Democratic Republic of Congo History
...4, reports of brutality and violence occurring in the Congo under Leopold’s rule were enough for a campaign against Leopold to be undertaken. In response to these campaigns, the Belgian Parliament took over the state from Leopold in 1908 (Bureau of African Affairs). As soon as the country of Belgium took control, the Congo Free State, which soon thereafter changed it’s name to the Belgian Congo, saw slightly improved conditions in terms of excesses such as forced labor. That having been said, there was not a lot of action taken in terms of the Congolese people having any political power whatsoever (The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). The situation continued to get worse for the natives as soon as the Europeans set up and managed plantations and mining operations around the Congo. Africans formed the labor pool for operations such as these. The Congolese people became tired of their lack of power in their own land, and demands for independence were becoming commonplace throughout all of Africa (The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). It was 1955 when a Belgian professor, Antoine van Bilsen, came up with the idea of a “30-year plan” which would help the Congo establish more power in their government. Even though this plan did promote Congolese independence, Belgians supported the plan because, mistakenly, they didn’t see it impacting them in the near future (The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). In 1960, only 5 years later, with support from Congolese nationalists such as Joseph Kasavubu and Patrice Lumumba, the Belgian Congo became fully independent. Joseph Kasavubu and Patrice Lumumba, the men who had helped lead the Congo to independence, became the Head of State and Prime Minister, Respectively. It wasn’t long before chaos ensued; with many ethic and private contentions among the citizens, peace was a far stretch from reality. Furthermore, Belgians were fueling these fires out of their own personal interest. Eventually, Moise Tshombe, who was provisional president of a region called Katanga, declared his region’s independence from the Congo Republic on July 11 of 1960. In the process of trying to reclaim Katanga, Lumumba and Kasavubu were both dismissed and replaced by Joseph Mobutu, who was the head of the army at the time. At the conclusion on 1960, the Republic of Congo had been split up into four different parts, each independent of the others and ruled by different leaders. The head came down mainly on Tschombe, who was arrested in April of 1961 by the national government because they had become weakened by the recession of Katanga, which essentially took away one of it’s major sources of minerals. Tschombe was freed only three months later after agreeing to end the recession. However, only one month la...