In late 1876 Belgian king Leopold II decides to get into this entire colonialism thing. Using smoke and mirrors he manages to employ Henry Morton Stanley, a devout Christian, to get himself to Congo area and get as many treaties with local bosses as he can. Stanley accepts the offer, does his best, and then runs back to Europe, where the civilized and deeply christian ethical leaders split the Africa into colonial holdings. Leopold II manages to nab the entire Congo area as his personal holdings. Then he starts to be deeply christian and ethical and begins a reign in what is nowadays Democratic Republic of Congo - in that time, the area was known as Congo Free State. His ethical burden was made heavier by the fact that he had to blackmail as much rubber as he could from the locals. During Leopold's wonderful reign, between 5 and 15 million congolese were killed. The funds went to Leopold's personal coffin and also funded Belgian infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Germans colonize a neighbouring small area, known as Rwanda and Burundi. They immediately notice that the locals have a hierarchial society, relatively well-doing one in fact. Because the Africans cannot be that intelligent, the Germans immediately throw their lot in with one of the ruling clans in the area: the Tutsi. Although kinda separate clans, the ethnic difference between the Tutsis and Hutus were small and they were more an economical thing. Germans promote Tutsi supremacy, because they could (and because Tutsis were richer). Britons join the game and place an adjacent area under their rule. This area will later become Uganda. In the north the French colonize what is now known as Central African Republic.
In early 1900s the people start to inquire as to what exactly is going on in Congo. Belgian parliament and other nations thought hard what to do, and finally annexed Congo Free State into a Belgian colonial holding. At no point is anyone even considering giving it back to what people were left. That was the end of Congo Free State, arguably one of the worst human right violations in the world.
After a couple of happy or not so happy decades there's a little problem in Europe. A bunch of bumbling losers manage to murder yet another royalty in a debacle that wasn't supposed to work. As a result, the continental Europe sits on trenches and gets killed for four years. In the aftermath, the Germans lose their colonial holdings in Africa. Belgians take control over Rwanda and Burundi. Now they control Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, nice going! Belgians continue the wonderful project of Tutsi support. Surely nothing bad can come out of it.
In 1950s people are really starting to question the entire colonialism thing, and finally the West decides to grant Congo independence. Immediately both the Congo and the West run into lots of problems. The problems included, but were not limited to, zinc, uranium, copper, gold, cobalt, geopolitically superb location, congolese not actually willing to give their national wealth away and what have you. And of course the entire area, which had never been a nation itself, was experiencing a pretty standard ethnic strife.
Immediately after Congo gets granted independence in 1960, the west-aligned leader of Katanga region, Moise Tshombe, declares independence. At the same time, the anti-European sentiments in Congo are through the roof and there's a military mutiny. Prime minister Patrice Lumumba throws out the Belgian troops in exchange for UN mission to help him fight the impeding civil war. Three provinces declare independence. The entire nation is thrown in a secessionist chaos, mostly along ethnic lines. Prime minister Lumumba, president Joseph Kasa-Vubu and the chief of armed forces, Joseph Mobutu, try to defuse the situation.
Meanwhile the neighbouring Rwanda has become independent as well. Before leaving, the good ol' Belgians had suddenly reverted the tables, starting to favour Hutus for some reason, I seriously do not know. The then president, Grégoire Kayibanda, decides to do something completely unheard of - and incites ethnic strife. Hutus and tutsis clash violently, with lots of Tutsis leaving the country. A sizeable minority moves to neighbouring Uganda, where they become complete bottom-class citizens. Disappointed in Milton Obote's policies, many Tutsi refugees greeted Amin's 1971 coup with relief and supported him. Other tutsi refugees moved to Tanzania and joined forces with Museveni and his anti-Amin alliance. One of these people, Fred Gisa Rwigema, became a close friend to Museveni and formed a tutsi guerilla group, Rwandan Patriotic Front, with the intent of returning to Rwanda. RPF fights alongside Museveni for better part of 1980s, becoming a force to be reckoned.
