Zaire

Continuity And Political Change In An Oppressive State

Winsome J Leslie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367216702
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000011302
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book describes the historical setting of Zaire and focuses on economic and political developments during the Mobutu era. It examines the corrupt and closed political system, with its roots in the colonial state and precolonial political patterns.

1
The Historical Setting

The configuration of the modern Zairian state is a direct result of cross-cutting influences in its history. Vestiges of traditional societies can still be found in the contemporary state. External powers, from the Portuguese to the Arabs and finally the Belgians, exploited what became known as the Congo for economic gain. These early foreign contacts in turn profoundly impacted and fragmented precolonial society and culture, shaping ethnic, sociopolitical, and class relations while effectively incorporating the Congo into the global economic system as a producer of primary products. These conditions set the stage for the economic and political dislocations that have been characteristic of the postcolonial period.

Early Kingdoms and the Impact of Foreign Exploitation

The Congo's first recorded contacts with the external world were with fifteenth-century Portuguese explorers. In 1482 Diogo Cão discovered the mouth of the Congo River, giving it the name zaire, a misspelling of nzadi, the Kikongo term for river.¹ Cão established contact with the Kongo people, one of the major ethnic groups in the area (refer to Map 3.1). The Kongo kingdom at that time stretched from northern Angola to the north bank of the Congo River, in the area now known as Bas Zaire. The kingdom, with its capital at Mbanza Kongo, had a well-established centralized system of government; it was divided into six provinces, each administered by a local governor appointed by the king. Within each province Kongo district chiefs governed in their respective areas, and at the village level headmen were accountable to the district chiefs. The king was elected from the male descendants of the individual who had conquered the area. Although he was a member of the aristocracy and appeared to have absolute power, the king was in fact subject to the control of a council of elders who could depose him. Further limits came from the district chiefs, whose authority was conferred by tradition rather than by the political system. The kingdom had a hierarchical system of tribute. The village headman received tribute from his people; he in turn gave payments to the district chief; the provincial governor took tributes from the district chiefs. Finally, a portion of each governor's receipts went to the capital for the king. Payment of tribute determined one's standing in the political hierarchy.² One notable feature of the kingdom was the king's absolute control over currency—shells found only in the royal fishery.

Portugal soon established formal diplomatic relations with the Kongo kingdom, leading to mutual socioeconomic exchanges. On the one hand, the Kongo were noticeably influenced by Catholicism as well as Portuguese customs, and many were converted to Christianity. On the other hand, Portugal's close ties with the Kongo greatly facilitated development of the slave trade in the region. Slaves purchased from the Kongo provided cheap labor for plantations on nearby Portuguese islands and, subsequently, the Americas. Over time, with the spectacular growth in the trade in response to growing demand, conflict developed between the Portuguese and the Kongo over this issue. The focus on the capture of slaves led to the depopulation of vast areas of Kongo territory, increasing warfare and border raids against neighboring tribes. Furthermore, the Kongo also fought among themselves over the activities of slave traders in the interior who sought allies among the various factions vying for Kongo kingship. In the final analysis, the slave trade undermined political authority and created social stratification in the kingdom. By the early seventeenth century, friction over access to land developed with the neighboring colony of Angola, founded by the Portuguese in the mid-sixteenth century. This friction culminated in open conflict that effectively destroyed Kongo military and economic power and, indeed, the kingdom itself.

Other major empires existing in the Congo at the time of the Kongo people—the Luba and the Lunda, for example—were similarly affected by developments of the period.³ At its height, the Luba kingdom stretched from Lake Tanganyika in the eastern part of the Congo to the southern part of what became Katanga province (now Shaba). It is said to have been founded about the fifteenth century by a Bantu chief, Nkongolo Mukulu. By the seventeenth century, however, a number of Luba subgroups had migrated westward into Kasai province. The Luba state was also highly centralized. Groups of villages were organized into chiefdoms, several of which constituted a province under a provincial chief appointed by the king. Provinces in turn made up the kingdom. This political structure was subsequently adopted in areas bordering Luba territory when former chiefs established themselves outside the kingdom.

The Lunda empire grew out of a kingdom formed by a brother of the reigning Luba king at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Lying in the southwest comer of the Congo, the Lunda settlements extended from Katanga province into neighboring Angola. The trading opportunities that arose because of the presence of the Portuguese on the Angolan coast were an important factor in the emergence of the Lunda state. There were striking similarities between the organization of the Lunda state and that of the Luba, but the Lunda generally sought to integrate conquered peoples into their empire. As a result, their political system influenced a vast area in the southern Congo until well into the nineteenth century. The collection of tribute was a central aspect of the Lunda empire and served to maintain the lines of political control that extended from the royal capital. It was this collection of tribute that fostered the transformation of the Lunda from a pyramidal to a hierarchical authority structure.⁴ An important feature of the system was the organization of political posts. The successor to an office inherited his predecessor's title, as well as his status, name, and kinship relations. In the eighteenth century the Lunda expanded into Luba territory in search of manpower for their agricultural activities. Later they became actively involved in the ivory trade, establishing collection points and administering the trade in much the same way that the Kongo did with the trafficking of slaves.

