many Eritrean Muslims felt that their
birthright had been denied them. 76 Gradually, with an eye on decolonising developments among
their southern neighbours in eastern Africa, they began to seek a second independence.
Libya - The second Italian territory to be decolonised in the immediate aftermath of the Second
World War was Libya. After the retreat of the German army, temporary British military rulers
were the dominant force controlling both Italian-speaking settlers and Arabic-speaking Libyans.
The British choice of king was Muhammad Idris, who had returned from exile in Egypt to
become the emir of the eastern province of Cyrenaica. 77 In Tripoli, however, the urban population
vigorously opposed the British-sponsored agenda for decolonisation. By 1951, the nationalists
acknowledged the United Nations decision that Libya must become independent, and accepted the
compromise of a federal system in which the province of Tripoli would have some autonomous
powers under the overarching government of King Idris. 78 However, it was from the nomadic
south that a new Libyan radical movement emerged, challenging the entrepreneurial nationalism
of Tripoli led by a visionary colonel, Muammar al-Gaddafi, who aspired to give Libya the most
independent government in all Africa. 79

73
Calvocoressi, Peter. World Politics Since 1945. Routledge, 2013. pp 518.
74
Negash, Tekeste. Eritrea and Ethiopia: The Federal Experience. Nordic Africa Institute, 1997. pp 19.
"The Ethio-British war against Italy that began in earnest in November 1940 came to an end, as far as
Eritrea was concerned, in April 1941. The fifty year Italian colonial rule was over. On behalf of the Allies
and until the end of the War, the British assumed responsibility over Eritrea with a bare skeleton of staff
and with extremely tight financing."
75
Spickard, Paul R. Race and Nation: Ethnic Systems in the Modern World. Psychology Press, 2005. pp
342-344.
76
Killion, Tom. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Scarecrow 1998. pp 55.
77
Reich, Bernard. Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Biographical
Dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990. pp 251.
78
Abun-Nasr Jamil M. A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge University Press, 1987.
pp 407.
79
Blundy, David; Lycett, Andrew. Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution. Boston and Toronto: Little Brown
& Co, 1987. pp 40.
88
Portuguese Decolonisation
After World War II, while many European nations were granting independence to their
colonies, Portugal's Estado Novo regime headed by António de Oliveira Salazar issued a decree
officially renaming Angola, Mozambique and other Portuguese possessions as overseas provinces
of the mother country, and emigration to the colonies soared.
Angola - The Portuguese Colony of Angola became an overseas province of Portugal in 1951. In
the late 1950s the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the People's
Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) began to organize strategies and action plans to
fight Portuguese rule. 80 Organized guerrilla warfare began in 1961, the same year that a law was
passed to improve the working conditions of the largely unskilled native black workforce which
was demanding more rights. The conflict came to be known as the Colonial War or the War of
Liberation. From 1966 to 1970, the pro-independence MPLA guerrilla movement expanded their
limited insurgency operations to the East of Angola. This vast countryside area was far away from
the main urban centers and close to foreign countries where the guerrillas were able to take
shelter. The UNITA, a smaller pro-independence guerrilla organization established in the East,
supported the MPLA.
For the Portuguese society the war was becoming even more unpopular due to its length
and financial costs, the worsening of diplomatic relations with other United Nations members.
The escalation led directly to the mutiny of members of the Portuguese military in the Carnation
Revolution in 1974, 81 an event that would lead to the independence of the former Portuguese
colonies in Africa.
Mozambique - The drive for Mozambican independence developed apace with the Angola
colonial war, and in 1962 several anti-colonial political groups formed the Front for the
Liberation of Mozambique (FRELIMO), which initiated an armed campaign against Portuguese
colonial rule in September 1964. By 1970 the first war of liberation in Mozambique had failed
and its leader, Eduardo Mondlane, had been assassinated. 82 The second Mozambique war was led
by a military leader, Samora Machel, and concentrated on winning access to the central provinces
and threatening the line-of-rail to Rhodesia, the settler farms of the highlands, and the enormous
hydroelectric dam that Portugal was building on the Zambezi. 83 Fighting stopped after the
Portuguese revolution of April 1974 and a year later Samora Machel became president of the new
republic. 84

80
Tucker, Spencer C. Encyclopedia of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A New Era of Modern Warfare:
A New Era of Modern Warfare. ABC-CLIO, 2013. pp 478.
81
Morier-Genoud, Eric. Sure Road? Nationalisms in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. BRILL,
2012. pp 149-150.
82
Sellström, Tor. Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Solidarity and assistance, 1970-1994.
Nordic Africa Institute, 2002. pp 77.
83
Roland Oliver, Anthony Atmore. Africa since 1800. Cambridge University Press, 2005. pp 276.
84
King, David C. Mozambique. Marshall Cavendish, 2007. pp 30.
89
The Belgian colony of Congo
The Belgian Congo was the second largest colony in Africa by land area (the largest being
Algeria) and the largest among former Belgian overseas possession as well as being by far the
most mineral rich region in Africa. The country plays the central role in events discussed in this
thesis as well as geographically occupying the center of the African continent thus; it is often
referred to as the ‘heart of Africa.’ As such the history and process of decolonisation of the Congo
deserves greater detail.
King Leopold of Belgium formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the
Conference of Berlin in 1885 and made the land his private property and named it the Congo Free
State. 85 Leopold's regime began various infrastructure projects, such as construction of the
railway that ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa). Nearly all such
projects were aimed at increasing the assets which Leopold and his associates could extract from
the colony. 86
In the neighbouring Belgian colony of Ruanda-Urundi, however, the politics of
decolonisation was even more destructive of human life than the army rule of the adjoining
formerly-British colony of Uganda. The twin kingdoms of Ruanda-Urundi (later Rwanda and
Burundi), were fertile and very densely populated and had been conquered by Germany during the
scramble for Africa. When Germany was driven out of Africa during the First World War the
kingdoms were placed in the custody of Belgium, 87 which governed them with the help of a
historic aristocracy called the Tutsi. As the prospect of decolonisation came closer the popular
majority, calling themselves Hutu, expected to rise from their peasant poverty and gain
democratic rights and equality of opportunity. That expectation, however, was hard to realize. The
Hutu and Tutsi communities would also play the central role in the problem of Congo and
Rwanda later in the thesis.
In the Belgian Free State of Congo, colonists brutalised the local population to produce
rubber, for which the proliferation of automobiles and development of rubber tires created a
growing international market. 88 The sale of rubber made a fortune for Leopold, who built several
buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country. To enforce the rubber quotas,
the army, the Force Publique, was called in and made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the
natives a matter of policy. 89 In 1908, the Belgian parliament, despite initial reluctance, bowed to
international pressure (especially that from the United Kingdom) and took over the Free State

