A Note on the DRC

At 905,000 square miles, the Democratic Republic of Congo is about the size of Alaska and Texas combined. In the 1800s, this plot of Central Africa—now Africa's third-largest country—belonged privately to Belgium's King Leopold. Leopold's minions virtually enslaved most of the country. Once the scandal of his practices—including cutting off Congolese hands—reached the wider public, Leopold was forced to sell the nation to Belgium in the early 1900s. When the Belgian government ceded the Congo its independence in 1960 (the same year that Republic of Congo, France's unrelated and much smaller colony across the River Congo became independent), the charismatic and intelligent Patrice Lumumba briefly led the country.

Eventually, with the help of the United States, Joseph Désiré Mobutu, later known as Mobuto Sese Seko, took power and named the country Zaire in 1971. With a penchant for pink champagne and torture, he ruled the country until he was overthrown in 1997 by Laurent Kabila. In 1998, Laurent Kabila turned against his former backers Uganda and Rwanda, and war in DRC began in full force. At one point, nine countries were fighting on DRC soil. In 2001, Laurent Kabila was assassinated, and now, his son Joseph is the DRC's president. Under Joseph Kabila, most of the DRC has reached an uneasy peace. However, the northeastern corner of the country—made up of three districts, Ituri and North and South Kivu—is still riddled with pockets of conflict.