Timeline: Congo DRC, Democratic Republic of the Congo
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CIA Factbook: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/cg.html
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Sources: http://www.agora.stm.it/politic/congo-K.htm
Congo Times: http://chss2.montclair.edu/sorac/CongoTimes/home.htm
Fung sources: http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/zaire.html
The Democratic Republic of the Congo was formerly
named the Belgian
Congo and later Zaire. Bantus are the majority ethnic group in Congo.
This nation of 45 million is the 3rd largest in Africa.
(NH, 7/96, p.14)(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A8)(SFC, 5/21/98,
p.A14)
Congo DRC is about two-thirds size of western Europe.
(Econ, 8/5/06, p.41)
88000BCE The Katanda site in Zaire
was dated to this time. Evidence in the 1990s showed bone points showed
barbs on 3 edges and rings carved in the base to tie them to shafts.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A2)
1400-1500 The Kongo empire consisted of six
provinces ruled by a monarch, the Manikongo of the Bakongo (Kongo
peoples), but its sphere of influence extended to the neighboring
states as well. Kongo’s king ruled about two million people. The
capital, Mbanza, was built on a fertile plateau 100 miles east of the
coast and 50 miles south of the Congo River in southwest Africa.
(ATC, p.150)(www.economicexpert.com/a/Kongo.htm)
1482 Captain Diego Cao sailed
south along the African coast and landed at the mouth of the Zaire
(Congo) River. He left four servants and took four Africans hostage
back to his king, John, in Portugal. This was the first European
encounter with the vast kingdom of the Kongo.
(ATC, p.149)
1483 Captain Diogo Cao visited
Manikongo Nzinga in his capital, Mbanza, and persuaded the king to open
his country to the Portuguese. Then were 6 states in the region: Sonho,
Bamba, Pemba, Batta, Fango and Sundi. This last one (capital Ambezi)
was the first to accept the Portuguese protectorate.
(www.economicexpert.com/a/Kongo.htm)
1526 Jul 6, King Afonso of Kongo
(1509-1542) sent a letter of complaint to Portugal regarding the impact
of slave trade in his country.
(www.millersville.edu/~winthrop/Thornton.html)
c1796 The Tutsi herders,
Banyamulenge (people of the mountains), arrived into Zaire some 200
years ago. They moved with their cattle into the hills of Masisi in
North Kivu and mountains of South Kivu.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1874 David Stanley, British
journalist, crossed Africa from the east to the west across the Congo
River basin on a 999-day journey sponsored by London’s Daily Telegraph.
In 2004 Tim Butcher, also a journalist for the Daily Telegraph,
followed Stanley’s path on a trip that took 44 days. In 2008 Butcher
authored “Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart.”
(WSJ, 10/31/08, p.A15)
1876 Sep 14, Henry Morton
Stanley's expedition left Rwanda.
(MC, 9/14/01)
1876 Oct 17, Henry Morton
Stanley's expedition reached the Lualaba River.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1877 Jun 3, Frank Pocock, British
explorer, drowned in the Congo.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1877 Henry Morton Stanley, a
Welsh-born American explorer, emerged from the forests of Africa near
the mouth of the Congo River. He had traced the river to its source. In
1878 he authored “Through the Dark Continent.”
(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.1)(WSJ, 11/3/07, p.W8)
1880 Catholicism became
established in Congo.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.A10)
1880-1920 The population of Congo was halved due to
murder, starvation, exhaustion, exposure, disease, and a lowered birth
rate due to the exploitation by King Leopold II.
(SFEC, 9/27/98, BR p.1)
1881 May 8, Henry Morton Stanley
signed a contract with a Congo monarch. [see Sep 24]
(MC, 5/8/02)
1881 Sep 24, Henry Morton Stanley
signed a contract with Congo monarch. [see May 8]
(MC, 9/24/01)
1883 Stanleyville (later
Kisangani), Congo, was founded by Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the
Anglo-American journalist who tracked down the missionary David
Livingstone in Africa.
(AP, 8/18/03)
1884 Feb 26, Leopold II of Belgium
signed in Congo a British and Portuguese treaty.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1885 Feb 26, The Congress of
Berlin gave Congo to Belgium and Nigeria to England.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1885 May 2, The Congo Free State
was established by King Leopold II of Belgium.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1885 A treaty made in Berlin
called for the humane treatment of Africans.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.12)
1887 The inflatable bicycle tire
was invented and spawned, along with the car tire, a worldwide rubber
boom.
(SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1890 William Sheppard (b.1865 in
Virginia) left the US for missionary work in Congo. In 2002 Pagan
Kennedy authored "Black Livingstone: A True Tale of African Adventure."
(SSFC, 2/3/02, p.M1)
c1890-1899 In the late 19th century Belgium
established the Tervuren Royal Museum for Central Africa. It was a
result of the country’s colonial venture in the Belgian Congo, later
Zaire, later Democratic Republic of Congo. The museum was founded as a
showcase for business opportunities on the Congo.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.E1)
1891 Jul 31, Great Britain
declared territories in Southern Africa up to the Congo to be within
their sphere of influence.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1892 William Sheppard, US
missionary, set out to find the hidden kingdom of Kuba and eventually
made contact with King Kot aMweeky.
(SSFC, 2/3/02, p.M1)
1893 Mar 4, Francis Dhanis' army
attacked the Lualaba and occupied Nyangwe (Congo).
(SC, 3/4/02)
1893 Mar 9, Congo cannibals killed
1000s of Arabs.
(MC, 3/9/02)
c1898 Edmund Dene Morel, a London
employee of the shipping line Elder Dempster, came to realize that a
wealth of rubber and ivory cargo was arriving from Congo in exchange
for military officers, firearms and ammunition. He deduced that forced
labor was being used by King Leopold II of Belgium to extract native
wealth.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.4)
1901 Edmund Dene Morel (28) quit
his London shipping line job and began a full time campaign to expose
the barbarities in the Congo under Leopold II. He started his own
publication, "The West African Mail," an illustrated weekly journal in
1903 as a forum on West and Central African Questions.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.4)(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.7)
1903 May, In Britain the House of
Commons passed a resolution urging that Congo natives be governed with
humanity. Also the British consul in the Congo, Roger Casement, was
asked to travel to the interior and report on conditions there.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.8)
1903 Jun 29, The British
government officially protested Belgian atrocities in the Congo.
Missionaries, such as William Sheppard of Virginia, had provided
information that soldiers of Leopold’s private army turned over the
right hand of villagers they had killed in order to account for their
used bullets. Leopold’s 19,000 man private army held hostage the wives
of workers to force men to work.
(HN, 6/29/98)(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.7,8)
1903 Samuel Verner, an American
missionary and explorer, purchased Ota Benga, a young pigmy enslaved by
another tribe. He was under contract to the St. Louis Fair to bring
several Pygmies to America for a living display of the stages of
evolution. After the fair Benga ended up at the Bronx Zoological Park
where he was displayed with monkeys. In 1910 Benga moved to a Baptist
seminary in Lynchburg, Va. In 1916 Benga committed suicide.
(WSJ, 2/6/06, p.B1)
1904 The Congo Reform Association
was born in England following the return of Roger Casement from the
Congo and his meeting with Edmund Morel.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.9)
1904 Edmund Morel journeyed to the
US and encouraged the formation of an American Congo Reform
Association. Its first president was Dr. G. Stanley Hall, president of
Clark Univ.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.11)
1905 Mark Twain wrote his pamphlet
"King Leopold’s Soliloquy" in support of reform in the Congo. US Sec.
of State Elihu Root was pressured to take action on the Congo.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.11)
1906 Edmund Morel wrote "Red
Rubber: the Story of the Rubber Slave Trade Flourishing on the Congo in
the year of Grace 1906."
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.9)
1908 King Leopold II (d.1909)
turned the Congo over to Belgium for a large sum of money. It was later
estimated that the population of Congo dropped by 10 million people
during the period of Leopold’s rule and its immediate aftermath. In
1998 Adam Hochschild published "King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed,
Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa."
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.12)
1919 Nov 10, Moise Tshombe was
born. He became Pres. of Katanga and then premier of the Congo (Zaire).
(MC, 11/10/01)
1924 The permanent committee of
the National Colonial Congress of Belgium (Congo) declared: "We run the
risk of someday seeing our native population collapse and disappear… So
that we will see ourselves confronted with a kind of desert."
(SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1924 Edward Dene Morel, Congo
activist, was elected to the British Parliament. He soon died of a
heart attack at age 51.
(SFEM, 8/16/98, p.12)
1925 Jul 2, Patrice Lumumba,
revolutionary, was born in Congo.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1930 Oct 14, Joseph Desire Mobutu
was born in Congo.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A1)
1938 G. Trolli, an Italian
physician working in the Belgian Congo (Zaire), reported a condition
called konzo meaning "tied legs." It was later related to cyanide
poison from improper preparation of cassava root.
(NH, 7/96, p.14)
1940 The Belgian colonial
government in Leopoldville (later Kinshasa), Congo, ordered private
mining companies to turn over their records to help the Allies find
resources to help the war effort against Germany. Millions of tons of
copper and tin, as well as some uranium, were shipped to the US. After
the war records were shipped to Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central
Africa in Brussels.
(WSJ, 3/20/07, p.A13)
1948 Congolese musician Antoine
Kolosay, aka Papa Wendo, wrote his song "Marie-Louise," a eulogy to the
sister of his guitarist.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.66)
1957 A sizeable nationalist
movement emerged in Congo and rapidly gained momentum.
(HNQ, 11/27/00)
1957 Dr. Hilary Koprowski of the
Wistar Institute in Philadelphia developed an oral polio vaccine and
tested it in Africa (Congo). The Wister polio vaccine was given to some
300,000 people in the Belgian Congo from 1957-1960. A later theory held
that reuse of needles during the immunization program caused AIDS via
“serial passage” that transformed the SIV virus into HIV. In 1999
Edward Hooper authored “The River,” a detailed hypothesis for the
origin of AIDS in Africa. Hooper suspected that the Wister polio
vaccine, produced from monkey kidney cells, contained SIV virus. In
2000 a computerized study indicated that the AIDS virus was introduced
to humans about 1930.
(SFC, 2/2/00, p.A19)(SFC, 1/15/01, p.A11)(SFC,
4/13/05, p.A5)(www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/pandemics.htm)
1959 Nov 1, Patrice Lumumba was
arrested in the Belgian Congo.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1959 Congo’s Mobutu became an
asset of the US CIA during a meeting in Brussels.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1959 In the Belgian Congo a
50-kilowatt Triga Mark I nuclear reactor made by Gen’l. Atomic of San
Diego went on line.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)
1959 Researchers in 1998 found the
HIV virus of AIDS in a 1959 blood specimen (ZR59) from a Bantu man who
died in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo (later Kinshasa, Congo). This
became the oldest known case and researchers believed that incidents
could go back to the 1940s.
(SFC, 2/4/98,
p.A5)(www.aidsorigins.com/content/view/165/2/)
1960 Jun 23, Patrice Lumumba and
the MNC formed the first government, with Lumumba (35) as Congo's first
prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu (1917-1969) as its president.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba)
1960 Jun 30, Independence was
granted to the Congo. A rebel movement freed the Belgian Congo from
Belgium. In Zaire (Congo) Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961) became the first
post-independence prime minister. He made Joseph Mobutu, a young
military officer, his private secretary. Two months after he took power
a sub-committee of the US National Security Council authorized the
assassination of Lumumba.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A14)(SFEM, 5/7/00,
p.18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrice_Lumumba)
1960 Jul 11, Katanga province,
with the support of Belgian business interests and troops, broke away
from the new Congolese government of Patrice Lumumba, declaring
independence under Moise Tshombe leader of the local CONAKAT party.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis)
1960 Jul 16, The 1st UN troops
reached Congo to replace Belgian troops.
(www.un.org/Depts/DPKO/Missions/onucB.htm)
1960 Aug 25, In Congo
demonstrations took place against premier Lumumba.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1960 Sep 5, Congo’s President
Kasavubu fired Premier Lumumba.
(http://tinyurl.com/2s9dyw)
1960 Sep 14, A Congo coup led by
Col. Mobutu overthrew PM Patrice Lumumba.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Mobutu-Sese-Seko)
1960 Nov 27, Patrice Lumumba fled
Leopoldville, Congo.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1960 Dec 1, Patrice Lumumba was
caught in the Congo.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1961 Jan 17, Patrice Lumumba (34),
the 1st premier Congo, was murdered after 67 days in office. President
Eisenhower allegedly approved the assassination of Congo's Patrice
Lumumba. The US and Joseph Mobutu were implicated but no conclusive
proof has emerged. Sidney Gottlieb (d.1999 at 80), a CIA deputy,
carried a deadly bacteria to the Congo that was used to kill Lamumba.
In 2000 the Belgium Parliament opened an inquiry into possible
government involvement in the killing of Congo’s Premier Patrice
Lumumba. This followed allegations in the new book "The Murder of
Lumumba" by Ludo De Witte. In 2001 the inquiry found that King Baudouin
knew of the plot but did nothing to stop it. The Katanga government did
not announce the death until Feb 13. Moscow charged that UN Sec. Gen.
Dag Hammarskjold was involved.
(TMC, 1994, p.1961)(PCh, 1992, p.979)(SFC, 5/17/97,
p.A14)(SFC, 5/3/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/9/01, p.A1)
1961 Sep 13, Battles took place
between UN and Katanga troops in Congo.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1961 Sep 18, Dag Hammarskjold,
Secretary-General of the UN, was killed in a plane crash in Northern
Rhodesia (now Zambia). He was flying to negotiate a cease-fire in the
Congo. Hammarskjold was the son of a former Swedish prime minister. In
1953, he was elected to the top UN post and in 1957 was reelected.
During his second term, he initiated and directed the United Nation's
vigorous role in the Belgian Congo. Hammarskjold had sent Conor O’Brien
(1919-2008), an Irish diplomat, to the Congo where a rebellion was
openly being backed by Belgium and secretly by Britain and France.
O’Brien ordered in UN troops, but the mission ended in disarray and the
UN repudiated the mission. O’Brien recounted his version of the events
in his book “To Katanga and Back” (1962).