85
Jesse S. Reeves. The Origin of the Congo Free State, Considered from the Standpoint of International
Law. The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 3, No. 1. American Society of International Law,
January 1909. pp 99-118.
86
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold's Ghost. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999. pp 260.
87
Shelley, Fred M. Nation Shapes: The Story behind the World's Borders. ABC-CLIO, 2013. pp 286.
88
Richard Bulliet, Pamela Crossley, Daniel Headrick, Steven Hirsch, Lyman Johnson. The Earth and Its
Peoples, Brief Volume II: Since 1500: A Global History. Cengage Learning, 2014. pp 544.
89
Lizelle Bisschoff, Stefanie Van de Peer. Art and Trauma in Africa: Representations of Reconciliation in
Music, Visual Arts, Literature and Film. I.B.Tauris, 2013. pp 270.
90
from King Leopold II. On 18th October 1908, the Belgian parliament voted in favour of annexing
the Congo as a Belgian colony. 90 Executive power rested with the Belgian Minister of Colonial
Affairs, assisted by a Colonial Council (also known as ‘Conseil Colonial’ located along with the
Minister for Colonial Affairs in Brussels) and the Belgian parliament exercised legislative
authority over the Belgian Congo. 91 In 1926, the colonial capital moved from Boma to
Léopoldville, some 300 km further upstream in the interior. 92
The transition from the Congo Free State to the Belgian Congo was a break but it was
also marked by a large degree of continuity. The last Governor-general of the Congo Free State,
Baron Wahis, remained in office in the Belgian Congo and the majority of Leopold II’s
administration with him. 93 Opening up the Congo and its natural and mineral riches for the
Belgian economy remained the main motive for colonial expansion; however, other priorities,
such as healthcare and basic education, slowly gained in importance.94 Colonial administrators
ruled the territory and a dual legal system existed (a system of European courts and one of
indigenous courts, ‘tribunaux indigènes’). 95 Indigenous courts had only limited powers and
remained under the firm control of the colonial administration. In 1936 it was recorded that there
were 728 Belgian administrators controlling the Colony. 96 No political activity was permitted in
the Congo whatsoever 97 and the Force Publique, a locally recruited army under Belgian
command, put down any attempts at rebellion. The Belgian population of the colony increased
from 1,928 in 1910 to nearly 89,000 in 1959. 98 The Belgian Congo was directly involved in the
two world wars.
During World War One, an initial stand-off between the Force Publique and the German
colonial army in German East Africa (Tanganyika) turned into open warfare with a joint Anglo-
Belgian invasion of German colonial territory in 1916 and 1917 during the East African
Campaign. 99 The Force Publique gained a notable victory when it marched into Tabora in
September 1916, under the command of General Charles Tombeur after heavy fighting. 100 After
the war, Belgium was rewarded for the participation of the Force Publique in the East African

90
McKenna, Amy. The History of Central and Eastern Africa. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011. pp 41.
91
Gann, Lewis H. The Rulers of Belgian Africa, 1884-1914. Princeton University Press, 2015. pp 162.
92
Nziem, Isidore Ndaywel è. Histoire générale du Congo : de l'héritage ancien à la république
démocratique. De Boeck Supérieur, 1998. pp 318.
93
Ewans, Martin. European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and Its
Aftermath. Psychology Press, 2002. pp 115.
94
Roland Vogt, Wayne Cristaudo, Andreas Leutzsch. European National Identities: Elements, Transitions,
Conflicts. Transaction Publishers, 2014. pp 25-26.
95
Duiker, William J. Contemporary World History. Cengage Learning, 2009. pp 43.
96
Shillington, Kevin. Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set. Routledge, 2013. pp 257.
97
Emizet Francois Kisangani, Scott F. Bobb. Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Scarecrow Press, 2009. pp xii.
98
Stanard, Matthew G. Selling the Congo: A History of European Pro-Empire Propaganda and the Making
of Belgian Imperialism. University of Nebraska Press, 2012. pp 19.
99
Iliffe, John. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge University Press, 1979. pp 243.
100
Ibid.
91
campaign with a League of Nations mandate over the former German colony of Ruanda-Urundi
(Rwanda and Burundi). 101 During World War II, the Belgian Congo was a crucial source of
natural resources for the Belgian government in exile in London. 102 The Force Publique again
participated in the Allied campaigns in Africa. Belgian Congolese forces under the command of
Belgian officers notably fought against the Italian colonial army in Ethiopia in Asosa, Bortaï and
Saïo under Major-General Auguste-Eduard Gilliaert during the second East African Campaign. 103
Belgian rule in the Congo was based around the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of
state, missionary and private company interests. 104 The privileges of Belgian commercial interests
meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became
specialised. On many occasions, the interests of the government and private enterprise became
closely tied and the state helped companies break strikes and remove other barriers imposed by
the indigenous population. 105 The country was split into nesting, hierarchically organised
administrative subdivisions, and run uniformly according to a set “politique indigene” (native
policy), in contrast to the British and the French, who generally favoured the system of indirect
rule whereby traditional leaders were retained in positions of authority under colonial
oversight. 106 There was also a high degree of racial segregation. Large numbers of white
immigrants who moved to the Congo after the end of World War II came from across the social
spectrum, but were nonetheless always treated as superior to blacks.107
During the 1940s and 1950s, the Congo experienced an unprecedented level of
urbanisation and the colonial administration began various development programs aimed at
making the territory into a "model colony". 108 One of the results of the measures was the

