DRC Infographics
Click thumbnail to go to full graphic with alt text.
About DRC
Summary of the Conflict
Ever since the Portuguese arrived in the Kingdom of Kongo, what is today called the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been exploited and its people oppressed. Portugal sent missionaries and enslaved Congolese people. Then in 1885, Leopold II decided the ” Congo Free State ” (as he called it) was his own private property. He proceeded to oversee the mutilation and murder of millions of Congolese people.
Belgium eventually claimed they were embarrassed by Leopold’s actions, and took Congo from him in 1908. Once annexed, Belgian Congo saw compulsory labor, the sourcing of uranium for US nuclear weapons, and anti-colonial riots.
The then-Republic of Congo got a taste of democracy for a few months in 1960, when Patrice Lumumba was elected the first prime minister. However, within months, he was deposed, imprisoned, and assassinated.
Joseph Mobutu took power and changed the country’s name to Zaire. He was forced into exile during the First Congo War (1996-1997) by a group led by Laurent Kabila, the next leader. Zaire was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Second Congo War (1998-2002) began.
At this point, over 60,000 people were killed directly from the wars, with millions more affected. Kabila was assassinated before the end of the second war and his son took power, leading a transitional government until he was elected president in 2006.
There have been a couple of contested elections since, and Felix Tshisekedi is currently the president, but the death toll from the country’s conflict continues. Eight million people have been displaced, as well.
Summary of the Resource Exploitation
All that doesn’t include the exploitation of resources. Many foreign nations own mines, especially copper/cobalt mines in the south. Those tend to be the large-scale mines, where Congolese people are employed for pennies a day. The mines in the northeast, which are more often gold and diamond mines, tend to be ” artisanal, ” meaning holes dug in the ground, shored up with timber, with no safety regulations at all.
Some of the mined resources, especially gold and diamonds, are smuggled out of the country and sold elsewhere as ” conflict-free. ” The rest is processed by the country that owns the mine, who then keeps the vast majority of the profit, as Congolese people struggle to the point where they have their children working in the mind to help with household expenses (including paying for school!)
The Congo Rainforest, the second in the world, is also heavily exploited. From 2002 to 2019, an average of 2,896 square miles of forest cover was lost per year from logging, mining, poaching, agriculture, and urban expansion.
There’s a lot of smuggling in logging, too, and some loggers will mis-identify the trees they’re transporting out of the country because they’re actually cutting down endangered and protected trees.
Not to mention, many Indigenous Congolese peoples still live in the rainforest, and thousands of animal and plant species (some of which are only found in Congo) being destroyed by exploitative practices.
Learn More About DRC
Videos & Movies
- Crisis in the Congo (YouTube).
- Why is the World Ignorant of the Congo Crisis? (YouTube).
- Blood in the Mobile (YouTube).
- City of Joy (link to list of where to watch).
- This Is Congo (link to list of where to watch).
- Virunga (link to list of where to watch).
- Thread from November 2023, overview of what’s happening in DRC. With alt text.
- This thread has a little of everything: what’s happening, who to follow, how to help, and where to learn more.
Books
This link is to a QT of a thread of book recommendations. My QT provides just the title list with alt text; the original thread shows the covers without alt.