(TMC, 1994, p.1961)(WUD, 1994, p.1684)(AP,
9/18/97)(SSFC, 12/21/08, p.B6)
1961 Nov 11, Congolese soldiers
murdered 13 Italian UN pilots.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1963 Mobutu, chief of staff of
Congo’s army, visited the US White House as a guest of Pres. Kennedy.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)
1964 Oct 24, Belgian paratroopers
liberated 1,000 white hostages in Stanleyville (Kisangani, Congo).
(MC, 10/24/01)
1964 Oct 27, Congo rebel leader
Christopher Gbenye held 60 Americans and 800 Belgians.
(MC, 10/27/01)
1965 Apr 24, Che Guevara, his
second-in-command Victor Dreke, and twelve of the Cuban expeditionaries
arrived in the Congo. Guevara, Cuba’s head of the national bank and
minister of industry, left Cuba to foment revolution in the Congo. He
spent most of 1965 and 1966 in Central Africa, helping anti-Mobuto
revolutionaries in the Republic of Congo. This turned out to be a
disaster and he went to Bolivia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara)
1965 Nov 24, Congo had a military
coup under Gen. Mobutu and Pres. Kasavubu was overthrown. Larry Devlin,
US CIA station chief, had encouraged Mobutu to launch the coup. In 2007
Devlin authored “Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a
Hot Zone.”
(www.briefbio.com/pages/2974/Seko-Mobutu-Sese.html)(Econ, 2/24/07, p.95)
1965 Laurent-Desiree Kabila,
Marxist revolutionary, fought with Ernesto "Che" Guevara on behalf of
Congo’s People’s Revolutionary Party.
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A10)
1965 In Zaire (later Congo) Army
Chief-of-Staff Mobutu Sese Seko, a member of the Gbandi tribe, seized
power in a military coup and began his dictatorship. His name meant
“the cock who goes from homestead to homestead leaving no hen
uncovered.”
(SFC, 10/28/96, p.A8)(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)(SFEC,
4/6/97, p.A16)(Econ, 12/18/04, p.61)
1967 Congo’s Pres. Mobutu presided
over the adoption of a new constitution that vested all powers in the
presidency and his political party.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A14)
1967 The Organization of African
Unity decided set up a regional nuclear research center in Kinshasa,
Congo, and the US helped build a Triga Mark II research reactor made be
General Atomic.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A4)
1968 Oct 9, Pierre Mulele,
Congolese rebel leader, was publicly tortured and executed in the Congo
[some sources give October 3].
(WUD, 1994,
p.1687)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Mulele)
1969 Mahele Lieko Bokoungo, a
member of Congo’s Mbuza tribe, became Mobutu’s chief body guard.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)
1971 Oct 27, The Democratic
Republic of Congo was renamed Zaire.
(http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2974/Seko-Mobutu-Sese.html)
1972 Mar, In Zaire (CongoDRC) the
Trico II nuclear research reactor went on line.
(WSJ, 5/30/97,
p.A4)(www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/congo/index.html)
1972 In Zaire (later Congo DRC)
Joseph-Desire Mobutu (1930-1997) changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko
Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga, which meant "the all-powerful warrior who,
because of his inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to
conquest leaving fire in his wake.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko)
1972 Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko
passed a law granting Tutsis citizenship. He revoked it in 1981.
(Econ, 8/21/04, p.39)
1974 Oct 30, Muhammad Ali and
George Foreman held their "Rumble In the Jungle" boxing match in Zaire.
Ali knocked out George Foreman in the eighth round of a 15-round bout
in Kinshasa, Zaire, to regain his world heavyweight title, that was
taken from him for refusing military service.
(SFC, 2/10/97, p.E3)(WSJ, 2/14/97, p.A12)(AP,
10/30/97)
1975 Nov 20, An interim report by
the US Senate’s Church Committee said that the CIA failed to
assassinated Fidel Castro at least 8 times. The report also covered CIA
activity in Chile, the Congo, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere.
(WSJ, 8/5/06,
p.A9)(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Church_Committee)
1976 In Zaire (later Congo) the
Ebola virus was discovered and named after a river there. The virus can
stop blood from clotting causing patients to bleed. An outbreak of the
Ebola virus killed 280 people, most of whom were infected by reused
syringes and needles.
(SFC, 10/27/98, p.A5)
1977 Jan 10, The crater walls of
Congo’s Nyiragongo volcano fractured, and a lava lake drained in less
than an hour. The lava flowed down the flanks of the volcano at speeds
of up to 60 miles per hour on the upper slopes, overwhelming villages
and killing at least 70 people.
(SSFC, 1/20/02,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nyiragongo)
1977 Rebel forces from Angola
swept into Zaire and captured much of the copper-rich Shaba province.
Zaire regained control after 3 months with American and other foreign
support.
(SFC, 11/11/96, p.A11)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A14)
1978 In Zaire another coup attempt
was begun in the Shaba province. American and other foreign support
helped Mobutu maintain control.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A14)
1978 In Zaire (later Congo) there
was a separatist uprising in the southern Katanga province and at least
140 foreigners were massacred at the Kolwezi copper mine. Hundreds of
Katangans also died.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A1)
1980 May 2, Pope John Paul II
arrived Kinshasa for the centennial of Catholicism in Zaire and the
beginning of his African tour.
(SFC, 7/18/97,
p.A10)(http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id99.htm)
1980 May 4, Nine people were
killed at Kinshasa, Zaire (later the Democratic Republic of Congo)
during a stampede to attend mass given by Pope John Paul II.
(http://africanhistory.about.com/od/may/a/td0504.htm)
1980-1989 During the 1980s Congo’s Mobutu Sese Seko
imported 5,000 sheep from Venezuela for one his ranches by using a
government owned DC-8 to make 32 round trips between Caracas and Zaire.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/2kg3bl)
1981 Zairean citizenship was
withdrawn from the Banyamulenge Tutsis of eastern Zaire.
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A10)
1985 Mahele Lieko Bokoungo fought
back Congo’s Laurent Kabila, who had set up a rebel republic on the
shores of Lake Tanganyika near Moba. The rebels under Kabila were
mainly Tutsis and used militaristic and autocratic methods.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)(SFC, 5/2/97, p.A14)
1989 Jan 12, Idi Amin was expelled
from Zaire (later CongoDRC) and forced to return to Saudi Arabia.
(www.moreorless.au.com/killers/amin.html)
1990 Mahele Lieko Bokoungo led
Zairean soldiers to back up the Hutu regime of Pres. Juvenal
Habyarimana of Rwanda.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)
1991 Etienne Tshisekedi was
installed as Congo’s prime minister after Mobutu was forced by foreign
and domestic pressure to allow multiparty politics and accept a
government formed by the opposition.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A16)
1991 Mahele Lieko Bokoungo became
chief of staff of Congo’s armed forces.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)
1991 Kabangu Kalunga, an
intelligence office under Congo’s Mobutu, was sent to fight Tutsi-led
rebels in Rwanda.
(SFC, 10/14/98, p.C2)
1991 Riots by Congo’s unpaid
soldiers killed hundreds of people and destroyed many businesses.
(SFC, 3/18/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A4)
1991 Thomas Kanza, head of a
coffee trading operation, was convicted in Tennessee of fraud. The
operation had $57,000 of investor’s money missing. In 1997 he was
selected by Laurent Kabila as Congo’s first minister of int’l.
cooperation.
(WSJ, 2/9/98, p.A1)
1993 Congo’s Pres. Mobutu removed
Etienne Tshisekedi, the first Zairean to graduate from law school, from
office as prime minister.
(SFC, 3/21/97, p.A19)
1993 Ethnic cleansing occurred in
Congo’s Kasai Province.
(WSJ, 12/10/96, p.A22)
1993 In Congo Mahele Lieko
Bokoungo put down army-led looting in Kinshasa when he gave orders for
loyal troops to fire on looters.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)
1993 In Congo riots killed
hundreds of people and destroyed many businesses.
(SFC, 3/18/97, p.A10)
1994 Apr-1994 Aug, The Rwanda
Patriotic Front (RPF) under Paul Kagame killed some 25-45,000 people
during this period. They then pursued the genocidaires into Zaire where
they killed some 200,000 more and in the process overthrew the
government of Zaire.
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.26)
1994 Apr-1994 Aug, Hutus
slaughtered more than 500,000 people, mostly Tutsis, in Rwanda and fled
to refugee camps in Zaire.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1994 Jul 14, A tidal wave of Hutu
refugees from Rwanda's civil war flooded across the border into Zaire,
swamping relief organizations.
(AP, 7/14/99)
1994 Jul 17, Hutus left Rwanda for
refugee camps in Zaire.
(SFEC, 11/19/96, p.A16)
1994 Jul 18, In Rwanda the Tutsi
rebel movement (RPF) under Tutsi rebel leader Paul Kagame took power.
It promised to rebuild the courts and execute the guilty for the
slaughter of an estimated 500-800 thousand Tutsis. Two million
refugees, mostly Hutus, fled to refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania.
Kagame studied at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Fort
Leavenworth in 1990. In 2005 Jean Hatzfeld, French journalist, authored
“Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak.”
(SFC, 417/96, p.A-9)(SFC, 8/9/96, p.A10)(SFC,
10/22/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(AP, 7/18/99)(SSFC, 6/26/05, p.C3)
1995 Apr, The parliament passed a
resolution that prevented refugees from Rwanda and Burundi from
obtaining Zairean citizenship.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1995 May 9, Kinshasa, capital of
Zaire, was placed under quarantine after an outbreak of the Ebola virus.
(AP, 5/9/00)
1995 Jul, The Ebola virus killed
244 people in Kikwit, Zaire.
(WSJ, 12/11/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A11)
1995 Sep, In Congo government
harassment of the Banyamulenge Tutsis began with an inventory of
property, evictions and expulsions.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1995 Nov, Congo’s government told
Jimmy Carter (visiting prior to a Cairo summit) that it may relax its
end of year deadline for one million Rwandan refugees to leave or be
thrown out.
(WSJ, 11/22/95, p.A-1)
1995 Nov, Zairean Tutsis in Masis
were targeted by authorities, the army and the locals. They were forced
to flee and many were massacred.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1995 Dec, 26 At least 50 people
were killed in Goma, Congo, in rioting between two army units guarding
Rwandan refugees. Many civilians were killed.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p.A-1)
1996 Jan 8, A Russian-made
Antonov-32 skidded into a crowded marketplace shortly after take-off in
Kinshasa in Zaire and killed at least 350 people. The twin-turboprop
was owned by African Air and was overweight when it took off. At least
470 people were injured.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1) (SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(WSJ,
11/13/01, p.A14)
1996 May 17, Hutu gunmen attacked
800 Zairian Tutsis who had taken refuge in a church. They killed at
least 12 and left 130 missing. Hutu refugees from Rwanda have been
conducting a campaign to drive out other ethnic groups in eastern Zaire.
(WSJ, 5/17/96,p.A-1)
1996 May 29, Hundreds of Tutsis
crossed into Rwanda fleeing the fighting in Zaire. Thousands of
displaced Tutsis are behind them in the Masisi and Rutshuru regions of
northeastern Zaire.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 4, In the Congo
authorities found 200 slaughtered elephants in a marsh of the National
Park of Odzala.
(SFC, 9/5/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 7, Ethnic Tutsi rebels
slaughtered 34 patients in eastern Zaire. The government has given the
200,000 Tutsis a week to leave Zaire. The Tutsi Banyamulenge arrived
into Zaire some 200 years ago.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 10, Armed men killed
50-60 civilians in eastern Zaire in the village of Bambu in the Masisi
region. The Banyamulenge immigrated to eastern Zaire from Rwanda
decades ago.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A11)
1996 Oct 18, Fighting erupted
between Zairean soldiers and the rebel alliance under Kabila.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)
1996 Oct 21, About 225,000 Hutu
refugees fled camps in eastern Zaire. The governor of the area has
given the 300,000 Banyamulenge Tutsis as week to leave. Zaire has camps
holding about 1.5 million Hutu refugees, most of them from Rwanda.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Oct 25, The UN announced an
emergency food airlift to eastern Zaire to help 300,000 Hutu refugees
fleeing violence.
(SFC, 10/26/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 28, In Congo some 420,000
refugees were crowded into the Mugunga Camp as fighting expanded.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A6)
1996 Oct 30, Rwandan commandos
crossed into eastern Zaire to aid the Tutsi rebels there. Zaire had
about 50,000 troops, but they were poorly trained, poorly armed, poorly
led and notoriously poorly disciplined. Rwanda had about 54,000
soldiers in a well-disciplined army.
(SFC, 10/31/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 30, The Vatican said
eastern Zaire’s Archbishop was killed, the 2nd in 2 months.
(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 1, Tutsi rebels and
Rwandan forces besieged Goma, Congo, in a battle for control of the
regional capital and its airport. In Kinshasha some 10,000 university
students demanded war with Rwanda and Burundi.
(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A8)
1996 Nov 5, Zairians in Kinshasa
defied a ban on demonstrations and called for the government to resign.
(WSJ, 11/6/96, p.A1)
1996 Nov 7, Laurent-Desiree
Kabila, Marxist revolutionary, re-emerged as the "coordinator" of the
Alliance of Democratic Forces of Congo-Zaire (AFDL).
(WSJ, 11/8/96, p.A10)
1996 Nov 8, Congo’s Pres. Mobutu
Sese Seko was recuperating from prostate cancer surgery at the Villa
del Mare on the French Mediterranean. Recent Swiss reports put his
holdings in Swiss banks at $4 billion.
(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 21, The Banyarwanda means
"people of Rwanda" and includes the Banyamylenge and anyone else in
eastern Zaire whose origins were in Rwanda. The Bangilima and the
Mai-Mai are Zairean militias with a strong background in witchcraft.
The Interahamwe are former Rwandan Hutu militiamen who played a role in
the 1994 genocide.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.C6)
1996 Nov 21, Congo’s operating
budget for this year was $350 million and the population was 45 mil.
(WSJ, 11/21/96, p.A19)
1996 Nov 29, A Canadian-led int’l.
force won approval to provide humanitarian aid. The force would be
based in Uganda.
(SFC, 11/30/96, p.A12)
1996 Nov 30, In Zaire a volcano
erupted near the Rwanda-Uganda border.
(SFC, 12/2/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec 4, In Zaire government
troops went on a rampage of looting and raping in Kinsangani. Rebels
announced the capture of Kindu 250 miles south of Kinsangani.