101
Melvin E. Page, Penny M. Sonnenburg. Colonialism: an international, social, cultural, and political
encyclopedia. A-M. Vol. 1, Volume 2. ABC-CLIO, 2003. pp 508.
102
Judith A. Byfield, Carolyn A. Brown, Timothy Parsons, Ahmad Alawad Sikainga. Africa and World
War II. Cambridge University Press, 2015. pp 30.
103
McCrummen, Stephanie. Nearly Forgotten Forces of WWII, Washington Post. Washington Post Foreign
Service. Tuesday, August 4, 2009.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/03/AR2009080302959.html
104
Turner, Thomas. The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth, and Reality. 2nd edition.. Zed Books London, 2007.
pp 28.
105
Ibid
106
Burke, Joan F. These Catholic Sisters Are All Mamas!: Towards the Inculturation of the Sisterhood in
Africa, an Ethnographic Study. BRILL, 2001. pp 34. "The policy of 'indirect rule' was officially avowed by
the Governor-General of the Congo Maurice Lippens in 1921. Edouard De Jonghe, a trained ethnologist
who served in the colonial ministry, pointed out the importance of 'absolute respect for customs which were
part and parcel of the people' (1921:758). Nonetheless, in the same article entitled A propos de la politique
indigene, he also identified specific institutions in the Congo which he thought should be suppressed, such
as the poison ordeal, 'black magic', polygamy, domestic slavery, the collective ownership of property."
107
Walter C. Soderlund, E. Donald Briggs, Tom Pierre Najem, Blake C. Roberts. Africa's Deadliest
Conflict: Media Coverage of the Humanitarian Disaster in the Congo and the United Nations Response,
1997–2008. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2013. pp 6. See also Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo:
From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History. Zed Books, 2002. pp 38.
108
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History. Zed Books, 2002.
Pp 27.
92
development of a new middle class of Europeanised African or ‘évolués’ in the cities. 109 By the
1950s the Congo had a wage labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony. 110
The Congo's rich natural resources, including uranium (much of the uranium used by the U.S.
nuclear programme during World War II was Congolese) led to substantial interest in the region
from both the Soviet Union and the United States as the Cold War developed.111
An African nationalist movement developed in the Belgian Congo during the 1950s,
primarily among the évolués. The movement was divided into a number of parties and groups
which were broadly divided on ethnic and geographical lines and opposed to one another. 112 The
largest, the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), was a united front organisation dedicated to
achieving independence "within a reasonable" time. 113 It was created around a charter which was
signed by, among others, Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Iléo, but others accused
the party of being too moderate.114 Lumumba became a leading figure within the MNC, and by
the end of 1959, the party claimed to have 58,000 members.115
The MNC's main rival was the Alliance des Bakongo or ABAKO (in most Bantu
languages, the prefix ba- is added to a human noun to form a plural. As such, Bakongo refers
collectively to members of the Kongo ethnic group), 116 led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, who advocated
a more radical ideology than the MNC, based around calls for immediate independence and the
promotion of regional identity. 117 ABAKO's stance was more ethnic nationalist than the MNC's; it
argued that an independent Congo should be run by the Bakongo as inheritors of the pre-colonial
Kingdom of the Kongo. 118 The Confédération des Associations Tribales du Katanga or
CONAKAT, a localist party led by Moise Tshombe, was the third major organisation; it
advocated federalism and primarily represented the southern province of Katanga. These were
joined by a number of smaller parties which emerged as the nationalist movement developed,
including the radical Parti Solidaire Africain or PSA, and factions representing the interests of
minor ethnic groups like the Alliance des Bayanzi or ABAZI. 119
Although it was the largest of the African nationalist parties, the MNC had many different
factions within it that took differing stances on a number of issues. It was increasingly polarised

109
Freund, Bill. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800, 2nd
edition. Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1998. pp 198-199.
110
Ibid
111
Borstelmann, Thomas. Apartheid, Colonialism, and the Cold War: the United States and Southern
Africa, 1945–1952. Oxford University Press, New York, 1993. pp 92-93.
112
Freund, Bill. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800, 2nd
edition. Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1998. pp 199.
113
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 64.
114
Ibid.. pp 64-65.
115
Ibid. pp 76.
116
Campbell, George L. Concise Compendium of the World's Languages. Routledge, 2003. pp 49.
117
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 65-66.
118
Ibid.
119
Ibid. pp 74.
93
between moderate évolués and the more radical mass membership.120 A radical faction headed by
Iléo and Albert Kalonji split away in July 1959, but failed to induce mass defections by other
MNC members. The dissident faction became known as the MNC-Kalonji (MNC-K), while the
majority group became the MNC-Lumumba (MNC-L). The split divided the party's support base
into those who endured with Lumumba, chiefly in the Stanleyville region in the north-east, and
those who backed the MNC-K, which became most popular around the southern city of
Élisabethville and among the Luba ethnic group. 121
Major riots broke out in Léopoldville, the Congolese capital, on 4th January 1959 after a
political demonstration turned violent. The Force Publique, the colonial gendarmerie, used force
against the rioters; at least 49 people were killed, and total casualties may have been as high as
500. 122 The nationalist parties' influence expanded outside the major cities for the first time, and
nationalist demonstrations and riots became a regular occurrence over the next year, bringing
large numbers of black people from outside the évolué class into the independence movement.
Many blacks began to test the boundaries of the colonial system by refusing to pay taxes or abide
by minor colonial regulations. The bulk of the ABAKO leadership was arrested, leaving the MNC
in an advantageous position. 123 These developments led to the white community also becoming
increasing radicalised. Some whites planned to attempt a coup d'état if a black majority
government took power. 124 As law and order began to break down, white civilians formed militia
groups known as Corps de Voluntaires Européens ("European Volunteer Corps") to police their
neighbourhoods. These militias frequently attacked blacks. 125
In the fallout from the Léopoldville riots, the report of a Belgian parliamentary working
group on the future of the Congo was published in which a strong demand for "internal
autonomy" was noted. 126 August de Schryver, the Minister of the Colonies, launched a high-
profile Round Table Conference in Brussels in January 1960, with the leaders of all the major
Congolese parties in attendance. 127 Lumumba, who had been arrested following riots in
Stanleyville, was released in the run-up to the conference and headed the MNC-L delegation. 128
The Belgian government had hoped for a period of at least 30 years before independence, but
Congolese pressure at the conference led to 30 June 1960 being set as the date. 129 Issues including

120
Ibid. pp 82-83.
121
Ibid. pp 83-85.
122
Ibid. pp 70.
123
Ibid. pp 70-73.
124
Ibid. pp 70.
125
Ibid. pp 79.
126
Ibid. pp 76.
127
Ibid. pp 88.
128
Ibid. pp 87.
129
Ibid. pp 88.
94
federalism, ethnicity and the future role of Belgium in Congolese affairs were left unresolved after
the delegates failed to reach agreement. 130
Belgians began campaigning against Lumumba, whom they wanted to marginalise; they
accused him of being a communist and, hoping to fragment the nationalist movement, supported
rival, ethnic-based parties like CONAKAT. 131 Many Belgians hoped that an independent Congo
would form part of a federation, like the French Community or British Commonwealth of
Nations, and that close economic and political association with Belgium would continue.132 As
independence approached, the Belgian government organised Congolese elections in May 1960.
These resulted in a broad MNC majority. 133
The proclamation of the independent Republic of the Congo, and the end of colonial rule,
occurred as planned on 30 June 1960. In a ceremony at the Palais de la Nation in Léopoldville,
King Baudouin gave a speech in which he presented the end of colonial rule in the Congo as the
culmination of the Belgian "civilising mission" begun by Leopold II. 134 After the King's address,
Lumumba gave an unscheduled speech in which he angrily attacked colonialism and described
independence as the crowning success of the nationalist movement. 135 Although Lumumba's
address was acclaimed by figures such as Malcolm X, it nearly provoked a diplomatic incident
with Belgium; even some Congolese politicians perceived it as unnecessarily provocative. 136
Nevertheless, independence was celebrated across the Congo. 137 Politically, the new state had
semi-presidential constitution, known as the ‘loi fondamentale’, in which executive power was
shared between President and Prime Minister in a system known as ‘bicephalisme’. 138 Kasa-Vubu
was proclaimed President, and Lumumba Prime Minister, of the Republic of the Congo. 139
Despite the objections of CONAKAT and others, the constitution was largely centralist,
concentrating power in the central government in Léopoldville, and did not devolve significant
powers to provincial level. 140 The Republic of the Congo was still reliant on colonial institutions
like the Force Publique to function from day to day, and white technical experts, installed by the
Belgians, were retained in the broad absence of suitably qualified black Congolese replacements
(partly the result of colonial restrictions regarding higher education).141 Many Congolese people

