Years of political and economic oppression by foreign interests coupled with civil war and military tension primarily caused by hatred between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of neighboring Rwanda are major obstacles to peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC.)

The greed of neighboring states such as Rwanda and Uganda as well as international corporations exploiting the DRC for its mineral wealth is a second obstacle to peace.

The DRC Government's inability to control the country outside of the capital of Kinshasa is yet another roadblock in the pathway to peace. Allegations of corruption within the government as well as within the U.N. peacekeeping force operating in the country exacerbate the problem.

It is helpful to examine the history of the DRC to understand the plight of its people and the problems facing them today. The recent democratic elections in 2006 are the only glimmer of hope in a two hundred year political landscape of poverty, autocratic colonial rule and dictatorships.

The suffering of the country's people traces back to the early 1800's. Twenty-five percent of the slaves abducted from Africa and brought to this country came from the Congo. In 1885, the country became a Belgian colony. The Belgian monarchy set up forced labor camps to extract rubber from the Congo's indigenous vegetation. At least ten million Congolese people lost their freedom under the colonial regime. Conscripted laborers suffered atrocities such as the amputation of a hand for failure to produce on quota.

The country won its independence in 1960 by means of a violent rebellion. Freedom from Belgian rule did not equate to freedom for the people, however. The years of colonial rule and the lack of a parliamentary tradition set the country up for a series of iron handed, self-serving dictatorships. Mobutu, the most prominent military strongman, enacted disastrous economic policies that drove the country into collapse while he siphoned off millions of dollars for himself. Roads and public services established under Belgian rule crumbled during the years of dictatorship. Political chaos and economic instability became the new order of the day.

When the hatred between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of Rwanda exploded into a bloody civil war in 1994, the DRC became an innocent, third-party victim. Since 1996, the Tutsi led government of Rwanda has twice deployed troops in the DRC to hunt down Hutu militia units vanquished in the Rwandan civil war.

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