(SFC, 12/5/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 8, Rebels surrounded
Bunia, the last government held town in eastern Zaire. Government
troops were looting and targeting Greek merchants and members of the
Nande ethnic group.
(SFC, 12/9/96, p.A18)
1996 Dec 17, In Zaire Mobutu Sese
Seko stage a triumphal home.
(SFC, 12/18/96, p.C2)
1996 Dec 19, In Zaire Gen’l.
Mahele Lieko Bokoungo was appointed the new army chief.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B5)
1996 Dec 23, In Zaire a crises
government was established under Prime Minister Leon Kengo wa Dondo.
Gen’l. Likulia Bolongop was named the new defense minister.
(SFC, 12/25/96, p.A10)
1996 Dec-1996 Jan, Hundreds of
Hutu refugees were killed by rebels as they headed back home on the
road from Hombo to Walikale.
(SFC, 3/14/97, p.A12)
1996 Rwanda’s Paul Kagame dressed
up an invasion of Zaire as an indigenous revolt and installed Laurent
Kabila at its helm. Zimbabwe paid $5 million to help finance the Kabila
regime in Congo.
(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A1)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.38)
1997 Jan 2, In Zaire rebel troops
captured Pres. Seko’s 32,000 sq. mile Kilomoto gold mining region and
the town of Mangbwalu.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A18)
1997 Jan 6, In Zaire at least 100
lawmakers quit Pres. Seko’s parliamentary alliance to join a new
nationalist group. Their goal appeared to be to topple Prime Minister
Kengo wa Dondo.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A9)
1997 Jan 9, Zaire’s Pres. Seko
returned to France, apparently for cancer treatments.
(SFC, 1/10/96, p.A15)
1997 Jan 24, A Zairean
counteroffensive was supported by some 300 foreign mercenaries. About
400,000 Hutu refugees were trapped near regions of fighting and UN
officials raised pleas for a truce to allow the refugees to move.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A8)
1997 Feb 18, The UN endorsed a
5-point peace plan for Zaire.
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.A10)
1997 Mar 14, In Zaire after a 3
week siege of Kisangani, rebels attacked the city, the 3rd largest in
the country.
(SFC, 3/15/97, p.A19)
1997 Mar 15, In Zaire rebel
soldiers occupied Kisangani.
(SFC, 3/17/97, p.A8)
1997 Mar 21, Zaire’s Pres. Mobutu
returned to Kinshasa.
(SFC, 3/21/97, p.A19)
1997 Mar 24, In Zaire Mobutu
accepted the parliamentary vote of censure of prime minister Kengo wa
Dondo.
(SFC, 3/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 1, In Zaire Etienne
Tshisekedi was appointed prime minister. The next day he annulled the
constitution, dissolved parliament and offered 6 Cabinet seats to the
rebels. He planned a new transitional parliament and new multiparty
elections.
(SFC, 4/4/97, p.A16)
1997 Apr 4, Rebel forces captured
Mbuji-Mayi, capital of Eastern Kasai province and home of Zaire’s
diamond industry. Departing government troops looted the city and 100
people were killed in clashes between the retreating soldiers and
locals.
(SFC, 4/5/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 5, In Zaire rebels agreed
to allow a UN airlift of some 80,000 Rwandan refugees back to their
homeland.
(SFEC, 4/6/97, p.A17)
1997 Apr 7, Deserting government
soldiers of Zaire’s 21st Brigade donned white scarves and declared
themselves on the side of the rebels as the rebels approached
Lubumbashi, the capital of the copper and cobalt rich Shaba province.
(SFC, 4/8/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 9, In Zaire Mobuto
dismissed prime minister Etienne Tshisekedo and installed a military
commander as prime minister.
(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 24, In Zaire rebels were
accused of having killed many refugees and burying them in a mass
grave. Large amounts of airlift supplies intended to return Rwandan
refugees were seized by rebels.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr 25, Zaire’s government
claimed that Angolan troops had invaded near Cabinda. Angola was
supporting Kabila’s rebels.
(SFC, 4/26/97, p.A10)
1997 May 2, The Tenke Mining Corp.
of Vancouver, Canada, signed a $250 million contract with the Zaire’s
rebels to develop copper and cobalt deposits.
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A10)
1997 May 4, More than 100 Rwandan
refugees died on an overcrowded train after rebel troops packed them
aboard for delivery to an airstrip for flights to Rwanda. Peace talks
onboard the South African naval vessel Outeniqua between Zaire’s Pres.
Mobutu and Laurent Kabila failed to produce anticipated results.
(WSJ, 5/5/97, p.A1)
1997 May 5, The rebels
nationalized the Sizarail rail system, a consortium that belonged to
South African, Belgian and Zairean interests.
(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A18)
1997 May 6, Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko
left Zaire for a 3-day visit to Gabon. He was not expected to return.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)
1997 May 8, In Zaire rebels were
meeting increased resistance from French mercenaries and Angolan UNITA
forces. A shortage of cash was also hindering their advance on Kinshasa.
(WSJ, 5/9/97, p.A1)
1997 May 10, In Zaire Pres. Mobutu
returned to Kinshasa from Gabon.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, p.A7)
1997 May 13, In Zaire rebel troops
reached Wendji and Mbandaka and proceeded to kill Hutu refugees.
Estimates of deaths varied from 550-2000.
(WSJ, 6/6/97, p.A11)(SFC, 9/23/97, p.A11)
1997 May 15, In mid May Kabila’s
soldiers were reported to have killed as many as 275 people in Uvira on
Lake Tanganyika.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 May 16, Pres. Mobutu left
Zaire.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A1)
1997 May 17, In Zaire rebel forces
entered Kinshasa and Laurent Kabila declared himself president of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kabila requested Swiss authorities to
block Mobuto Sese Seko’s access to his Swiss villa. The house was
seized and searched and documents were found that related to his
wealth. The seizure was declared legal Aug 7.
(SFEC, 5/18/97, Z1 p.6)(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)(AP,
5/17/98)
1997 May 29, In Congo Kabila took
a presidential oath of office and presented a timeline for future
elections.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 26, In Congo soldiers
seized Etienne Tshisekedi after he gave a speech accusing the Kabila
regime of establishing a new dictatorship.
(WSJ, 6/27/97, p.A1)
1997 Jun 27, In Congo Etienne
Tshisekedi was released.
(WSJ, 6/30/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 25, In Congo soldiers
fired into a crowd of protestors in Kinshasa and killed at least 3
people. The protest was against Kabila’s ban on political activity.
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A14)
1997 Aug 7, In Switzerland the
measures to freeze the assets of deposed Zairean Pres. Mobuto Sese Seko
were declared legal.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.E3)
1997 Aug 14, Congo announced
a $2.5 billion project to build roads and that it would seek EU
financing.
(WSJ, 8/14/97, p.A1)
1997 Sep 7, Mobuto Sese Seko (66),
former dictator of Zaire, later Congo, died of prostate cancer in exile
in Rabat, Morocco. Mobutu began his career in the Belgian Congolese
army, rising to the highest rank available to Africans, sergeant-major.
However, after leaving the army in 1956, he began to be involved with
the independence movement, representing the nationalists at some
negotiations. Five years after independence, in 1965, Mobutu, then
commander in chief of the army, exploited a power struggle in the young
government by assuming the presidency in a coup. Mobutu managed to stay
in power over the following decades despite uprisings, coup attempts
and Angola-backed rebels. In the early 1970s, he began to Africanize
names in the country, most notably changing the name of the country
from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Republic of Zaire and
his own name from Joseph-Désiré Mobutu to Mobutu Sese
Seko Koko Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (which means "The all-powerful warrior
who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from
conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake"). The end of the Cold
War meant that, in 1991, Mobutu could no longer hold the same
dictatorial control he had held over the country nor keep his party,
the MPR, as the only legal political entity. With the beginnings of a
multiparty system and a lack of Western finance, Mobutu released
control of the government to the rebel leader Laurent Kabila in May
1997. Kabila‘s rebels—backed by Rwanda and Uganda—had been gaining
ground over the past seven months. Mobutu died in exile several months
later. In 2001 Michela Wrong authored ""In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz:
Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo."
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.A8)(AP, 9/7/98)(HNQ, 2/15/01)(WSJ,
4/27/01, p.W10)
1997 Sep 12, In southeast Congo a
plane crashed enroute to a religious meeting. All 20 aboard were killed.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Oct 1, The UN withdrew its
human rights investigators from Congo pending a clarification by the
Kabila government on its policy.
(SFC, 10/2/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 1, Pres. Kabila ordered
troops into the Congo Republic after 2 days of cross border shelling
that killed as many as 31 in Kinshasa.
(WSJ, 10/2/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 3, UN officials reported
that Congo has ordered int’l. refugee agencies to leave part of eastern
Congo and was expelling Rwandans who have fled there to escape fighting
in Rwanda.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 25, Congo’s Pres. Kabila
and the US ambassador to the UN announced an agreement for a UN
investigation into alleged massacres by Kabila’s army.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A22)
1997 Nov 25, It was reported that
police in Congo flogged 10 journalists for attending a news conference
by politician Z’Ahidi Arthur Ngoma. Ngoma and five supporters were
arrested after the conference.
(SFC,11/28/97, p.B5)
1997 Nov 28, In Congo rival
factions of the army clashed and up to 20 people were killed in
Kinshasa at the offices of Pres. Kabila.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A14)
1997 Nov 30, In the Congo the
government accused foreign broadcaster of tarnishing its image and shut
down all local FM transmissions of international radio stations.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A13)
1997 In Congo Laurent Kabila
appointed his son, Joseph Kabila, as head of the army.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A14)
1998 Jan 20, Joseph Olengankoy,
Congo opposition leader, was arrested. He had refused to meet with
Pres. Kabila to discuss his criticism.
(SFC, 1/21/98, p.C12)
1998 Feb 20, In Congo troops of
Pres. Kabila were sent to quell a rebellion by Mai-Mai tribal warriors.
A human rights group, Azadho, later charged the troops in a massacre of
over 300 civilians in Butembo.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Apr, The Congo government
banned the African Association for Defense of Human Rights.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.B7)
1998 May 11, A new study was
reported that James Kabari, Pres. Kabila’s chief of staff, supervised a
special Rwandan military unit that killed 2,000 Hutus in 1997 in the
Congolese town of Mbandaka with Kabila’s knowledge.
(SFC, 5/11/98, p.A8)
1998 May 19, A Congo military
court sentenced Masasu Nindanga and Joseph Olenghankoy, opponents of
Pres. Kabila, to jail terms of 20 and 15 years with no right of appeal.
(SFC, 5/20/98, p.C2)
1998 Jul 1, Etienne Tshisekedi,
Congo opposition leader, was freed from internal exile and returned to
the capital.
(SFC, 7/2/98, p.C2)
1998 Aug 3, In Congo rebellious
troops seized control of several cities. Sylvain Mbuchi, claimed to be
the rebel leader and announced that the military had decided to remove
Kabila from power. Kabila last week ordered Rwandan Tutsi troops to
leave Congo.
(SFC, 8/4/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 5, In Congo Arthur
Z’Ahidy [Zaidy] Ngoma, a Kinshasa politician, was identified as the
leader of the rebels opposed to Kabila.
(SFC, 8/6/93, p.A12)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 6, Rebels in Congo seized
control of Moanda, an important oil depot.
(SFC, 8/7/98, p.A14)
1998 Aug 7, Congo’s Pres. Kabila
left Kinshasa for Lubumbashi, his former rebel base, to meet with a
visiting South African delegation.
(SFC, 8/8/98, p.A13)
1998 Aug 10, Congo claimed to have
recaptured the Atlantic ports near the mouth of the Congo River that
were taken by Tutsi rebels.
(WSJ, 8/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 12, Rwanda protested a
Congo crackdown on ethnic Tutsis and charged that Kabila was arming
Rwandan Hutus to put down a Tutsi-led revolt along the border.
(WSJ, 8/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 13, In Congo rebels
seized the Inga hydroelectric dam and cut off power to Kinshasa. Kabila
fired his army chief in response.
(WSJ, 8/14/98, p.A1)(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 14, In Congo Bizima
Karaha, a minister who had defected to the rebels, said that the port
of Matadi was captured. A rebel army was marching toward Kinshasa from
the western coastline.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 15, In Congo the US
Embassy shut its doors as rebels approached Kinshasa. Pres. Kabila and
his ministers retired to Lubumbashi.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A12)
1998 Aug 16, Pres. Kabila flew to
Angola to meet with Pres. dos Santos and request direct support against
rebels. Air cargo support was being provided as well as several
thousand Congolese exiles known as the Katangese Gendarmes.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 21, Zimbabwe sent 600
troops to support Pres. Kabila in the Congo. Rwanda called for a cease
fire and warned that it would intervene if the troops from Zimbabwe
were not withdrawn.
(SFC, 8/22/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 23, In Congo rebels
appeared to have seized Kisangani while government soldiers recaptured
Kitona, a military base near the coast. Troops from Zimbabwe fought
rebels advancing on Kinshasa. The capture of Kisangani effectively
splitting Congo and cut off commerce with government-held territory and
Kinshasa, the capital 900 miles downriver.
(SFC, 8/24/98, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A1)(AP, 8/18/03)
1998 Aug 24, Some 2,000 Angolan
troops captured a coastal naval base and oil port and moved up the
Congo River to battle the rebels.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A7)
1998 Aug 25, Pres. Kabila declared
that this day all Congolese should "take up arms, even traditional
weapons -bows and arrows, spears and other things... to crush the enemy
because otherwise we are going to become the slaves of these...Tutsi
people."
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.B7)
1998 Aug 26, In Congo
Rwandan-backed rebels attempted an assault on Kinshasa but were held
off by government soldiers and troops from Zimbabwe and Namibia.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 27, In Congo Unita forces
from Angola joined the rebels, while forces from Namibia fought for
Kabila’s regime.
(WSJ, 8/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 31, Congo’s Kabila
declared victory over the Tutsi-led rebels near Kinshasa and in the
southwest.
(WSJ, 9/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 7, A summit in Zimbabwe
was scheduled to create conditions for a cease-fire in Congo. A half
dozen nations gathered to fashion a draft initiative for peace.
(SFEC, 9/6/98, p.A11)(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A8)
1998 Sep 8, The Congo rebel
delegation stormed out of the peace talks in Zimbabwe.