130
Ibid. pp 88-91.
131
Ibid. pp 90-91.
132
Ibid. pp 93-94.
133
Ibid. pp 87.
134
George Klay Kieh, Jr., Pita Ogaba Agbese. Reconstructing the Authoritarian State in Africa. Routledge,
2013. pp 71.
135
Kamalu, Chukwunyere. The Little African History Book - Black Africa from the Origins of Humanity to
the Assassination of Lumumba and the turn of the 20th Century. Lulu.com, 2011. pp 114.
136
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 100.
137
Ibid. pp 100-101.
138
Lemarchand, René. Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo. University of California Press, 1964. pp
215.
139
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 91.
140
Ibid. pp 102.
141
Ibid.
95
had assumed that independence would produce tangible and immediate social change, so the
retention of whites in positions of importance was widely resented. 142
Lieutenant-General Émile Janssens, the Belgian commander of the Force Publique,
refused to see Congolese independence as marking a change in the nature of command. 143 The
day after the independence festivities, he gathered the black non-commissioned officers of his
Léopoldville garrison and told them that things under his command would stay the same,
summarising the point by writing "Before Independence = After Independence" on a
blackboard. 144 This message was hugely unpopular among the rank and file; many of the men had
expected rapid promotions and increases in pay to accompany independence.145 On 5th July,
several units mutinied against their white officers at Camp Hardy near Thysville. The insurrection
spread to Léopoldville the next day and later to garrisons across the country. 146
Rather than deploying Belgian troops against the mutineers as Janssens had wished,
Lumumba dismissed him and renamed the Force Publique the Armée Nationale Congolaise
(ANC). All black soldiers were promoted by at least one rank. 147 Victor Lundula was promoted
directly from sergeant-major to major-general and head of the army, replacing Janssens.148 At the
same time, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, an ex-sergeant-major and close personal aide of Lumumba,
became Lundula's deputy as army chief of staff. 149 The government attempted to stop the revolt;
Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu intervened personally at Léopoldville and Thysville and persuaded the
mutineers to lay down their arms, but in most of the country the mutiny intensified. White officers
and civilians were assaulted, white-owned properties were looted and white women were raped. 150
The Belgian government became deeply concerned by the situation, particularly when white
civilians began entering neighbouring countries as refugees. 151
Lumumba's stance appeared to justify to many Belgians their prior concerns about his
radicalism. 152 On 9th July 1960, Belgium deployed paratroopers, without the Congolese state's
permission, in Kabalo and elsewhere to protect fleeing white civilians.153 The Belgian
intervention divided Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu; while Kasa-Vubu accepted the Belgian
operation, 154 Lumumba denounced it and called for "all Congolese to defend our republic against

142
Ibid. pp 103.
143
Ibid.
144
Stapleton, Timothy J. A Military History of Africa. ABC-CLIO, 2013. pp 252.
145
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 103.
146
Gondola, Didier. The History of Congo. Greenwood, Westport, Connecticut, 2002. pp 118.
147
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 104.
148
Meredith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence. Public Affairs,
2011. pp 102.
149
David Renton, David Seddon, Leo Zeilig. The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. Zed Books, 2007. pp 87.
150
Gondola, Didier. The History of Congo. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2002. pp 118.
151
Ibid. pp 119.
152
Renton, David; Seddon, David; Zeilig, Leo. The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. Zed Books, London,
2007. pp 113.
153
Eugene Register Guard. Belgian Force intervenes in Congo Rioting. July 10, 1960.
154
Gondola, Didier. The History of Congo. Greenwood, Westport, Connecticut, 2002. pp 119.
96
those who menace it." 155 At Lumumba's request, white civilians from the port city of Matadi were
evacuated by the Belgian Navy on 11th July. Belgian ships then bombarded the city; at least 19
civilians were killed. This action prompted renewed attacks on whites across the country, while
Belgian forces entered other towns and cities, including Léopoldville, and clashed with Congolese
troops. 156
On 11th July 1960, Moise Tshombe, the leader of CONAKAT, declared the Congo's
southern province of Katanga independent as the State of Katanga, with Élisabethville as its
capital and himself as President.157 The mineral-rich Katanga region had traditionally shared
closer economic ties with the Copper belt of neighbouring Northern Rhodesia (then part of the
Central African Federation) than with the rest of the Congo, 158 and because of its economic
importance it had been administered separately from the rest of the country under the Belgians.159
CONAKAT furthermore contended that Katangese people were ethnically distinct from other
Congolese. The secession was partly motivated by the Katangese separatists' desire to keep more
of the wealth generated by the province's mining operations and to avoid sharing it with the rest of
the Congo. Another major factor was what CONAKAT held to be the disintegration of law in
order in the central and north-eastern Congo. Announcing Katanga's breakaway, Tshombe said
"We are seceding from chaos." 160
The major mining company in Katanga, the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK),
had begun supporting CONAKAT during the latter days of Belgian rule amid worries that the
MNC might seek to nationalise the company's assets after independence. UMHK was largely
owned by the Société Générale de Belgique, a prominent holding company based in Brussels that
had close ties to the Belgian government. Encouraged by the UMHK, the Belgian government
provided military support to Katanga and ordered its civil servants in the region to remain in their
posts. 161 Tshombe also engaged mercenaries, mainly whites from South Africa and the
Rhodesians, to supplement and command Katangese troops.162 Although supported by the
Belgians, Katanga never received formal diplomatic recognition from any country. 163 The

