by Jason Panutsos

Created on: August 22, 2008

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a country steeped in decades of heinous, oppressive rule, but one that is rich in resources and tribal cultures. It is an area where outside forces have continually pulled the strings of the people in order to get what they desire, mainly the exploitation of resources and labor. It is an area that has also been used as a testing ground for diseases and vaccines. Key obstacles to obtaining sustainable peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo stem mostly from outside influences and brutal dictatorships that cater to their own selfish interests.

The Conference of Berlin in 1885 was the formal beginning of the Belgian kingdom rule. King Leopold II played European sides against each other to establish the Congo Free State. Under the Congo Free State and Leopold's rule, rubber production was introduced, and the Congolese people were forced into slave labor to harvest and manufacture the rubber. Leopold had strict rubber production quotas, and he enforced the quotas through his Force Publique army. The Force Publique was there to ensure the king's bottom-line, and if workers did not produce they were subjected to a form of terrorism. The most commonplace actions used to enforce the quotas on rubber production were through the severing of appendages and execution. Brutal control and disease claimed the lives of roughly 10 million Congolese during the first two decades of Leopold's rule.

Under international pressure, the Belgian government took control of the Congo Free State away from the king in 1908, and the Congo became a colony of Belgium. It was now known by the name the Belgian Congo. Condemnable acts of manipulation continued after this shift however, and minerals, resources and slave labor were bilked from the Congolese people.

Riots and a massive uprising by the Congolese people against Belgian rule forced King Baudouin and the government of Belgium to grant the Congo independence in 1959. Congolese people, now free from Belgian rule, held their first independent elections in 1960. Patrice Emery Lumumba with the support of the nationalist Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) party was elected Prime Minister, and Joseph Kasavubu of the ABAKO or Alliance des Bakongo party was elected president. Patrice Lumumba appointed Joseph Mobutu as head of the military. Soon, secession problems among the territories of the newly donned Democratic Republic of the Congo caused Lumumba and Kasavubu to disagree. Lumumba turned to the USSR

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