(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A9)
1998 Sep 15, In Congo Pres. Kabila
restored four generals from late dictator Mobutu’s regime. Government
forces were said to be moving on Goma.
(WSJ, 9/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 5, In Congo rebels under
Arthur Mulunda said they were within 12 miles of Kindu. The rebels were
backed by troops and equipment from Rwanda and Uganda.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 6, Rebel commander
Richard Mondo told reporters that artillery rounds had been fired into
Kindu and that advance units had crossed the Lualaba River. At least 18
government soldiers were reported killed.
(SFC, 10/7/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 10, In Congo rebels shot
down a Boeing 727 following takeoff from Kindu. Airline officials said
there were 38 passengers, mostly women and children. Rebels claimed the
passengers were soldiers.
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.A15)
1998 Oct 11, Kindu, Congo, fell to
the rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda.
(SFC, 10/14/98, p.C2)
1998 Oct 14, In Zimbabwe Pres.
Robert Mugabe that he will meet with Kabila to discuss support against
the rebels in Congo.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.A15)
1998 Oct 16, It was reported that
Bobi Ladawa Mobutu, wife of Mobutu Sese Seko, and son, Nazanga, had
established a Mobutu Family Foundation to carry out charitable programs
in the US and Africa for young Africans. The former dictator was
believed to have taken $10 billion from the Congo.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 19, In Congo 16
Zimbabwean soldiers were captured by the rebels.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.C2)
1998 Oct 31, It was reported that
a lightning bolt killed all 11 members of a Congolese soccer team in
eastern Kasai province.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct, Congo’s new constitution
was scheduled to be completed.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A15)
1998 Nov 3, In Congo troops opened
fire at a soccer match in Kinshasa and 4 people were killed.
(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 16, In Congo rebels said
that they captured the port of Moba on Lake Tanganyika. UN officials
said that over 65,000 people had been displaced since Aug 2.
(SFC, 11/17/98, p.B3)
1998 Nov 20, It was reported that
Kabila was signing away large stakes in Congo’s biggest enterprises to
businessmen from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia in return for support
against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda.
(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 23, Congo reported that
warplanes of its Zimbabwe allies bombed and sank 6 boatloads of rebels
on lake Tanganyika killing hundreds.
(WSJ, 11/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 28, Countries fighting in
Congo agreed to a cease-fire during an African summit in Paris. The
deal was brokered by UN Sec. Gen’l. Kofi Annan. Rebel leaders were not
present.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.A21)
1998 Dec 4, The former governor of
Bas-Congo province, Fuko Unzola, was sentenced to 15 years in jail for
treason, i.e. collaborating with Tutsi-led rebels.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 7, Congolese rebels
dismissed the tentative truce worked out in Paris by UN Sec. Gen’l.
Kofi Annan.
(SFC, 12/8/98, p.B5)
1998 Dec 15, Congo rebels claimed
to have killed 47 Zimbabwean troops fighting for Kabila at Kabala.
(WSJ, 12/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 17-1998 Dec 18, A Congo
cease-fire was to be signed before a meeting of the Organization of
African Unity.
(SFEC, 11/29/98, p.A21)
1998 Dec, A referendum on Congo’s
new constitution was scheduled.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A16)
1998 The Lusaka Treaty failed to
resolve squabbles and ended with a resumption of war in Congo.
(WSJ, 5/31/00, p.A26)
1998 Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe,
chairman of the African body “Organ on Politics, Defence and Security,”
joined with Namibia and Angola in a war of plunder in Congo.
(Econ, 3/13/04, p.48)
1998 Dec 30-1999 Jan 1, Some 500
people were massacred in eastern Congo during the 3 day New Year
holiday. The killings were by soldiers aligned with rebels led by
Tutsi, but the victims were not Hutu.
(SFC, 1/6/99, p.A7)
1998-2004 Congo strife over this period killed 3.8
million people, half of them children, mostly due to disease and famine.
(WSJ, 12/10/04, p.A1)
1999 Jan 1, Congo rebels massacred
at least 500 civilians over the last 3 days. Six Red Cross workers were
among the dead.
(WSJ, 1/6/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 6, Congo rebel leader
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba said his forces killed about 400 Burundi Hutu
rebels fighting with the Congolese government troops and promised to
investigate the alleged New Year murder of 500 civilians.
(SFC, 1/7/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 22, In eastern Congo
government and rebel authorities accepted UN care for hundreds of
thousands displaced by war.
(SFC, 1/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Jan-1999 Jul, In Congo
soldier’s under Pres. Kabila fled advancing rebel troops and killed
numerous inhabitants in their path in the Equateur region. An estimated
300-900 people were killed and graves began to be uncovered in 2000.
(SFC, 4/15/00, p.A15)
1999 Mar 3, The Ugandan army
killed 15 of the Rwanda Hutu rebels who butchered 8 foreign tourists
Mar 1. Another 100 rebels escaped into the bush inside the Republic of
the Congo.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.A12)
1999 Mar 4, Congo rebels who
served under Mobutu Sese Seko took the town of Bolobo, upstream from
Kinshasa.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.D2)
1999 Mar 14, In southeastern Congo
rebels reportedly killed over 100 villagers in retaliation for an
attack by pro-government militia. Moise Nyarugabo, head of the rebel
Congolese Democratic Coalition said his forces killed at least 150
Zimbabwean soldiers allied to Kabila at Kabinda. Zimbabwe denied the
report.
(SFC, 3/15/99, p.A9)(SFC, 3/17/99, p.C3)
1999 Mar 22, In Congo Mai Mai
warriors hired by Rwanda were reported to have killed 100 people.
Rwanda denied the report.
(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 24, In Congo a massacre
of 250 people in the Kivu region was reported. The slayings by Rwandan
troops appeared to be in retaliation for earlier attacks by Congolese
Mai Mai tribesmen.
(SFC, 3/25/99, p.A10)
1999 Apr 18, Pres. Kabila and
Ugandan Pres. Museweni signed a cease-fire agreement that was mediated
by Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy. Rwanda and Congolese rebels rejected
the deal.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A11)
1999 Apr 19, Kabila in 1997 set
this date for presidential and legislative elections.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A15)
1999 Apr 28, In eastern Congo Gov.
Kanyamuhanga Gafunzi ordered 100,000 Rwandan refugees in Kivu province
to go home within 15 days for supporting Hutu rebels.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.D8)
1999 May 5, It was reported that
over 63 people had died from an unknown disease that appeared to be a
type of hemorrhagic fever. Most of the dead were gold miners and died
within 6 days of becoming ill. The disease was caused by the Marburg
virus.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A11)(SFC, 5/7/99, p.D2)
1999 May 11, In Congo a government
plane bombed rebel strongholds at Goma and Uvira and at least 28 people
were killed according to Gen'l. Celestin Ilunga.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.C10)
1999 May 17, Ernest Wamba dia
Wamba was ousted as the rebel leader of the Congolese Democratic
Coalition.
(SFC, 5/18/99, p.C12)(SFC, 8/16/99, p.A8)
1999 May 19, In Congo the rebel
Congolese Democratic Coalition named Emile Ilunga as their new leader.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A13)
1999 May 28, Rwanda declared a
unilateral cease-fire in Congo where it was backing rebels to oust
Pres. Kabila.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A11)
1999 Jun, Ernest Wamba dia Wamba,
head of the Rally for Congolese Democracy, moved his headquarters from
Kisangani to Bunia. He declared a new province called Kibali-Ituri and
appointed a Hema tribesperson as governor. This ignited a new round of
fighting between the cattle-raising Hema and agrarian Lendu tribes.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.A13)
1999 Jul 1, In Congo fighting
intensified as rebels advanced on key diamond areas near Kabinda and
Miba.
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.A18)
1999 Jul 2, The Congo government
and rebel officials said they had reached an accord to end the 11-month
war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rebel forces were to be
merged with the government army.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 4, In Congo Abdulaiye
Yerodia, the foreign minister, objected to the inclusion of foreign
rebels in a joint military commission to verify terms of a cease-fire.
Meanwhile The Congolese Liberation Movement, led by Jena-Pierre Bemba,
took Gbadolite, 750 miles northeast of Kinshasa.
(SFC, 7/5/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 10, In Zambia 5 nations
involved in the Congo civil war signed a peace accord.
(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 11, In Congo rebels
dismissed the peace agreement signed by 6 countries involved in the war
and said the war would continue and get worse.
(SFC, 7/12/99, p.A9)
1999 Aug 1, In Zambia Jean-Pierre
Bemba, head of the Congo Liberation Movement, signed the cease-fire
accord that representatives of 5 nations involved had signed on July
10. The Congolese Rally for Democracy faction still contested
leadership between Ernest Wamba dia Wamba and Emile Ilunga.
(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 4, In Congo at least 518
people, mostly civilians, were killed when Sudanese planes, at the
request of Congo's government, bombed the rebel-held towns of Makanza
and Bogbonga. Sudan denied the charges and Congolese Pres. Kabila
denied responsibility.
(SFC, 8/5/99, p.A12)(SFC, 8/7/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 11, In Congo warring
sides agreed to stop fighting until Aug 20 to allow the UN to vaccinate
10 million children against polio.
(WSJ, 8/12/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 15, Fighting in Kisangani
(formerly Stanleyville) extended from the airport to the city center
between forces from Uganda and Rwanda. Rebel leader Ernest Wamba dia
Wamba was backed by Uganda, while Emile Ilunga was backed by Rwanda.
(SFC, 8/16/99, p.A8)
1999 Aug 17, Rwanda and Uganda
agreed to an immediate truce to 4 days of fighting in Kisangani, Congo.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 24, Congo rebel leaders
agreed to sign a peace accord.
(WSJ, 8/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 31, Congolese rebels
signed a cease-fire in Zambia.
(SFC, 9/1/99, p.A16)
1999 Oct 7, Rwanda reported that
army troops and Congolese allies had killed over 200 Rwandan Hutu
rebels over a weeklong operation along the border where 4,000 Hutu
rebels had been based.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 8, In Congo Pres. Kabila
ordered foreign businessmen to put down a $500,000 guarantee by Dec. 21
or leave the country. The order came less than a week after he ordered
a crackdown on Congo's illegal foreign exchange market, the shutdown of
the main commercial district and the arrest of currency traders.
(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A11)
1999 Oct 22, The Italian
missionary news agency MISNA reported that the bodies of 61 civilians
were reported found near the Congo village of Kashambi.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A11)
1999 Nov 8, It was reported that 2
Congo rebel leaders were resuming their war on Kabila.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 9, Government forces
bombed Nkembe. Rebel spokesman Kien-Kiey Mulumba said he would no
longer honor the peace accord after the government killed 100 civilians
in 4 days of fighting.
(SFC, 11/10/99, p.A14)(SFC, 11/12/99, p.D2)
1999 Nov 23, In Congo Mayi-Mayi
tribal fighters, armed mostly with bows and arrows, attacked Ugandan
soldiers near Butembo and some 200 fighters were killed including about
100 Mayi-Mayi.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.D6)
1999 Dec 2, Congo rebels besieged
a large contingent of Zimbabwean troops allied with Kabila and captured
a Russian-built transport plane and 120 prisoners.
(SFC, 12/3/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec 2, Congolese rebels lost
Bokungu as Zimbabwean soldiers broke through to save surrounded
comrades at Ikela airport.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A14)
1999 Dec 31, In Congo Jean-Pierre
Bemba said his Congolese Liberation Movement forces had ambushed and
killed 80 government troops at Libanda.
(SFC, 1/1/00, p.D4)
1999 Edward Hooper authored "The
River," a detailed hypothesis for the origin of AIDS in Africa. He
suspected that the Wister polio vaccine, which was given to some
300,000 people in the Belgian Congo between 1957-1960, was produced
from monkey kidney cells that contained SIV virus.
(SSFC, 1/14/01, p.A1,14)(www.avert.org/origins.htm)
1999 A local dispute between Hema
and Lendu tribes people began over a farm in Djugu. The disputes
broadened and led to substantial killings.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)
1999 A UN peacekeeping force
(MONUC) was deployed to Congo, but failed to keep anyone safe. In 2004
the UN Security Council ordered an expansion of forces from 10,000 to
16,000.
(Econ, 12/4/04, p.45)
2000 Jan 24, Pres. Kabila met with
other African presidents at the UN to end the Congo civil war. Kabila
demanded that the UN deploy a peace-keeping force to monitor the truce.
(SFC, 1/25/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 9, It was reported that
video footage was smuggled out to Kenya from the Ituri district of
Congo by the Christoffel Blinden Mission, a Christian charity for the
blind. It depicted the escalating tribal slaughter in the area.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 24, The UN Security
Council approved a proposal to send as many as 5,537 observers and
peace-keeping troops to the Congo.
(SFC, 2/25/00, p.A16)
2000 Apr 14, In Congo several
explosions took place at the airport in Kinshasa and a number of people
were killed. State radio reported that a short circuit sparked a fire
that triggered explosions at an army munitions depot and that a fire
spread to a fuel depot. The death toll reached 101 and 216 seriously
injured.
(SFC, 4/15/00, p.A13)(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A21)(SFC,
4/17/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 19, In southern Congo 6
Rwandan army officers and 4 Russian crew members were killed when their
Antonov-8 aircraft crashed on takeoff at Pepa.
(SFC, 4/21/00, p.A20)(WSJ, 4/21/00, p.A1)
2000 May 4, Congo agreed to
cooperate with UN plans for a 5,500 member observer force to monitor
the cease-fire.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A18)
2000 May 5, In Congo Ugandan and
Rwandan troops clashed at Kisangani and at least 10 civilians were
killed and 100 wounded.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.C1)
2000 May 7, Pres. Kagami announced
that Rwanda was prepared to quickly implement a phased withdrawal from
Congo.
(SFC, 5/8/00, p.A12)
2000 May 8, In Congo the city of
Kisangani (formerly Stanleyville) was declared a neutral zone as Rwanda
and Uganda agreed to withdraw their troops from the area and allow UN
forces to take over.
(SFC, 5/9/00, p.A12)
2000 May 16, In Congo an immediate
pullout from Kisangani of forces from Rwanda and Uganda was agreed to
in a bid to avert a wider war.
(WSJ, 5/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 7, In Congo troops from
Uganda and Rwanda fought an artillery duel in Kisangani that set the
city’s cathedral on fire.