155
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 105.
156
Devlin, Lawrence. Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone. PublicAffairs, 2008.
pp 35.
157
Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New York,
2004. pp 85.
158
Ibid.
159
Turner, Thomas. The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth, and Reality. 2nd edition.. Zed Books, London, 2007.
pp 28.
160
Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New York,
2004. pp 85-86.
161
Ibid. pp 86.
162
Clarke, Stephen John Gordon. The Congo mercenary: a history and analysis. South African Institute of
International Affairs, 1968. pp 43. See also Stapleton, Timothy J. A Military History of Africa. ABC-CLIO,
2013. pp 159.
163
Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New York,
2004. pp 97.
97
Katangese secession highlighted the "fundamental weakness" of the central government in
Léopoldville which had been the chief advocate of a unified state.164
Less than a month after the Katangese secession, on 8th August, a section of the region of
Kasai situated slightly to the north of Katanga also declared its autonomy from the central
government as the Mining State of South Kasai (Sud-Kasaï) based around the city of
Bakwanga. 165 South Kasai was much smaller than Katanga, but was also a mining region. It was
largely populated by the Luba ethnic group, and its President, Albert Kalonji, claimed that the
secession was largely sparked by persecution of the Baluba in the rest of the Congo. 166 The South
Kasai government was supported by Forminière, another Belgian mining company, which
received concessions from the new state in return for financial support.167
Whereas the decolonisation of French Equatorial Africa was controlled almost
exclusively by France, the decolonisation of Belgian equatorial Africa became a responsibility
shared by the entire world community. Both the superpowers, Russia and America, became
deeply involved in trying to control the process. Radical African states led by Egypt tried to
support one political tendency while conservative African states discreetly encouraged by South
Africa supported another. Ghana offered assistance in the hope that Zaire would become one of its
pan-African partners. Belgium tried to protect its citizens and its investments by direct and
indirect interventions while Britain, France and Portugal speculated anxiously about how to
safeguard their own adjacent spheres of influence. Lastly, the United Nations, using troops from
ex-colonies as far away as Ireland and India, embarked on its biggest ever attempt to bring order
to a disintegrated nation. Disquiet about Belgium's support for the secessionist states led to calls
within the United Nations (UN) to remove all Belgian troops from the country. The Secretary
General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, believed that the crisis would provide the organisation
with a chance to demonstrate its potential as a major peacekeeping force and encouraged the
sending of a multinational contingent of peacekeepers to the Congo under UN command. 168 On
14th July, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 143, calling for total Belgian withdrawal
from the Congo and their replacement with a UN-commanded force. 169
The arrival of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) was initially
welcomed by Lumumba and the central government who believed the UN would help suppress
the secessionist states. 170 ONUC's initial mandate, however, only covered peacekeeping. Viewing

164
Ibid. pp 86.
165
Durham, Robert B. False Flags, Covert Operations, & Propaganda. Lulu.com, 2014. pp 236.
166
Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New York,
2004. pp 86.
167
Ibid.
168
Freund, Bill. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800, 2nd
edition. Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1998. pp 201.
169
Gendebien, Paul-Henry. L'Intervention Des Nations Unies Au Congo. 1960–1964. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1967. pp 159.
170
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 110-111.
98
the secessions as an internal political matter, Hammarskjöld refused to use UN troops to assist the
central Congolese government against them; he argued that doing so would represent a loss of
impartiality and breach Congolese sovereignty. Frustrated, Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union,
which agreed to provide weapons, logistical and material support. Around 1,000 Soviet military
advisors soon landed in the Congo. 171 Lumumba's actions distanced him from the rest of the
government, especially Kasa-Vubu, who feared the implications of Soviet intervention. The
Americans also feared that a Soviet-aligned Congo could form the basis of a major expansion of
communism into central Africa. 172
With Soviet support, 2,000 Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) troops launched a major
offensive against South Kasai. 173 The attack was extremely successful, but during the course of
the offensive, the ANC became involved in infighting between the Baluba and Bena Lulua ethnic
groups. 174 As a result, the ANC perpetrated a number of large massacres of Luba civilians. 175
Around 3,000 were killed. 176 The violence of the advance caused an exodus of thousands of
Baluba civilians who fled their homes to flee the fighting. 177
The involvement of the Soviet Union alarmed the United States. The American
government of Dwight D. Eisenhower, in line with Belgian criticism, had long believed that
Lumumba was communist and that the Congo could be on track to become a strategically-placed
Soviet client state. In August 1960, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in the region
reported to their agency that "Congo is experiencing a classic communist ... takeover" and warned
that the Congo might follow the same path as Cuba.178 Lumumba's appeal for Soviet support split
the government and led to mounting pressure from Western countries to remove him from power.
In addition, both Tshombe and Kalonji appealed to Kasa-Vubu, who they believed to be both a
moderate and federalist, to move against Lumumba's centralism and resolve the secession issue.179

171
Ibid. pp 116.
172
Ibid
173
Ibid. pp 114.
174
Ibid.
175
Fabian, Johannes. Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire. University of
California Press, 1996. pp 104. – “When last attempts to prevent the secession of Katanga failes, a military
offensive, beginning August 22, 1960, was organised by the central government, then led by Lumumba.
Coming from garrisons in the lower Congo, the troops had to pass through the Kasai in the area of
Bakwanga/Mbuji-Mayi. This is how Willame describes what happened: "In the morning of August 28, the
ANC [Congolese National Army] units were attacked by Luba civilians, armed with hunting rifles,
machetes, and bicycle chains. They were recent refugees to South Kasai, after violent confrontations that
had broken out between them and the Lulua.... They saw in the arrival of the ANC yet another episode of
anti-Baluba repression. The fighting went on for several days and resulted in more than three hundred dead
in massacres arounf Bakwanga, in particular in a Catholic mission, where women and children were killed"
176
Haskin, Jeanne M. The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonisation to Dictatorship. Algora
Publishing, New York, 2005. pp 26.
177
Ibid. pp 33.
178
Turner, Thomas. The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth, and Reality, 2nd ed. London: Zed Books, 2007. pp
32.
179
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History (3rd ed.). Palgrave,
New York, 2007. pp 108.
99
Meanwhile, Mobutu took effective control of the army, routing foreign aid and promotions to
specific units and officers to secure their allegiance.180
On 5th September 1960, Kasa-Vubu announced that he had unilaterally dismissed
Lumumba on national radio using the massacres in South Kasai as a pretext and with the promise
of American backing. 181 Andrew Cordier, the American UN representative in the Congo, used his
position to block communications by Lumumba's faction and to prevent a coordinated MNC-L
reaction to the news.182 Both chambers of parliament, however, supported Lumumba and
denounced Kasa-Vubu. 183 Lumumba attempted to dismiss Kasa-Vubu from his position, but could
not get support for this, precipitating a constitutional crisis. 184 Ostensibly in order to resolve the
deadlock, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu launched a bloodless coup and replaced both Kasa-Vubu and
Lumumba with a College of Commissionaires (Collège des commissaires) consisting of a panel of
university graduates, led by Justin Bomboko. 185 Soviet military advisors were ordered to leave. 186
Allegedly, the coup was intended to force the politicians to take cooling-off period before they
could resume control. In practice, however, Mobutu sided with Kasa-Vubu against Lumumba,
who was placed under house arrest, guarded by Ghanaian UN troops and an outer ring of ANC
soldiers. 187 Kasa-Vubu was re-appointed President by Mobutu in February 1961. From the coup
onwards, Mobutu was able to exert considerable power in Congolese politics behind the scenes.188
Following Kasa-Vubu's reinstatement, there was an attempted rapprochement between the
Congolese factions. Tshombe began negotiations for the end of the secession and the formation of
a confederation of Congo. Although a compromise agreement was reached, it was prevented from
taking effect as negotiations broke down amid personal animosity between Kasa-Vubu and
Tshombe. 189 An attempted reconciliation in July 1961 (Fig 3.2) led to the formation of a new
government, led by Cyrille Adoula, which brought together deputies from both Lumumbist and
South Kasai factions but also failed to bring reconciliation with Katanga. 190 Rebel members of the
MNC-L fled to Stanleyville where, led by Antoine Gizenga, they formed a rebel government in