Back to Congo and 1960. After the entire "split the country into four different separatist regimes" thing that was hot **** in 1960, Lumumba loyalists in Katanga region start a long and confusing low-level guerilla war. One of the leaders was a former youth activist, Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Running a prolonged guerilla campaign, he aligned himself with Tanzania, Uganda, Che Guevara and other people who mattered. Kabila is somewhat competent and became a de facto criminal boss and smuggler, using his connections to set up bases of operations and, of course, apartments in both Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. The uprising itself wasn't doing so well, though. During the uprising from 1960 to 1990s, he met regional players, such as Museveni (then a fresh dictator, see the above Uganda post for more information) and Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere (Museveni's and Obote's pal, who had helped them depose Idi Amin back in 1979).
AGAIN BACK TO 1960. Lumumba, pissed off at the inability of UN to help him accomplish his goals (re-annexing separatist areas) and facing mounting difficulties, calls for Soviet help. Soviets eagerly agree, willing to have a presence in the crown jewel of Africa. President Kasa-Vubu is furious and dismisses Lumumba. Lumumba gets back and orders Mobutu to arrest Kasa-Vubu. Mobutu doesn't know what the ****. USA intervenes: Mobutu deposes of Lumumba, throws out the Soviet advisors, get Lumumba killed and finally, in 1965, deposes of Kasa-Vubu as well. He becomes a proxy for mostly Western interests in Congo, which he renames Zaire. Oh, and he uses another name: Mobutu Sese Seko. His dictatorial rule lasted for 32 years, during which former colonial powers benefitted from his reign. Amidst fraudulent elections, political terror and other standard practices, Mobutu Sese Seko was a good western ally in the long and twisted Cold War.
Fast forward. In 1990 Rwandan Patriotic Front, supported by our good old friend, Yoweri Museveni, and led by former Ugandan minister, one Fred Gisa Rwigema, invades Rwanda. For Tutsies the Rwanda was old home, a land they had been wrongfully driven away from, and they were now coming back home. For Hutus, the invading Tutsies were foreign old evildoers, the lackeys of Belgians and Germans, who had kept the poor majority down for decades. The local Rwandan non-diaspora tutsies were now the second-grade citizens, but who really cared? After a long and bloody conflict, in which hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and peace accords were written, negotiations were halted etc., the Hutu part of Rwanda engaged in Rwandan genocide of 1994, where a huge number of Tutsies and moderate Hutus were massacred. Hutu-controlled Rwandan Defence Forces were led by Sylvestre Mudacumura, who studied military science in Germany.
Following the 1994 genocide, Tutsi-led and Uganda-supported RPF attacked once again, finally defeating the Hutu regime. About two million refugees, mostly Hutu but also some Tutsi, escaped from RPF to Burundi, Uganda and especially eastern Congo. Ironically, the Rwandan refugees included both the people who had escaped the ethnic cleansing and the ethnic cleaners who were afraid of RPF revenge.
Again, back to Eastern Congo, where Laurent Kabila and his supporters were planning to get rid of Mobutu Sese Seko once and for all. In 1996 Kabila, with support from Uganda and Rwandan tutsi government, overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko's regime in what is known as First Congo War. The reasons for war were most likely not humanitarian, but had more to do with Congo's natural wealth. Rwandan line was to hunt the interahamwe, the Hutu militia that had participated in the Rwandan civil war. Mobutus's answer to mounting threat from Kabila-Rwandan-Ugandan attack was to arm the hutu refugees, including the interahamwe, but it didn't help. Kabila's forces conquered Kinshasa in May 16th, 1997. Kabila showed himself to be a great man by immediately throwing people to jail, becoming an authoritarian assheadm and as a icing on the cake, hiring former Mobutu henchmen to help him in building up his PR.
Almost immediately after he "won" the war, Kabila decided that he didn't really like Rwanda or Uganda, and Ugandan and Rwandans realized the same thing. This started a war known as Second Congo War. I'll do a writeup about it later, I have to take a break.