(WSJ, 6/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 9, The 22-month civil war
averaged some 2,600 deaths every day. The total was estimated at 1.7
million dead.
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.A20)
2000 Jun 11, In Congo Rwandan
troops drove Ugandan forces from Kisangani to end a week of
indiscriminate shelling.
(SFC, 6/12/00, p.A13)
2000 Aug 10, Rebels fought
government troops near Dongo. Jean-Pierre Bemba, head of the Ugandan
backed Congolese Liberation Movement, said his rebels had killed some
800 government soldiers on riverboats using missiles.
(SFC, 8/12/00, p.A11)
2000 Aug 12, In Congo a
Russian-made Antonov crashed on approach to Tshikapa and 27 people were
killed.
(WSJ, 8/14/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 9, Rebels captured Dongo
and forced the retreat of government troops toward Imese. Scores were
killed in a 36-hour battle.
(SFC, 9/11/00, p.13)
2000 Sep 11, In Congo rebels and
Ugandan troops killed at least 30 pro-Kabila Mai-Mai fighters at
Butembo in the Masisi region.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A14)
2000 Nov 5, In Congo at least 20
people were killed in Bunia, before Uganda sent in tanks and troops to
protect Ernest Wamba dia Wamba in a dispute with Mbusa Nyamwisi.
(SFC, 11/8/00, p.B4)
2000 Dec 4, In southern Congo over
10,000 refugees were driven into northern Zambia due to renewed
fighting over the last 12 days.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A16)
2000 Asylum seekers fled to the
Republic of Congo when the rebel Movement for the Liberation of Congo
under jean-Pierre Bemba overtook the Equateur province.
(SFC, 5/28/02, p.E1)
2000 The Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) was formed after the Kinshasa-based Hutu
command and the Kivu-based Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR)
agreed to merge.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Forces_for_the_Liberation_of_Rwanda)
2000 It was estimated that Rwanda
made $20 million per month mining coltan in Congo DRC. The mineral is
used in the manufacture of capacitors for electronic equipment.
(www.american.edu/ted/ice/congo-coltan.htm)
2001 Jan 16, In Congo Pres. Kabila
was assassinated by one of his bodyguards, Rashidi Kasereka, who was
immediately killed. In 2003 a military court sentenced 26 people to
death for the assassination.
(SFC, 1/17/01, p.A1)(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A12)(SFC,
1/8/03, p.A16)
2001 Jan 17, In Congo government
ministers named Joseph Kabila, son of Laurent Kabila, as temporary head
of state.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A13)
2001 Jan 18, The Congo government
announced the death of Laurent Kabila.
(SFC, 1/19/01, p.A16)
2001 Jan 19, Fighting between
Congo’s Hema and Lendu tribes people left about 118 Hema dead along
with 159 Lendu.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A12,14)
2001 Feb 2, Congo’s Pres. Joseph
Kabila called for the armies of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to withdraw
and promised that troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe would leave
after stability was restored.
(SFC, 2/3/01, p.A8)
2001 Feb 2, Hutu militiamen
backing Joseph Kabila ambushed a bus in rebel-controlled eastern Congo
and killed 11 passengers.
(SFC, 2/6/01, p.A10)
2001 Feb 15, The warring parties
met and Joseph Kabila agreed to initiate talks with rebel groups. The
rebel Movement for the Liberation of Congo agreed to endorse a details
withdrawal plan.
(SFC, 2/16/01, p.A16)
2001 Feb 27, Rwanda began pulling
back troops from a front-line Congo town.
(WSJ, 2/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 28, In Congo 3,000 troops
from Rwanda and 150 from Uganda withdrew. All warring parties were
scheduled to make way for an 18-mile buffer zone, to be monitored by
the UN, by March 15.
(SFC, 3/1/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 7, Congo soldiers killed
some of the 11 Lebanese nationals detained in the aftermath of the
Kabila assassination.
(SFC, 3/8/01, p.A16)
2001 Mar 13, Rebel leader
Jean-Pierre Bemba completed his troop withdrawal from the front lines.
The Congolese army and allies soon followed.
(SFC, 3/16/01, p.A15)
2001 Mar 29, UN troops from
Uruguay began to set up camp on Lake Tanganyika for their mission to
help end the Congo civil war.
(SFC, 3/30/01, p.D4)
2001 Apr 15, Rebels backed by
Rwanda blocked the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Goma and demanded
that the UN first condemn atrocities by Congo.
(WSJ, 4/16/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 26, In northeastern Congo
6 Red Cross workers were killed 30 miles north of Bunia.
(SFC, 4/28/01, p.A10)
2001 May 4, In Goma, Congo, a
ferry flipped at a dock on Lake Kivu and at least 19 people died.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.D1)
2001 May 7, A report by the Int’l.
Rescue Committee estimated the death toll in Congo’s 33-month war at 2
½ million people, mostly due to disease and malnutrition.
(SFC, 5/5/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/10/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 15, The UN voted to keep
peacekeepers in Congo for another year.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A7)
2001 Aug 20, Congo’s Pres. Kabila
met with his main rival leaders for the 1st time to establish a
transitional government and end 3 years of war.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.A7)
2001 Sep 2, Namibia confirmed that
it had pulled all its troops from all of Congo except the capital.
Uganda said it had pulled 6 of 10 battalions.
(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A10)
2001 Sep 23, Congo rebel leader
Adolphe Onusumba acknowledged peace talks with Zimbabwe’s Pres. Mugabe.
(SFC, 9/24/01, p.B2)
2002 Jan 17, The volcano Mount
Nyiragongo erupted near Goma, Congo, and rivers of lava destroyed
14 villages. Goma was devastated and some 400,000 people fled their
homes. At least 50 people were killed and many sought refuge in Rwanda.
(SFC, 1/18/02, p.A8)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A1)(SSFC,
1/20/02, p.A16)
2002 Jan 21, Thousands of
Congolese left Rwanda to return to Goma after receiving scant help.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A3)
2002 Jan 22, In Goma, Congo, a gas
station exploded after some spilled gas was ignited by lava. Dozens of
people looting gasoline were killed.
(SFC, 1/22/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 23, In Congo some 22.5
tons of food was distributed to the volcano stricken people of Goma.
(SFC, 1/24/02, p.A8)
2002 Feb 16, It was reported that
over 40 people in Congo had been killed and dozens injured from massive
mudslides triggered by rains.
(SFC, 2/16/02, p.A26)
2002 Feb 26, In Congo peace talks
were suspended a day after the opening ceremony due to wrangling over
which political parties would be allowed to participate.
(SFC, 2/27/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 11, Congo’s government
and rebels agreed to integrate into a new national army during peace
talks in South Africa.
(SFC, 4/12/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 19, Congo peace talks
broke down over power-sharing.
(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A13)
2002 May 14, An uprising in
Kisangani, Congo, left 163 people dead. Three top commanders: Barnard
Biamungu, commander of the RCD's fifth brigade; Laurent Nkunda, seventh
brigade commander; and Gabriel Amisi, assistant chief of staff for
logistics were identified as part of the Rally for Democracy, the
Rwandan-backed rebel group responsible for the massacre.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A11)(AP, 8/19/02)
2002 May, The refugee numbers in
Congo reached over 362,000.
(SFC, 5/28/02, p.E5)
2002 Jun 11, An investigation
began into claims by Congo’s Hemu community that some 2,400 of its
people had been killed since April by the Lendu tribe and rebel allies.
(SFC, 6/12/02, p.A14)
2002 Jul 22, Congolese and Rwandan
leaders said that they've reached an agreement to end a four-year war
in Congo, a fight that has defied resolution as it drew in eight
African countries and claimed more than two million lives.
(AP, 7/22/02)
2002 Jul 24, In Congo Hutu rebels
rejected a peace deal that would force them back to Rwanda.
(WSJ, 7/25/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 30, The leaders of Congo
and Rwanda signed a peace agreement, proclaiming it a key step in
efforts to end a war that has embroiled six African nations and left
2.5 million people dead.
(AP, 7/30/02)
2002 Aug 6, In northeastern Congo
fighting began between rebels and tribesmen for control of Bunia, an
important trading center, and killed at least 48 people, mostly
civilians.
(AP, 8/10/02)
2002 Aug 9, In northeastern Congo
United Nations observers discovered a grave containing the hacked
bodies of 38 women and children outside Bunia.
(AP, 8/10/02)
2002 Aug 11, In Congo fighting
around Bunia ended and at least 110 civilians were killed and more than
70 injured. More than 10,000 families were displaced during the
fighting.
(AP, 8/14/02)
2002 Aug 11, In eastern Congo
renovation work uncovered the remains of 38 people buried in a communal
grave at the site where the United Nations began building new
headquarters for its peacekeeping force.
(AP, 12/13/02)
2002 Aug 15, Uganda has agreed to
withdraw its troops from neighboring Congo, where they were sent four
years ago to support Congolese rebels and root out Ugandan insurgents.
(AP, 8/16/02)
2002 Aug 28, The United Nations
confirmed that Uganda and Zimbabwe have begun their pledged troop
withdrawals from Congo.
(AP, 8/28/02)
2002 Sep 5, In Congo some
6,000 Ngiti and Lendu tribe tribal fighters and their allies attacked
the mission hospital in Nyankunde, slaughtering patients in their beds.
They killed some 650 people from the Bira, Hema and 16 other tribes on
the 1st day of the attacks.
(AP, 12/24/02)
2002 Sep 14, In Congo DRC it was
reported that some 1,200 people had died from a cholera epidemic and
that another 18,000 were infected.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A20)
2002 Sep 17, Rwanda began
withdrawing troops from eastern Congo as part of an agreement signed
with the Congolese government to end the four-year civil war in
Africa's third-largest nation.
(AP, 9/17/02)
2002 Oct 1, Rwanda began pulling
out 6,000 troops from a Congo border province, the latest stage in a
withdrawal of all its forces that it hopes to complete by week's end.
(AP, 10/1/02)
2002 Oct 5, Rwanda withdrew its
last troops from neighboring Congo, with some 1,100 soldiers marching
in single file out of the war-ravaged country.
(AP, 10/5/02)
2002 Oct 13, In eastern Congo
fighting broke out in a strategic port when pro-government tribal
fighters tried to wrest control of the town from rebels.
(AP, 10/12/02)
2002 Oct 19, A rebel group in
Congo said that it recaptured a strategic port in the eastern part of
the country and took dozens of prisoners after heavy fighting.
(AP, 10/19/02)
2002 Oct 21, A UN panel accused
criminal groups linked to the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and
Congo of plundering Congo's riches, and called on the United Nations to
impose financial restrictions on 29 companies and 54 individuals.
(AP, 10/21/02)
2002 Nov 11, Pres. Joseph Kabila
has suspended every official accused in a U.N. report on the plunder of
Congo's gold, diamond and other riches.
(AP, 11/12/02)
2002 Nov 17, In Ankoro, Congo,
government troops torched homes and shot residents in apparent
reprisals for the beating of a soldier. Estimates of the death toll
ranged from 29 to over 100.
(AP, 11/21/02)
2002 Nov 24, Negotiations between
the Congolese government and two rebel groups produced an agreement in
principle on the workings of a transitional government.
(AP, 11/24/02)
2002 Nov 26, The World Health
Organization confirmed an outbreak of flu in rebel-controlled northern
Congo, and the country's health minister said more than 500 people have
died.
(AP, 11/26/02)
2002 Nov 27, A WHO official said
simultaneous outbreaks of the flu and meningitis have killed 185 people
in a rebel-controlled area of northwestern Congo.
(AP, 11/27/02)
2002 Dec 17, Congo's government,
rebels and political opposition signed a power-sharing agreement after
four years of war and 2.5 million lives lost.
(AP, 12/17/02)
2003 Jan 7, In Congo a military
court convicted and sentenced 26 people to death in the Jan 16, 2001
assassination of Congo's president, Laurent Kabila.
(AP, 1/7/03)(SFC, 1/8/03, p.A16)
2003 Jan 8, A UN team was reported
to be investigating reports that Congolese rebel troops had killed and
eaten Pygmies in northeastern Congo. UN authorities confirmed the
reports Jan 15 and identified the rebel campaign as "Operation Clean
Slate."
(AP, 1/8/03)(SFC, 1/16/03, p.A9)
2003 Jan 21, Congo’s health
minister reported that a flu epidemic had killed more than 2,000 people
in a far northern province.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Feb 2, A tornado tore through
remote villages in Bandundu province in central Congo, killing 164
people, destroying homes and ruining crops.
(AP, 2/6/03)
2003 Feb 24-2003 Feb 25, In
northeastern Congo hundreds of civilians were killed and hundreds more
were missing after Congolese rebels allied with the government seized a
key town and launched a two-day campaign of murder, rape, looting and
destruction.
(AP, 3/1/03)
2003 Mar 6, The Congolese
government and rebels have agreed in Pretoria to meld their armed
forces into a new national army in a bid to end a 4 ½-year civil
war and reunify the vast central African nation.
(AP, 3/7/03)
2003 Mar 18, Congo leaders signed
a cease-fire with tribal militias and local chiefs in northeastern
Congo.
(AP, 3/18/03)
2003 Mar 19, In northeastern Congo
22 people were hacked to death.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2003 Mar 22, In eastern Congo an
overloaded ferry traveling between rebel-held ports sank in Lake
Tanganyika, killing 111 people. It was sailing in Burundian waters to
avoid rival tribal fighters.
(AP, 3/24/03)
2003 Apr 1, Congo's government
agreed to a power-sharing deal with rebel groups.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 3, In northeastern Congo
966 people were killed in attacks by armed militants on villages in
Ituri province. UN investigators later discovered some 20 mass graves
in the region.
(AP, 4/6/03)
2003 Apr 24, In Congo at least 60
members of the Lendu tribe were killed by the rival Hema in the Ituri
region near the Uganda border. The attack was ordered by Hema militia
leader Chief Yves Kahwa Mandro. The Lendu then killed about 60 Hema who
were fleeing to Uganda to escape ongoing violence.
(AP, 4/28/03)
2003 May 8, Rival tribal fighters
battled for control of a northeastern Congolese town, killing at least
21 people and forcing thousands to flee. Fighters of the Union of
Congolese Patriots, a rebel group dominated by Hema tribesmen, had
attacked Bunia in a bid to seize its airport
(AP, 5/8/03)
2003 May 8, A Russian-built cargo
plane lost a back door ramp over Congo, hurling more than 100 Congolese
soldiers and their families to their deaths.