180
Renton, David; Seddon, David; Zeilig, Leo (2007). The Congo: Plunder and Resistance. Zed Books,
London, 2007. pp 113.
181
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History 3rd edition.
Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 108.
182
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 119.
183
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History 3rd edition.
Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 108.
184
Ibid.
185
Ibid. pp 109.
186
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 117.
187
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, 3rd edition.
Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 109-110.
188
Gendebien, Paul-Henry. L'Intervention Des Nations Unies Au Congo. 1960–1964. Walter de Gruyter,
Berlin, 1967. pp 78. See also Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 117.
189
Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New york,
2004. pp 87.
190
Ibid.
100
November 1960 in opposition to the central government in Léopoldville.191 The Gizenga
government was recognised by some states, including the Soviet Union and China, as the official
government of the Congo and could call on approximate 5,500 troops compared to the central
government's 7,000. 192 Faced with UN pressure, the Gizenga government however collapsed in
January 1962 after Gizenga was arrested. 193
Lumumba escaped house arrest and fled eastwards towards Stanleyville where he
believed he could rally support. Pursued by troops loyal to Mobutu, he was captured at Port
Francqui on 1st December 1960 and flown back to Léopoldville with his hands bound. 194 A
meeting of the UN Security Council was called on 7th December 1960 to consider Soviet demands
that the UN seek Lumumba's immediate release, his restoration to the head of the Congolese
government and the disarming of Mobutu's forces. The pro-Lumumba resolution was defeated on
14th December 1960 by a vote of 8–2. Still in captivity, Lumumba was tortured and transported to
Thysville and later to Katanga where he was handed over to forces loyal to Tshombe. 195 On 17th
January 1961, Lumumba was executed by Katangese troops near Élisabethville. 196 News of the
execution, released on 13th February, provoked international outrage. 197 The Belgian Embassy in
Yugoslavia was attacked by protesters in Belgrade, and violent demonstrations occurred in
London and New York. 198
Since its initial resolution of July 1960, the UN had issued further resolutions calling for
the total withdrawal of Belgian and mercenary forces from Katanga in progressively stronger
terms. By 1961, ONUC comprised nearly 20,000 men. 199 Although their mandate prevented them
from taking sides, ONUC had a mandate to arrest foreign mercenaries wherever they encountered
them. On 18th September 1961 Hammarskjöld flew to Ndola, just across the border in Northern
Rhodesia, to attempt to broker a cease-fire between UN and Katangese forces. His aircraft crashed
while attempting to land at Ndola Airport, killing him and everybody else on board.200 In stark
contrast to Hammarskjöld's attempts to pursue a moderate policy in the Congo, his successor U

191
Ibid. See also Gendebien, Paul-Henry. L'Intervention Des Nations Unies Au Congo. 1960–1964. Walter
de Gruyter, Berlin, 1967. pp 87.
192
Haskin, Jeanne M. The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonisation to Dictatorship. Algora
Publishing, New York, 2005. pp 30.
193
Gendebien, Paul-Henry. L'Intervention Des Nations Unies Au Congo. 1960–1964. Walter de Gruyter,
Berlin, 1967. pp 205.
194
Zeilig, Leo. Lumumba: Africa's Lost Leader. Haus, London, 2008. pp 120-122.
195
Ibid. pp 122.
196
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, 3rd edition.
Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 111.
197
Haskin, Jeanne M. The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonisation to Dictatorship. Algora
Publishing, new York, 2005. pp 29.
198
Reuters. Police clash with Lumumba protest marchers outside Belgian embassy. 19 Feb 1961.
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist//RTV/1961/02/20/BGY504040250/?s=sof
199
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, 3rd edition.
Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 94.
200
Boulden, Jane. Peace Enforcement: The United Nations Experience in Congo, Somalia, and Bosnia, 1st
edition. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 2001. pp 35.
101
Thant supported a more radical policy of direct involvement in the conflict.201 Katanga released
the captured Irish soldiers in mid-October as part of a cease-fire deal in which ONUC agreed to
pull its troops back; a propaganda coup for Tshombe. 202 Restated American support for the UN
mission and the murder of ten Italian UN pilots in Port-Émpain in November 1961, strengthened
international demands to resolve the situation.203 In December 1961, South Kasai was finally
overrun by ANC troops and Kalonji was arrested, ending the South Kasai secession.
Resolution 169, issued in November 1961, called for ONUC to respond to the
deteriorating human rights situation and prevent the outbreak of full-scale civil war. The
resolution "completely rejected" Katanga's claim to statehood and authorised ONUC troops to use
all necessary force to "assist the Central Government of the Congo in the restoration and
maintenance of law and order". 204 The Katangese made further provocations and, in response,
ONUC launched Operation Unokat to dismantle Katangese roadblocks and seize strategic
positions around Élisabethville. Faced with international pressure, Tshombe signed the Kitona
Declaration in December 1962 in which he agreed in principle to accept the authority of the
central government and state constitution and to abandon any claim to Katangese
independence. 205 Following the declaration, however, talks between Tshombe and Adola reached
a deadlock, while Katangese troops continued to harass UN troops. Diminishing support and
Belgium's increasing reluctance to support Katanga demonstrated that the state could not survive
indefinitely. 206
On 24 December 1962, UN troops and Katangese gendarmes clashed near Élisabethville
and fighting broke out. After attempts to reach a ceasefire failed, UN troops occupied
Élisabethville, prompting Tshombe to leave the country. A ceasefire was agreed soon thereafter.
Indian UN troops, acting against their orders, then occupied Jadotville, preventing Katangese
loyalists from regrouping. 207 Gradually, the UN overran the rest of the Katanga and, on 21st
January 1963, Tshombe surrendered his final stronghold of Kolwezi, effectively ending the
Katangese secession. 208