It was partly this ivory trade that brought the Arabs into Central Africa from the East African coast, A lucrative caravan trade involving Arab traders began in the nineteenth century at about the time Portuguese influence in the lower Congo was declining. Initially the Arabs came in small groups, forming alliances with local chiefs to purchase slaves, copper, and ivory. Soon the Arabs began to raid Luba lands for slaves. This led to severe disruption of the Luba way of life, as Arab traders and Luba chiefs resorted to slave trading and trafficking of guns. Unlike the Portuguese, the Arabs were not interested in political ties with the local peoples but chose to focus exclusively on profits and trade. Nevertheless, with their continued expansion inland, they unwittingly established an administrative system. Certain Arab chiefs controlled large territories and as a result had a considerable influence over local tribes. The most famous of these chiefs, Mohammed Ben Junna ("Tippo-Tip"), became powerful enough to be considered the "king" of the region between Stanley Falls (just south of what is now Kisangani) and Lake Tanganyika. Arab activities had an important impact on local politics and customs in the eastern Congo. Traditional institutions were destroyed, and the establishment of formal trading centers in the area initiated regular contacts between different ethnic groups. The introduction of Swahili, which was to become one of the Congo's official languages, as well as the influence of Islam became common points of reference, integrating peoples from various tribes. These influences would persist long after the Arabs withdrew.⁵

External Penetration and Domination

Although the activities of the Portuguese and Arabs irreversibly altered and eroded traditional Congolese society, the most lasting and perhaps the most devastating impact came from the Belgians.⁶ King Leopold II of Belgium came to focus on the Congo because of Henry Stanley's famous journey down the Congo River to the Atlantic Ocean in the 1870s. Leopold's desire for an overseas empire had not materialized in the Far East, so he turned his attention to the one area on the African continent that was relatively unknown and unexplored. With the other European powers preoccupied elsewhere in Africa, Leopold formed the Comité d'Études du Haut Congo (Survey Committee for the Upper Congo), later known as the Association Internationale du Congo (International Association of the Congo), and commissioned Stanley to conduct further explorations along the Congo River. Under the guise of humanitarianism and scientific exploration, the area quickly became the personal property of the king, and the 1884 Berlin Conference between the European powers on the partition of Africa formally acknowledged Leopold's jurisdiction over the Congo. At the time, it was widely assumed that European powers could freely annex African territory as long as the consent of a certain number of African chiefs had been obtained. The Association Internationale du Congo was recognized by the conference as an independent entity with its own flag. It became the Congo Free State in 1885. In turn, Leopold agreed "on paper" that activities in the Congo Basin would be regulated according to principles such as freedom of navigation and trade, suppression of the slave trade, and improvement of the socioeconomic condition of the local population.

Leopold's commercial ambitions in the Congo soon became paramount, and the desire to make the Free State a lucrative venture brought his agents there into open conflict with the local population. The focus was on the extraction of resources, the unification of the territory through military conquest, and the economic destruction of preexisting kingdoms.⁷ Initially the Free State sought reconciliation with Arab traders in the east. Tippo-Tip agreed to recognize the rights of the Free State between the area of Banana (the point at which the Zaire River enters the Atlantic Ocean) and Stanley Falls. However, state merchants soon began to compete with the Arabs to monopolize the ivory trade. Open warfare between the Free State and the Arabs subsequently erupted, with Congolese fighting on both sides, resulting in significant loss of life. The Free State's superior military forces easily overwhelmed the Arabs and forcibly incorporated the eastern regions into Leopold's domain.

The king was represented in the Congo by a governor-general. The country was divided into fifteen districts, each headed by a commissioner. This arrangement ignored ethnic boundaries and reduced or eliminated the authority of local chiefs. The aim was the creation of a unified territory, even at the cost of the destruction of existing polities. The raison d'être of the Free State was the extraction of resources. In the pursuit of profit, Leopold devised a restrictive system of land ownership under which Europeans in the Congo had to register their landholdings, leaving all unowned lands and their products the property of the Free State. The Congolese were barred from collecting rubber and ivory except for sale to the state. Existing trading posts were closed to further consolidate the state's trading monopoly.

Such centralized control sparked protests by Belgian government officials and private companies, and Leopold accordingly permitted private exploitation of one-third of the unowned lands beginning in 1892, reserving another one-third as his private domain. Commercial companies were licensed as agents of the state and given long-term monopolies over the resources of vast areas in return for sizable tax payments. Directly contrary to the Berlin agreement, the state held majority shares in these companies. Moreover, the well-being of the indigenous population was subordinated to the pursuit of profits. By suppressing commercial activity, the Free State destroyed old trading centers and market networks and fragmented traditional sociopolitical institutions at the clan and village levels.

Accounts soon reached Europe from missionaries...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Historical Setting
• 2 The Zairian Polity
• 3 Society and Culture
• 4 Economics, Politics, and Interdependence
• 5 Zaire in the International Arena
• 6 Plus Ça Change . . . Zaire and the Future
• List of Acronyms
• Selected Bibliography
• About the Book and Author
• Index