(Reuters, 5/9/03)(AP, 5/8/04)
2003 May 10, In northeastern Congo
tribal militias battled for control of Bunia, killing at least 14
people.
(AP, 5/11/03)
2003 May 15, Fleeing Congo
civilians jammed roads out of Bunia by the thousands, trying to escape
rival ethnic militias battling for control with mortars and machetes.
(AP, 5/15/03)
2003 May 16, In northeastern Congo
rival tribes fighting signed a cease-fire.
(AP, 5/16/03)
2003 May 18, In northeastern Congo
the savagely killed bodies of 2 UN military observers were found after
having been reported missing for several days.
(AP, 5/19/03)
2003 May 16, In northeastern Congo
rival tribes fighting signed a cease-fire. There were over 100
confirmed killings and evidence of cannibalism.
(AP, 5/16/03)(SFC, 5/20/03, p.A8)
2003 May 21, In northeastern Congo
the death toll from more than a week of tribal fighting rose to 280
people.
(AP, 5/22/03)
2003 Jun 14, French troops leading
an international force engaged in a firefight with gunmen for the first
time in their mission to stabilize the northeastern Congolese town of
Bunia.
(AP, 6/14/03)
2003 Jun 19, The Congolese
government and two rebel factions agreed to halt fighting in an eastern
region and pull back from newly occupied areas, hours after a battle
for a key town there killed dozens of people.
(AP, 6/19/03)
2003 Jun 29, Warring sides in
Congo agreed on the formation of a unified military.
(AP, 6/29/03)
2003 Jul 17, Congo's main rebel
leaders were sworn as vice presidents in a new power-sharing
government, designed to end the country's nearly 5-year civil war. 4
vice presidents represented the ruling party, the opposition party and
2 rebel groups.
(AP, 7/17/03)(Econ, 8/9/03, p.39)
2003 Jul 24, Eleven aid workers
believed abducted by Rwandan and Burundian rebels in a restive eastern
province of war-ravaged Congo were killed.
(AP, 8/7/03)
2003 Jul 25, In northeastern Congo
thousands of tribal fighters attacked three villages with mortars,
rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, killing as many as 150
people.
(AP, 7/29/03)
2003 Aug 28, The WWF reported that
the hippos of Congo's Virunga national Park have been nearly wiped out
by poachers and civil war.
(WSJ, 8/29/03, p.A1)
2003 Aug 31, It was reported that
Congo tribal fighters killed at least 200 people over the last month
and abducted scores more during a series of attacks that destroyed,
Fataki, a northeast town once controlled by a rival tribe.
(AP, 8/31/03)
2003 Oct 6, In northeastern Congo
dozens of tribal fighters attacked Katchele village with assault rifles
and machetes, killing at least 65 people, mainly children, looting
property and setting huts on fire.
(AP, 10/7/03)
2003 Oct, A bolt of lightning
killed 11 students at the Mpimba Institute in Bikoro, Congo.
(SFC, 10/18/03, p.A26)
2003 Nov 1, Two small rebel
groups, the last rebel holdouts in eastern Congo, agreed to join the
country's transitional government. Leaders, Patrick Masunzu and Aaron
Nyamushebwa, agreed to join the government and integrate their forces
into a new national army.
(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 5, Pres. Bush met with
Congo Pres. Joseph Kabila, who sought assurances of continued US
humanitarian aid. The US has committed $77 million this year.
(SFC, 11/6/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 25, In Congo 2 ferries
collided in a storm on Mai-Ndombe lake. At least 182 people were killed
and more than 100 others were missing.
(AP, 11/27/03)(AP, 11/28/03)
2003 Nov 29, In central Congo a
Soviet-made plane crashed, killing 33, including 13 people on the
ground.
(AP, 11/29/03)(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 4, Congo health officials
were investigating the poison deaths of 64 people, allegedly from a
potion used to ward off evil spirits. A Roman Catholic priest, who
allegedly administered the drink, fled the village of Bosobe early last
week after people started falling ill.
(AP, 12/5/03)
2003 The civil war in Congo (DRC),
which had claimed at least 4 million people, stood in its final throes.
This was the largest death toll since WW II.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.63)
2003 In eastern Congo Germain
Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo led militias including child soldiers who
attacked the village of Bogoro, killing over 200 people including women
and children. Many of the victims were hacked to death with machetes.
In 2008 Katanga and Ngudjolo stood for trial at the Int’l. Criminal
Court at The Hague, Netherlands.
(SFC, 9/27/08, p.A3)
2004 Jan 28, It was reported that
Angolan troops and police have driven at least 10,000 Congolese from
northern Angola's diamond zones in a bloody month-old campaign.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Jan 26, Nearly 200 people
were missing after a barge caught fire and sank in a river in
northwestern Congo near Lukelela. At least 301 people survived.
(AP, 2/1/04)
2004 Feb 12, In Congo a Kenyan
army officer, investigating reports of fighting between the rival Hema
and Lendu tribal militias, was shot to death when his U.N. military
convoy came under fire in Ituri province.
(AP, 2/14/04)
2004 Feb 18, The UN said it would
redeploy 4,000 of its forces to Congo's volatile northeast, where
peacekeepers have come under fire from rival ethnic militias fighting
for control of mineral riches.
(AP, 2/18/04)
2004 Feb 22, In southeast Congo a
militia led by a commander named "Cut-Throat" massacred more than 100
civilians and soldiers.
(AP, 2/24/04)
2004 Mar 28, In Kinshasa, Congo,
government forces battled attackers at military installations and
television headquarters. Diplomats called it a coup attempt against
Pres. Joseph Kabila.
(AP, 3/28/04)
2004 Apr 25, Clashes between
Congolese troops and Rwandan insurgents in eastern Congo killed at
least 61 people over the weekend.
(AP, 4/26/04)
2004 Apr 28, The Dian Fossey fund
reported that the lowland gorilla population in eastern Congo has
dropped over 70% since 1994 due to human warfare.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A1)
2004 May 6, Hundreds of Rwandan
rebels attacked Kingi village in volatile eastern Congo, sparking a
two-hour battle in which at least five Congolese soldiers and
insurgents were killed.
(AP, 5/7/04)
2004 May 26, The UN mission in
Democratic Republic of Congo is widening an investigation into
allegations peacekeepers sexually abused minors in the northeastern
town of Bunia.
(AP, 5/26/04)
2004 May 29, Unidentified gunmen
shot and killed a U.N. military observer in eastern Congo and a second
was reported missing. About 10,800 U.N. troops are deployed in Congo,
monitoring the peace deal and helping the government regain control of
the country. Elections are scheduled for June 2005.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 Jun 1, Congolese soldiers
battled troops loyal to Brig. Gen. Laurent Nkunda, a renegade commander
in eastern Congo, breaking a shaky cease-fire.
(AP, 6/1/04)
2004 Jun 2, In Congo DRC forces
loyal to renegade Congolese Tutsi commander Brig- Gen. Laurent Nkunda,
captured Bukavo, a key eastern border city from government troops.
(AP, 6/2/04)(Econ, 6/5/04, p.46)
2004 Jun 3, In Congo U.N. troops
opened fire on rioters, killing two, as a mob broke into their base and
tens of thousands of protesters overran the capital city of Kinshasa.
Demonstrations swept the country over fighting in its volatile east.
(AP, 6/3/04)
2004 Jun 6, In eastern Congo
insurgents ambushed a U.N. convoy, killing two South African
peacekeepers and wounding nine others in continuing.
(AP, 6/6/04)
2004 Jun 9, In eastern Congo
Government forces regained control of Bukavu without a fight as rebel
forces fled.
(AP, 6/9/04)
2004 Jun 11, Congo's government
said its security forces had put down an attempted coup by dissidents
in President Joseph Kabila's personal guard.
(AP, 6/11/04)
2004 Jun 11, Two crowded boats
collided on a lake straddling the Congo-Rwanda border on and one of
them capsized, with some 80 people believed trapped aboard.
(AP, 6/11/04)
2004 Jun 14, UN humanitarian chief
Jan Egeland said Eastern Congo is rapidly turning into a major
humanitarian disaster, with 3.3 million people out of reach of relief
groups.
(Reuters, 6/14/04)
2004 Jul 3, Rwanda reopened its
border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, further reducing tension
between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/3/04)
2004 Jul 27, The U.N. Security
Council extended an arms embargo on Congo for a year as fighting
continued between rival factions.
(AP, 7/27/04)
2004 Aug 23, Azarias Ruberwa,
prominent Tutsi and one of Congo’s 4 vice-presidents, announced that he
and his party (RCD-Goma) were walking out of the transitional
government.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.40)
2004 Oct 10, In eastern Congo 2
boat accidents on Lake Kivu killed 68 people.
(AP, 10/12/04)
2004 Oct 16, Congo Pres. Joseph
Kabila visited northeastern territory formerly held by rebels. The army
claimed to have retaken a village near Zambia and killed at least 20
militiamen.
(AP, 10/16/04)
2004 Oct, Congo’s government
quelled an uprising near a mine owned by Australia’s Anvil Mining Ltd.
The UN later accused Anvil of providing the government with vehicles
and planes in the operation that killed scores of villagers. In 2007 a
military court jailed two Congolese army officers for life for the 2004
massacre of civilians. The verdict cleared three Canadian mining
company employees of complicity.
(WSJ, 3/20/07, p.A13)(AFP, 6/29/07)
2004 Nov 22, A senior UN official
said the UN is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by
UN civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on
videotape. Health officials said an outbreak of a severe form of
typhoid has killed at least 16 people in Kinshasa, sickening at least
144 more.
(AP, 11/22/04)
2004 Nov 25, Congo Pres. Joseph
Kabila suspended 6 cabinet ministers and 10 directors of state-run
companies. A parliamentary inquiry alleged they had embezzled
government funds.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2004 Nov 26, Rwanda said it was
ready to hold talks with Democratic Republic of Congo Pres. Joseph
Kabila to defuse growing tensions over Rwandan rebels based in eastern
Congo.
(Reuters, 11/27/04)
2004 Nov 29, Congo said it will
send up to 10,000 soldiers to its eastern province of North Kivu to
prevent rebels and Rwandan forces from launching cross border attacks.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2004 Nov 29, Rwandan troops
attacked a town in eastern Congo. The next day a Congolese commander
said at least 19 civilians were killed.
(Reuters, 11/30/04)
2004 Nov 30, Congo-based Rwandan
rebels, under threat of imminent attack by Rwanda, repeated an
allegation that Rwandan troops had crossed the border in recent days to
seize the vast country's mineral-rich east.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2004 Dec 9, An aid agency reported
that some 1,000 Congolese civilians a day are dying from disease and
malnutrition, due to a festering conflict that has killed 3.8 million
people.
(AP, 12/9/04)
2004 Dec 11, Rival factions of
Congo's army battled in the eastern region of the vast country, killing
several people.
(AP, 12/12/04)
2004 Dec 14, Congo's government
insisted that its forces were fighting Rwandan troops in the
mineral-rich east of the country and not dissident units of the
national army.
(Reuters, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 17, The UN said foreign
troops have crossed into Congo and called on outside forces to stop
giving weapons and reinforcements to renegade soldiers battling army
loyalists.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 17, Dissident forces
attacked the village of Buramba, Congo, targeting civilians suspected
of sympathizing with pro-government militiamen. At least 30 civilians
were killed in the massacre believed to have been a reprisal for the
killing of 3 renegade soldiers by a pro-government militia.
(AP, 1/7/05)
2004 Dec 19, UN officials said
about 100,000 civilians in eastern Congo have fled a week of fighting
between renegade soldiers and army loyalists, hiding deep into the
forest where humanitarian workers cannot reach them.
(AP, 12/19/04)
2004 Dec 22-2004 Dec 26,
Government troops in eastern Congo battled Rwandan militiamen in
growing violence between the former allies from the country's bloody
1998-2002 war.
(AP, 12/27/04)
2005 Jan 7, Congo’s electoral
commission hinted that elections scheduled for June would be postponed.
(Econ, 1/22/05, p.44)
2005 Jan 10, Congo security forces
fired bullets and tear gas at demonstrators burning tires in Congo's
capital, killing at 4 people among thousands protesting a government
decision to delay upcoming national elections.
(AP, 1/10/05)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.44)
2005 Jan 14, A strike brought the
capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo to a standstill as public
transport shut down and businesses remained closed in protest at the
possible postponement of elections.
(AFP, 1/14/05)
2005 Jan 29, A UN spokesman said
militiamen armed with guns and machetes killed 16 people and kidnapped
at least 34 girls in attacks this week on a remote area of eastern
Congo.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Feb 8, UNICEF said that it
was providing urgently needed aid for 50,000 people caught up in an
upsurge in fighting in Congo.
(AP, 2/8/05)
2005 Feb 18, The World Health
Organization (WHO) said an outbreak of plague in northeastern
Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 61 diamond miners and infected
hundreds more.
(AP, 2/18/05)
2005 Feb 25, In Congo militiamen
in the volatile Ituri district ambushed UN troops. 9 Bangladeshi
peacekeepers were killed in what was the 4th deadliest attack on UN
troops in Africa.
(AP, 2/25/05)
2005 Mar 1, In Congo UN
peacekeeping troops, backed by an attack helicopter, responded after
being fired on and killed up to 60 militants accused of terrorizing
villagers and killing nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers. Congo arrested an
eastern militia leader and 2 generals related to the peacekeeper
killings. Women fighters were among the 50 people killed by UN troops
under Dutch Gen. Patrick Cammaert. On April 12 the human rights group
Justice Plus listed names of several alleged civilian victims from the
raid in eastern Congo and said they "paid with their life, while the
mandate of the United Nations was to protect them."
(AP, 3/2/05)(WSJ, 3/2/05, p.A1)(Reuters,
3/5/05)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.49)(AP, 4/13/05)
2005 Mar 7, An international human
rights group said militiamen and renegade soldiers have raped and
beaten tens of thousands of women and young girls in eastern Congo, and
nearly all the crimes have gone unpunished by the country's broken
judicial system.
(AP, 3/7/05)
2005 Mar 16, UN peacekeepers
charged that militiamen in northeast Congo grilled bodies on a spit and
boiled two girls alive as their mother watched, adding cannibalism to a
list of atrocities allegedly carried out by Lendu warriors.