201
Ibid.
202
Whelan, Michael. The Battle of Jadotville: Irish Soldiers in Combat in the Congo 1961 (pdf). Dublin:
South Dublin Libraries, Dublin, 2006. pp 8, 60-62.
203
Boulden, Jane. Peace Enforcement: The United Nations Experience in Congo, Somalia, and Bosnia, 1st
edition. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 2001. pp 35.
204
Security Council Resolutions 1961 - UN Resolution 169. Pdf
http://daccess-ods.un.org/TMP/8492980.00335693.html
205
Boulden, Jane. Peace Enforcement: The United Nations Experience in Congo, Somalia, and Bosnia, 1st
edition. Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 2001. pp 38.
206
Ibid. pp 36.
207
Ibid. pp 40.
208
Ibid.
102
 Following the end of the Katanga secession, political negotiations began to reconcile the
disparate political factions. 209 The negotiations coincided with the formation of an émigré
political group, the Conseil National de Libération (CNL), by dissident Lumumbists and others in
neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville. 210 The negotiations culminated in the creation of a new, revised
constitution, known as the Constitution of Luluabourg, to create a compromise balance of
power. 211 The new constitution increased the power of the presidency, ending the system of joint
consultation between President and Prime Minister, and appeased federalists by increasing the
number of provinces from six to 21 while increasing their autonomy. 212 The constitution also
changed the name of the state from the Republic of the Congo to Democratic Republic of the
Congo. 213 Kasa-Vubu appointed Tshombe, the exiled Katangese leader, as interim Prime
Minister. 214 Although personally capable, and supported as an anti-communist by Western
powers, Tshombe was denounced by other African leaders such as King Hassan II of Morocco as
an imperialist puppet for his role in the Katangese secession. 215 Under Tshombe's interim
government, fresh elections were scheduled for 30th March 1965 and the rebellion broke out in the
central and eastern parts of the Congo. 216
The period of political crisis had led to widespread disenchantment with the central
government brought in by independence. Demands for a "second independence" from kleptocracy
and political infighting in the capital grew. 217 The "second independence" slogan was taken up by
Maoist-inspired Congolese revolutionaries, including Pierre Mulele who had served in a junior
capacity in the Lumumba government. The political instability of the Congo helped to channel
wider discontentment into outright revolt.218

209
Bereketeab, Redie. Self-Determination and Secession in Africa: The Post-Colonial State. Routledge,
2014. pp 177.
210
Haskin, Jeanne M. The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonisation to Dictatorship. Algora
Publishing, New York, 2005. pp 36.
211
Bereketeab, Redie. Self-Determination and Secession in Africa: The Post-Colonial State. Routledge,
2014. pp 90.
212
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History, 3rd edition.
Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 36. See also Bangura, Abdul K. Stakes in Africa-United States Relations:
Proposals for Equitable Partnership. iUniverse, 2007. pp 91.
213
Emizet Francois Kisangani, Scott F. Bobb. Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Scarecrow Press, 2009. pp 383.
214
Gleijeses, Piero. Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!": The United States, the Mercenaries, and the
Congo, 1964–65. Diplomatic History Volume 18, Issue 2, April 1994. pp 74.
215
Ibid.
216
Nohlen Dieter, Krennerich Michael and Thibaut Berhard. Elections in Africa: A data handbook (1st
edition). Oxford University Press, 1999. pp 292.
217
Freund, Bill. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800, 2nd
edition. Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1998. pp 202.
218
Verhaegen, Benoît. "Les rébellions populaires au Congo en 1964" (PDF). Cahiers d'études africaines 7
(26), 1967. pp 348.
103
 Disruption in the rural Congo begun with agitation by Lumumbists, led by Mulele, among
the Pende and Mbundu peoples. 219 By the end of 1963, there was unrest in regions of the central
and eastern Congo. The Kwilu Rebellion broke out on 16th January 1964 in the cities of Idiofa and
Gungu in Kwilu Province. 220 Further disruption and uprisings then spread to Kivu in the east and
later to Albertville, sparking further insurrection elsewhere in the Congo and the outbreak of the
larger Simba Rebellion. 221 The rebels began to expand their territory and rapidly advance
northwards, capturing Port-Émpain, Stanleyville, Paulis and Lisala between July and August. 222
The rebels founded a state, the People's Republic of the Congo (République Populaire du
Congo), with its capital at Stanleyville and Christophe Gbenye as President. The new state was
supported by the Soviet Union and China, which supplied it with arms, and various African states,
notably Tanzania. 223 It was also supported by Cuba, which sent a team of over 100 advisors led by
Che Guevara to advise the Simbas on tactics and doctrine.224 The Simba rebellion coincided with
a wide escalation of the Cold War amid the Tonkin Gulf Incident and it has been speculated that,
had the rebellion not been rapidly defeated, a full-scale American military intervention could have
occurred as in Vietnam. 225
From the end of August 1964 the rebels began to lose ground to the Armée Nationale
Congolaise (ANC). Tshombe, backed by Mobutu, recalled many of his former mercenaries from
the Katangese secession to oppose the Simba. 226 The mercenaries, led by "Mad Mike" Hoare and
mostly whites from central and southern Africa, were formed into a unit known as 5 Commando
ANC. 227 5 Commando served as the spearhead of the ANC, but were known for widespread
unsanctioned killing, torture, looting and mass rapes in recaptured rebel areas.228 The mercenaries
were also materially supported by the CIA. 229
In November 1964, the Simbas rounded up the remaining white population of
Stanleyville and its environs. In order to recover the hostages, Belgian parachute troops were
flown to the Congo in American aircraft to intervene. On 24th November, as part of Operation

219
Freund, Bill. The Making of Contemporary Africa: The Development of African Society since 1800, 2nd
edition. Palgrave-Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1998. pp 202. See also Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence:
A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New York, 2004. pp 88.
220
Verhaegen, Benoît. "Les rébellions populaires au Congo en 1964" (PDF). Cahiers d'études africaines 7
(26), 1967. pp 346.
221
Ibid. See also Fox, Renee C.; Craemer, Willy, de; Ribeaucourt, Jean-Marie. ""The Second
Independence": A Case Study of the Kwilu Rebellion in the Congo". Comparative Studies in Society and
History 8 (1), 1965. pp 78.
222
Verhaegen, Benoît. "Les rébellions populaires au Congo en 1964" (PDF). Cahiers d'études africaines 7
(26), 1967. pp 346.
223
Gleijeses, Piero. ""Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!": The United States, the Mercenaries, and the
Congo, 1964–65" (PDF). Diplomatic History 18 (2), 1994. pp 81.
224
Ibid.
225
Ibid. pp 85.
226
George, Francis Stevens. China and Africa Love Affair. Lulu.com, 2014. pp 58.
227
Ibid. pp 118-119.
228
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History 3rd edition. New
York: Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 135.
229
Ibid. pp 80.
104
Dragon Rouge, Belgian paratroopers landed in Stanleyville and quickly secured the hostages.230
In total, around 70 hostages and 1,000 Congolese civilians were killed but the vast majority was
evacuated. 231 The Belgian troops were only under orders to liberate the hostages, rather than push
the Simbas out of the city, but the attack nevertheless "broke the back of the eastern insurrection,
which never recovered" 232 The paratroopers and the civilians then returned to Belgium. In the
aftermath of the intervention, Belgium itself was publically accused of neocolonialism. 233
As a result of the intervention, Tshombe lost the support of Kasa-Vubu and Mobutu and
was dismissed from his post as prime minister in October 1965. In South Kivu Laurent-Désiré
Kabila led a Maoist cross-border insurgency which lasted until the 1980s. 234
In the scheduled March 1965 elections, Tshombe's Convention Nationale Congolaise
(CONACO) won a large majority of the seats, but a large part of his party soon defected to form
the new Front Démocratique Congolais (FDC) making the overall result unclear as CONACO
controlled the Chamber of Deputies while the FDC controlled the Senate. 235 Kasa-Vubu,
attempting to use the situation to block Tshombe, appointed an anti-Tshombe leader, Évariste
Kimba of the FDC, to be prime minister-designate in November 1965 but the largely pro-
Tshombe Parliament refused to ratify the appointment.236 With the government in near-paralysis,
Mobutu seized power in a bloodless coup, ostensibly to stop the political deadlock, on 25th
November 1965. 237
Under the auspices of a régime d'exception (the equivalent of a state of emergency),
Mobutu assumed sweeping, almost absolute, power for five years after which, he claimed,
democracy would be restored. 238 Mobutu's coup, which promised both economic and political
stability, was supported by the United States and other Western governments. Initially, his rule
met widespread popularity. 239 He increasingly took other powers, abolishing the post of Prime
Minister in 1966 and dissolving parliament in 1967. 240
The new president had the support of the United States because of his staunch opposition
to Communism, believing that his administration would serve as an effective counter to