(AP, 3/17/05)(Econ, 3/12/05, p.49)
2005 Mar 19, Congo soldiers
arrested Thomas Lubanga, a warlord accused of years of atrocities in
eastern Congo, where UN officials say rival militias have created the
world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 3/22/05)
2005 Apr 1, UN officials said a
cholera epidemic has killed at least 4 and infected dozens in a squalid
camp for displaced people in northeastern Congo, and it threatens to
spread across the entire region.
(AP, 4/1/05)
2005 Apr 2, UN troops killed up to
38 militia fighters during a raid by hundreds of peacekeepers backed by
helicopter gunships in the Ituri district of eastern Congo.
(Reuters, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 18, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to widen the arms embargo in Congo as part of
stepped-up efforts to bring peace to the African country's volatile
east.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 18, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. Recipients included
Corneille E.N. Ewango of Congo for his efforts in animal and plant
protection during a decade of civil war.
(SFC, 4/18/05, p.B2)
2005 May 5, In central Congo a
Russian-made airplane crashed, killing 10 of the 11 passengers aboard.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 12, Gunmen ambushed a UN
peacekeeping patrol in Congo's restless eastern Ituri region, killing
one soldier and injuring five.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 14, Congo's legislature
adopted a constitution that reduces the required age for presidential
candidates, a change that would allow President Joseph Kabila to stand
in the country's next elections.
(AP, 5/15/05)
2005 May 18, A UN report said
Rwandan Hutu rebels operating in eastern Congo have killed, raped, or
kidnapped more than 900 civilians over the past year.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 23, In eastern Congo
militiamen calling themselves Rastas killed at least 18 people and
kidnapped at least 50 others in a late-night attack on the village of
Ninja, hacking their victims to death as they ran for safety.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 23, A Russian-made plane
crashed shortly after takeoff near Bunyakiri, Congo, killing 26 people.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2005 Jun 22, Senior peacekeepers
said more than 15,000 gunmen have joined a UN disarmament process in
Congo's Ituri district but that militias were still rearming and
regrouping despite intense UN military operations.
(Reuters, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 27, In northeastern Congo
militia fighters using women and children as human shields battled with
UN peacekeepers south of Bunia.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Kinshasa riot
police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators with batons as thousands
protested delays to Congo's first postwar presidential elections. At
least six died in violence nationwide.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 9, In Congo DRC Rwandan
rebels burned 39 people alive, mostly women and children, when they
torched the village of Mtulumamba in eastern Congo in what some locals
said was punishment for supporting UN peacekeepers.
(AP, 7/11/05)
2005 Jul 29, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend an arms embargo and other sanctions
against Congo for another year.
(AP, 7/29/05)
2005 Jul, Airborne researchers
during the summer counted just 683 hippos on the Congolese side of Lake
Edward, which straddles the Congo-Uganda border. In the 1970s
researchers counted a record 9,600 hippos in the same area. The
reduction of hippos and their dung, due to heavy poaching during civil
strife, caused a severed drop in the population of tilapia fish.
(WSJ, 11/19/05, p.A1)
2005 Aug 10, Congolese Vice
President Azeria Ruberwa met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in
the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Ruberwa talked of his government's
concerns about 14 Congolese men, suspected of plotting a coup, who were
in Uganda. Rugunda said 8 men left before the expulsion order. The
other six were given 48 hours to leave.
(AP, 8/24/05)
2005 Sep 5, In eastern Congo a
Russian-made airplane crashed in the forest, killing 7, including 3
Russian crew members.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 12, An international
environmental group warned that only 887 hippos are left in Congo, and
that they will be extinct in the African country. The latest aerial
survey puts the hippopotamus population in northeastern Congo's Virunga
National Park down to under 1,000 animals, compared to some 29,000 in
1974.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 30, Thousands of foreign
militiamen in Congo appeared to ignore this day’s deadline to leave
this central African country or be evicted by force.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2005 Oct 28, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend the 16,700-member UN peacekeeping
mission in Congo for a year and add 300 troops.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 30, Congolese troops
rescued four electoral workers from their militia captors in a raid
that set off a battle that killed dozens of militiamen and one soldier.
Some 40 Mayi-Mayi militiamen were killed by the army. One soldier was
killed and three others injured.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Oct 31, Hundreds of
government troops backed by U.N. peacekeepers began flushing heavily
armed Rwandan rebels from eastern Congo, destroying insurgent camps and
sending smoke rising above the restive region.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Nov 28, In eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo, at least 60 people were killed when they were swept
off the roof of a train into the river below as the train crossed a
bridge.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov, Congolese soldiers
engaged in a 6-day operation to clear militias from Virunga National
Park. 14 rebels were killed and 321 captured.
(WSJ, 11/19/05, p.A8)
2005 Dec 5, In Congo a magnitude
6.8 earthquake struck the Lake Tanganyika region of East Africa
toppling dozens of homes in Kalemie and burying children in the rubble.
Several people were reported killed.
(AP, 12/05/05)(WSJ, 12/6/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 18, Congo's
war-beleaguered people voted in the first national ballot in over three
decades, banging on polling-booth doors to be allowed in to say yes or
no to a draft constitution meant to put the country on the path to
democracy and lasting peace.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 19, The International
Court of Justice held Uganda responsible for the killing, torture and
cruel treatment of civilians in Congo from August 1998 to July 1999 and
ordered reparations. Fighting in the region raged for three more years
and the armies withdrew only in June 2003, despite the court's order in
July 2000 to halt operations and safeguard civilians.
(AP, 12/19/05)
2005 Dec 20, The "Yes" vote in
Democratic Republic of Congo's referendum on whether to accept a
post-war constitution took a strong early lead after a poll seen as
paving the way for elections next year.
(AP, 12/20/05)
2005 Dec 24, Congolese and UN
troops captured a militia base in the volatile east, as referendum
results showed an overwhelming "Yes" to a new constitution intended to
help end the country's conflict. UN and Congolese soldiers attacked
militiamen in Ituri and Ugandan rebels in Kivu province killing some 80
rebels.
(AP, 12/24/05)(Econ, 1/7/06, p.49)
2005 Dec 25-2005 Dec 26, Some
3,500 Congolese troops backed by 600 UN Indian peacekeepers battled
Ugandan rebels near Congo's eastern city of Beni, leaving 35 rebels and
one Indian UN soldier dead.
(AP, 12/26/05)(AFP, 12/26/05)
2006 Jan 6, A study published in
Britain's leading medical journal said war-ravaged Congo is suffering
the world's deadliest humanitarian crisis, with 38,000 people dying
each month mostly from easily treatable diseases.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 11, Congo officials said
a new constitution for was approved by a landslide vote, paving the way
for historic presidential and parliamentary elections in March.
(AP, 1/11/06)
2006 Jan 23, Ugandan rebels killed
eight Guatemalan peacekeepers in Congo in an ambush near the border
with Sudan. The gunbattle also left 15 attackers dead.
(AP, 1/23/06)
2006 Jan 29, In eastern Congo
rebels in Rutshuru forced a local radio station off the air after a
wave of fighting and looting in the troubled Central African nation.
(AP, 2/1/06)
2006 Feb 12, Jan Egeland, UN
Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said the
international community must provide $680 million in aid for Congo this
year to stop a humanitarian disaster that kills as many people as the
2004 Asian tsunami every six months.
(Reuters, 2/12/06)
2006 Feb 13, The UN launched a
$680 million aid plan for the Democratic Republic of Congo, complaining
the world remained ignorant of what it called the worst humanitarian
crisis since World War Two.
(Reuters, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 17, UN and government
officials said 6 Congolese soldiers died of hunger in an army training
camp that ran out of food in the east of the country.
(AP, 2/17/06)
2006 Feb 18, The Democratic
Republic of Congo adopted a new constitution aimed at bringing an end
to decades of dictatorship, war and chaos in the vast country, and
paving the way for elections by mid-2006.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 20, In Congo Reuters
obtained a copy of a 2005 report of a parliamentary investigation,
established to probe business deals signed during Congo's 1996-1997 and
1998-2003 wars. The report said dozens of government contracts struck
during Congo's wars must be renegotiated, some companies closed and
leading individuals brought to justice.
(Reuters, 2/20/06)
2006 Feb 23, A top UN humanitarian
official said thousands of civilians have taken refuge on floating
islands in the lakes of Congo's Katanga province to escape rape and
murder by government and militia fighters.
(Reuters, 2/23/06)
2006 Mar 1, Congolese army
soldiers fighting alongside U.N. peacekeepers against ethnic militiamen
mutinied and ransacked a UN camp in the east of the vast country.
Hundreds of peacekeepers and thousands of government troops have fought
for three days to dislodge militia fighters from the town of Tchei in
northeastern Ituri district, where ethnic violence has killed 60,000
people since 1999.
(Reuters, 3/1/06)(Reuters, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 5, In eastern Congo UN
troops killed several militia fighters during heavy clashes after a
joint operation with the government army was aborted by a mutiny among
its soldiers.
(Reuters, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 16, In Congo a defense
ministry source said Defense Minister Adolphe Onusumba had written to
the head of the army asking him to suspend or arrest General Widi
Mbuilu Divioka, the army commander in Katanga province. The general was
being accused of diverting military food trains for private business
after at least 20 soldiers died from hunger or malnutrition at a
southern camp.
(Reuters, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 16, Uganda's army said
the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels had left a south
Sudanese hideout and joined his deputy in the jungles of neighboring
Congo.
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 17, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo,
a Congolese militia leader accused of conscripting and enlisting
children aged under 15 for warfare (1998-2002), became the first
suspect sent for trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the
Netherlands.
(Reuters, 3/17/06)(WSJ, 3/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 2, In CongoDRC
registration closed for multi-party elections. Over 70 people had filed
for the presidency and 8,650 had signed up as candidates for the
parliamentary elections.
(Econ, 4/15/06, p.48)
2006 Apr 4, Human Rights Watch
said tens of thousands of street children across Congo risk being
recruited by political parties to create chaos, intimidate voters and
contest the results of up-coming elections.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 12, Government troops and
UN peacekeepers launched a fresh military offensive in Congo's restive
east, targeting Rwandan Hutu rebels blamed for attacking civilians at
home and in Congo.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 14, The Central African
Republic said it has asked the International Criminal Court to
investigate crimes against humanity allegedly committed by its former
president and a Congolese vice president. Government spokesman Celestin
Gamou said CAR suspects ex-President Ange-Felix Patasse and Congo Vice
President Jean-Pierre Bemba of ordering or committing murder and rape
against civilians, as well as of embezzling funds and destroying public
and private property.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 28, A cargo plane
carrying telecom equipment crashed in eastern Congo, killing as many as
eight passengers and crew on board. Another aircraft carrying three
people disappeared in the same region.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 29, The UN said reports
of a Ugandan army incursion into Congo were "credible" after
peacekeepers conducted a verification mission in the remote
northeastern border region.
(Reuters, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 30, Congo's electoral
commission said that national elections, the first in 40 years for the
violence-plagued central African nation, will take place July 30, about
a month later than planned.
(AP, 4/30/06)
2006 May 1, Rwandan Hutu rebels
attacked a village and an army camp in a raid that left 7 residents
dead. Congolese troops killed six rebels during an attack at an army
camp that also claimed the lives of a soldier and his wife.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 May 10, The UN reported an
upsurge of rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces and
warned that UN peacekeepers overseeing the postwar transition in the
country could end their cooperation with the police and army.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 13, An international
charity said rich countries are not giving enough money to help fight a
humanitarian crisis in Congo, where more than 1,000 people die daily
from violence, hunger and disease.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 16, The UN mission Congo
said Innocent Kaina, one of the founding members of a militia group in
northeastern Congo, has been wounded and captured in fighting with the
Congolese army.
(Reuters, 5/16/06)
2006 May 23, Congo arrested a
group of foreign security guards on suspicion of plotting a coup ahead
of national elections. Interior Minister Theophile Mbemba said there
were three Americans, 10 Nigerians and 12 South Africans among the
group of 32 taken into custody. Mbemba said all the men had received
visits from their respective ambassadors.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 27, Congo released a
group of South Africans, Nigerians and Americans arrested over what it
called a suspected coup plot, saying it did not have time to try them
itself before long-awaited national elections in July. In the volatile
northeast Ituri district a Nepalese peacekeeper was killed and seven
others were feared kidnapped by militiamen during a military operation.
2 peacekeepers were released on June 27. The remaining 5 were released
July 8.
(Reuters, 5/28/06)(AP, 5/29/06)(Reuters, 7/8/06)
2006 Jun 1, The German parliament
overwhelmingly approved the government's plan to deploy German troops
to the Democratic Republic of Congo during its July election, despite
public skepticism about the mission.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 20, UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said in a report that Congo's armed forces and police are
responsible for the majority of documented abuses against children in
the chaotic country, sometimes abducting kids to carry equipment or for
sex.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 30, Campaigning began for
Congo's first multiparty elections in more than 4 decades. Troops fired
into a crowd and killed 12 protesters in retaliation for the death of a
soldier in Matadi.
(AP, 6/30/06)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.41)
2006 Jul 8, In Kinshasa, Congo,
gunmen killed Mwamba Bapuwa (64), an independent journalist, a day
after foreign donors called on the government to guarantee press
freedoms ahead of historic elections this month. Bapuwa had recently
criticized the government and survived a previous attack several months
ago.
(Reuters, 7/8/06)
2006 Jul 11, Police in Kinshasa,
Congo, fired tear gas to break up stone-throwing demonstrators who were
alleging electoral irregularities ahead of the country's first
presidential vote in four decades.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 17, Congo officials said
Peter Karim, a warlord accused of kidnapping seven UN peacekeepers, has
agreed to disband his militia and become a colonel in Congo's army.
Gunmen opened fire on an election rally and killed several people in
Congo's volatile east, the latest outburst of violence as the nation
prepares for its first free legislative and presidential balloting in
46 years.
(AP, 7/17/06)(AP, 7/19/06)
2006 Jul 24, A UNICEF report said
more than 600 children die every day in war-ravaged Congo and even more
are displaced, sexually abused or swept into the camps of combatant
groups.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 27, In Kinshasa, Congo, 3
policemen and a civilian were killed in clashes outside a stadium where
40,000 supporters greeted Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, a rebel
leader turned presidential candidate.