230
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History 3rd edition. New
York: Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 136.
231
Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo, From Leopold to Kabila: A People's History 3rd edition. New
York: Palgrave, New York, 2007. pp 138.
232
Ibid. pp 136.
233
Ibid. pp 138-139.
234
Gleijeses, Piero. ""Flee! The White Giants Are Coming!": The United States, the Mercenaries, and the
Congo, 1964–65" (PDF). Diplomatic History 18 (2), 1994. pp 84-85.
235
Emizet Francois Kisangani, Scott F. Bobb. Historical Dictionary of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo. Scarecrow Press, 2009. pp 430.
236
Article: New York Times, November 25, 1965. Kasavubu Regime ousted by army coup in Congo.
http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/651125kasavubu.html
237
Vanthemsche, Guy. Belgium and the Congo, 1885-1980. Cambridge University Press, 2012. pp 204.
238
Nugent, Paul. Africa since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave-MacMillan, New York,
2004. pp 233.
239
Ibid.
240
Ibid.
105
communist movements in Africa. A one-party system was established, and Mobutu declared
himself head of state. Elections were periodically held in which he was the only candidate.
Although relative peace and stability were achieved, Mobutu's government was guilty of severe
human rights violations, political repression, a cult of personality and corruption.
Corruption became so prevalent the term "le mal Zairois" or "Zaïrean Sickness", 241
meaning gross corruption, theft and mismanagement, was coined, reportedly by Mobutu
himself. 242 International aid, most often in the form of loans, enriched Mobutu while he allowed
national infrastructure such as roads to deteriorate to as little as one-quarter of what had existed in
1960. Zaïre became a "kleptocracy" as Mobutu and his associates embezzled government
funds. 243 In a campaign to identify him with African nationalism, starting on 1st June 1966,
Mobutu renamed the nation's cities: Léopoldville became Kinshasa (the country was now
Democratic Republic of the Congo - Kinshasa), Stanleyville became Kisangani, Elisabethville
became Lubumbashi, and Coquilhatville became Mbandaka. This renaming campaign was
completed in the 1970s. In 1971, Mobutu renamed the country the Republic of Zaïre, its fourth
name change in 11 years and its sixth overall. The Congo River was renamed the Zaïre River.244
During the 1970s and 1980s, he was invited to visit the United States on several
occasions, meeting with U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W.
Bush. 245 Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union U.S. relations with Mobutu cooled, as he
was no longer deemed necessary as a Cold War ally. Opponents within Zaïre stepped up demands
for reform. This atmosphere contributed to Mobutu's declaring the Third Republic in 1990, whose
constitution was supposed to pave the way for democratic reform. The reforms turned out to be
largely cosmetic.
At the end of the day, however, it was investment managers who regained control of
Zaire. The Belgian colony had been a giant interlocking complex of mining and plantation
companies held together by an armed police force. The republic of Zaire that emerged from the
eventful decolonising process was very similar. Although the plantations dwindled, the mines
survived under the control of foreign financial and engineering interests and paid the state
royalties that funded the wellbeing of a ruling army managed by the entrepreneurial general
Mobutu Sese Seko, who became the country’s most successful businessman.

241
Zaïre: The Hoax of Independence", The Aida Parker Newsletter #203, 4 August 1997.
http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Aida/203/203_zaire.html
242
Young, C. & Turner, T. The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State. University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
pp 74.
243
Karl R. DeRouen, Uk Heo. Civil Wars of the World: Major Conflicts Since World War II, Volume 1.
ABC-CLIO, 2007. pp 299.
244
Dunn, Kevin C. Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity. Palgrave Macmillan,
2003. pp 106.
245
Johns, Michael (29 June 1989) "Zaïre's Mobutu Visits America", Heritage Foundation Executive
Memorandum #239.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060721174238/http://www.heritage.org/Research/Africa/upload/91612_1.pd
f
106
 Mobutu was overthrown in the First Congo War by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who was
supported by the governments of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. When Mobutu's government
issued an order in November 1996 forcing Tutsis to leave Zaire on penalty of death, the ethnic
Tutsis in Zaire, 246 known as Banyamulenge, were the focal point of a rebellion. From eastern
Zaire, the rebels and foreign government forces under the leadership of President Yoweri
Museveni of Uganda and Rwandan Minister of Defense Paul Kagame launched an offensive to
overthrow Mobutu, joining forces with locals opposed to him as they marched west toward
Kinshasa. Ailing with cancer, Mobutu was in Switzerland for treatment, 247 unable to coordinate
the resistance, which crumbled in front of the march.
By mid-1997, Kabila's forces had almost completely overrun the country. On 16th May,
1997, following failed peace talks held on board the South African ship SAS Outeniqua, 248
Mobutu fled into exile. Kabila's forces, known as the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL), proclaimed victory the next day. However, Mobutu was
lucky to have held out even for that long. What was left of his army offered almost no resistance,
and the only thing slowing the AFDL advance was the country's decrepit infrastructure. In several
areas, no paved roads existed; the only means of transport were irregularly used dirt roads.
Destabilisation in eastern Zaire resulting from the Rwandan Genocide was the final factor that
caused numerous internal and external factors to align against the corrupt and inept Mobutu
government in the capital, Kinshasa. The new government led by Kabila renamed the country to
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 249 but it brought little true change to the country.

♦♦♦♦

246
Atzili, Boaz. Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict. University Of
Chicago Press, 2012. pp 188.
247
Dipiazza, Francesca Davis. Democratic Republic of Congo in Pictures. Twenty First Century Books,
2007. pp 35.
248
Thean Potgieter, Reiner Pommerin. Towards Good Order at Sea: African Experiences. African Sun
Media, 2015. pp 48.
249
Dipiazza, Francesca Davis. Democratic Republic of Congo in Pictures. Twenty First Century Books,
2007. pp 35.
107