(AFP, 7/27/06)
2006 Jul 30, Congolese voted in
their first democratic election in more than four decades. Incumbent
President Joseph Kabila later won a runoff.
(AP, 7/30/06)(AP, 7/30/07)
2006 Jul 31, Dozens of polling
stations reopened in Congo’s second-largest city, offering citizens
stymied by violence during their nation’s historic elections another
chance to vote.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Aug 1, A Congolese opposition
party and former rebel group denounced widespread fraud in the
country's historic elections in a protest that heralded a divisive
political dispute over the polls.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2006 Aug 3, In eastern Congo a
small passenger plane crashed into a mountain and then tumbled into a
valley, killing all 17 passengers and crew.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2006 Aug 12, President Joseph
Kabila's share of the vote in Congo's historic elections rose above 50%
as 1 million more votes were counted and certified.
(AP, 8/13/06)
2006 Aug 20, President Joseph
Kabila failed to win an outright majority in Congo's first elections in
more than four decades. Kabila won 45% of the 16.9 million votes cast
in the July 30 ballot; Bemba had 20%. Former rebel leader Jean-Pierre
Bemba will face Kabila in a second round of voting. Security-forces
loyal to Kabila and Bemba fought gunbattles that killed at least two
people.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 21, A fierce gun battle
pinned down foreign envoys in the Congolese capital Kinshasa as
fighting erupted for a second day following the announcement of a
presidential election run-off. At least five people died in overnight
gunfire.
(Reuters, 8/21/06)(AFP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 22, In Kinshasa fighting
flared for a third day between supporters of Congo's two presidential
candidates, as the UN called for an immediate cease-fire and a European
Union military force was sending reinforcements.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2006 Aug 28, In the Netherlands
prosecutors at the International Criminal Court filed their first
indictment, charging Thomas Lubanga, a former Congolese warlord, for
allegedly abducting and recruiting children as young as 10 to fight in
Congo's brutal civil war.
(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Sep 4, In CongoDRC a boat
overloaded with passengers and freight sank in choppy waters on Lake
Kivu, killing at least 35 people.
(AP, 9/5/06)
2006 Sep 8, The UN's humanitarian
chief called for an end to the rapes plaguing women in war-battered
Congo and said the perpetrators, including those wearing military
uniforms, must be severely punished.
(AP, 9/8/06)
2006 Sep 9, In CongoDRC it was
reported to take 155 days to register a business at a cost of 5 times
the average annual income of $120.
(Econ, 9/9/06, p.60)
2006 Sep 19, Supporters of Congo's
presidential challenger barricaded streets, stopped traffic and threw
stones in Kinshasa, a day after a fire at his headquarters destroyed
the party's television and radio stations.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 22, Democratic Republic
of Congo's first freely elected parliament in more than 40 years
convened, with President Joseph Kabila's coalition poised to appoint a
prime minister.
(AP, 9/22/06)
2006 Oct 3, In the Democratic
Republic of Congo one person was killed and two injured when a Belgian
drone from the EU force crashed in Kinshasa.
(AFP, 10/3/06)
2006 Oct 11, Amnesty International
said at least 11,000 children in Congo are still in the hands of armed
groups or unaccounted for three years after the end of a war in which
they were captured and forced to fight.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Oct 13, In Britain the chief
of staff to the Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila
was assaulted and robbed in northwest London while waiting to appear on
a television program. Leonard She Okitundu was attacked by a gang who
beat him around the head and body with a baseball bat, stripped him of
his clothes, and posted pictures of them on the Internet. Okitundu said
his attackers shouted that he was working for the Rwandans, and that
they would kill anyone who obstructed Bemba.
(AFP, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 13, The WHO said it has
confirmed an outbreak of plague in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
with 42 deaths reported among 626 suspected cases over the past 10
weeks.
(Reuters, 10/13/06)
2006 Oct 16, A US-based rights
group accused soldiers in Congo's postwar, national-unity army of
abducting civilians and forcing them to serve as personal attendants
and mine workers in the troubled Central African country.
(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 24, In CongoDRC more than
a dozen people jailed for the 2001 assassination of Congolese President
Laurent Kabila vanished from a prison in the capital Kinshasa.
(Reuters, 10/24/06)
2006 Oct 29, Congo's President
Laurent Kabila faced a former rebel chief in a runoff vote.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2006 Oct 30, Counting from Congo's
election proceeded swiftly. Rioters destroyed 43 polling stations and
thousands of ballot papers were burned in the east after a soldier
killed two election officials.
(AP, 10/30/06)(WSJ, 10/31/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 31, President George W.
Bush ordered that assets be frozen of dissident general Laurent Nkunda
and six others considered by the White House to be destabilizing forces
in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(Reuters, 10/31/06)
2006 Nov 1, Congo's government
welcomed a decision by the US to impose sanctions on seven warlords and
businessmen who are accused of fueling instability in this vast
country's lawless east.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2006 Nov 2, Thousands returned to
the polls in a northeast Congo town and recast ballots destroyed in
rioting that followed the weekend presidential runoff.
(AP, 11/2/06)
2006 Nov 10, Congo’s incumbent
Joseph Kabila retained a commanding lead in the presidential runoff
with about two-thirds of the vote counted.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 11, In Congo gunfire and
explosions boomed through Kinshasa in a new round of fighting between
forces loyal to two presidential candidates awaiting the results of a
runoff election meant to secure an end to years of war.
(AP, 11/12/06)
2006 Nov 14, Nearly complete
results give incumbent Joseph Kabila an insurmountable lead in Congo's
presidential runoff, but his opponent, Jean-Pierre Bemba, alleged fraud.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Nov 15, In Congo incumbent
Joseph Kabila was declared winner of historic presidential elections.
The electoral commission gave Kabila 58% of the vote against 42% for
Bemba. Former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, vowed to contest the
count. Kabila lost to Bemba in 6 out of 11 provinces.
(AP, 11/16/06)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.49)(Econ, 11/25/06,
p.43)
2006 Nov 18, Jean-Pierre Bemba,
the former rebel who lost Congo's presidential elections, filed a
lawsuit at the Supreme Court to challenge the vote count as dozens of
his supporters marched through downtown Kinshasa.
(AP, 11/18/06)
2006 Nov 21, Gunfire and street
fights erupted outside Congo's supreme court and a blaze swept through
the building as hearings began over fraud allegations in a presidential
election meant to bring lasting peace. Bosange Mbaka, a reporter with
the Kinshasa-based newspaper Mambenga, was arrested while covering a
supreme court hearing in Kinshasa. In May 2007 media rights group
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for his release.
(AP, 11/21/06)(AFP, 5/21/07)
2006 Nov 24, The UN said its
investigators have discovered three mass graves at a northeast Congo
military camp containing the bodies of 30 people, including women and
children, who were allegedly killed by soldiers.
(AP, 11/24/06)
2006 Nov 25, Congo’s government
and the UN said fighters loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda attacked army
positions in eastern Congo with small arms and heavy weapons. Nkunda
controlled thousands of fighters and claimed the loyalty of the 81st
and 83rd army brigades, the troops involved in the most recent clashes.
Nkunda controlled some 20,000 square miles in North Kivu province.
(AP, 11/25/06)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.44)
2006 Nov 27, Congo’s supreme court
upheld President Joseph Kabila's victory in landmark elections, ruling
as unfounded the runner-up's charges of widespread fraud.
(AP, 11/28/06)
2006 Dec 5, A shell apparently
fired by Congolese troops fighting forces loyal to a dissident general
near the Ugandan border landed among a group of some 12,000 refugees in
Uganda, killing at least seven.
(AFP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, Congo inaugurated
Joseph Kabila as its first freely elected president in more than four
decades.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 6, A Ugandan army
spokesman said at least 12,000 refugees fleeing fighting in eastern
Congo DRC have crossed over the border into southwest Uganda.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 7, Researchers said the
Ebola virus may have killed more than 5,000 gorillas in West Africa
(Congo-Gabon), enough to send them into extinction if people continue
to hunt them.
(Reuters, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 15, In Kenya 11 African
heads of state attending the 2nd International Conference on the Great
Lakes Region signed a landmark $2 billion (1.5-billion-euro) security
and development pact to forestall fresh violence in the area.
(AFP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 27, Fighting broke out in
eastern Congo between government troops and forces loyal to a dissident
general, killing at least 19 people. A group of Congolese soldiers went
on trial for war crimes, a month after UN investigators found mass
graves inside their eastern army camp with some 30 bodies including
women and children.
(AP, 12/27/06)(Reuters, 12/28/06)
2006 Dec 28, Vital Kamerhe, an
advisor to President Joseph Kabila, was named head of the Democratic
Republic of Congo's new National Assembly, in a ballot that saw
presidential allies sweep key parliamentary posts.
(Reuters, 12/29/06)
2007 Jan 5, In central Congo a
diamond mine collapsed in Tshikapa. 2 people were soon rescued and 15
bodies were later pulled from the mine. Further rescue efforts were
abandoned. The group appeared to have been teenagers who hoped that
recent rains had uncovered diamonds in the community mine.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 6, Cardinal Frederic
Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi (b.1930), Congo's top Roman Catholic prelate,
died in a Belgian hospital. He had warned of what he called
international meddling in the country's recent landmark elections.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 17, Conservationists said
rebels in eastern Congo, loyal to warlord Laurent Nkunda, have killed
and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park.
Congo’s army said Nkunda agreed two weeks ago to stop fighting
government forces in exchange for a government promise not to pursue
war crimes charges against him.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 27, UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon held up Congo's first elections in 46 years as a sign of
hope for the rest of Africa, praising the country's fragile democracy
on his first tour of the continent.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 29, The International
Criminal Court (ICC) ruled there was enough evidence against Thomas
Lubanga, a Congolese militiaman accused of recruiting child soldiers,
to launch the new court's first trial.
(Reuters, 1/29/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Congo at least 37
people were killed in clashes between security forces and opposition
supporters protesting against the results of governorship polls in
western Bas-Congo province.
(Reuters, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 3, In Congo officials
said clashes last week between security forces and demonstrators
claiming electoral fraud left 97 people dead in several southwestern
towns.
(AP, 2/2/07)(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 13, In south-east Congo a
freight train derailed and at least 20 people were killed.
(AFP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 15, The Security Council
voted unanimously to extend the nearly 18,000-strong UN peacekeeping
force in Congo for two months to give the secretary-general time to
recommend possible changes in its mandate following last year's
successful elections.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 20, Congo’s army and UN
officials said days of clashes between the army and Rwandan and
Congolese militias in eastern Congo have killed at least 23 combatants
and forced thousands to flee.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 26, The World Vision
humanitarian group said that more than 50% of children in refugee camps
around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced some form of
sexual abuse. The data, collected in camps in the Burundi, Congo (DRC),
Tanzania, northern Uganda and Rwanda, said widespread poverty made
children vulnerable to abuses.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Mar 6, Fortunat Lumu, the
head of Congo's atomic energy commission, was arrested along with an
aide on suspicion of illegally selling uranium.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 22, In Congo heavy
gunfire broke out in Kinshasa near the home of a former warlord who
placed second in last fall's presidential vote. Soldiers deployed
throughout the city, and residents fled in vehicles and on foot.
(AP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 23, Congo's chief
prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former
warlord and senator, who took refuge inside a foreign embassy while his
personal army and government troops fought in the capital. The head of
Congo's army said in a nationally televised address that security
forces had regained control of Kinshasa after two days of intense
fighting against the militia of a former warlord who lost last year's
presidential runoff. An aid group working with hospitals and morgues
said more than 100 people died in two days of fighting. EU envoys later
said the fighting left 600 dead.
(AP, 3/23/07)(WSJ, 3/24/07, p.A1)(AP, 3/25/07)(WSJ,
3/28/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 18, Burundi, Rwanda, the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda adopted a joint military
strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great Lakes
region.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 26, Six central African
countries (Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Central African Republic,
Cameroon and Congo) plan to launch a common passport in July,
permitting the free movement of goods and people across their borders.
(AFP, 4/26/07)
2007 May 4, The UN agency for
refugees began repatriating thousands of Congolese refugees in Zambia
to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 11-2007 May 12, Local
militia allied to Rwandan Hutu rebels killed four Congolese soldiers
during clashes in a volatile eastern region of the Democratic Republic
of Congo.
(AFP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 16, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to extend its peacekeeping mission in Congo
until the end of the year while calling for a timetable to gradually
withdraw the nearly 18,000-member force.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 23, The BBC reported that
Pakistani UN peacekeepers charged with disarming Congolese militia
instead engaged in gold and weapons trafficking with militia members.
The Pakistani unit in question deployed to Mongwalu in April 2005.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 27, In eastern Congo
Rwandan rebels attacked villagers with machetes, spears and hammers,
killing 17, wounding 28 and taking up to a dozen hostages.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 Jun 12, In Kinshasa, DRC,
delegates from 20 African countries began talks on the process of
disarming and reintegrating former combatants to boost peace and
development on the violence-wracked continent.
(AFP, 6/12/07)
2007 Jun 13, Serge Maheshe, a
Congolese journalist working for the UN-sponsored Radio Okapi, was shot
dead in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Bukavu. Police
the next day arrested 2 soldiers for the killing.
(AFP, 6/13/07)(Reuters, 6/15/07)
2007 Jul 9, The UN-backed Okapi
radio station said that Floribert Chui Bin Kositi, a former Congolese
rebel leader, was beaten to death in Congo’s restive eastern Kivu
region. He held a senior position in a state-run body monitoring food
imports and recently ordered a large consignment of rice to be
destroyed on the grounds that it was unfit for human consumption.
(AP, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 13, UN officials said
they are investigating allegations that Indian peacekeepers in Congo
traded food and even military intelligence with Rwandan Hutu rebels in
return for gold.
(Reuters, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 16, Dikembe Mutombo (41),
NBA basketball star, said he wants to score for his native Democratic
Republic of Congo by financing a new hospital and training young hoops
players. Mutombo invested $15 million (11 million euros) in the
construction of the hospital, more than half the total cost.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 20, Aid officials said
clashes between rival militia groups in eastern Congo have killed nine
fighters and reduced dozens of houses to smoldering ruins. The fighting
erupted a week ago in Minembwe, about 120 miles southwest of the
eastern lakeside city of Uvira.
(AP, 7/20/07)
2007 Jul 30, A UN investigator
said extreme sexual violence against women is pervasive in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and local authorities do little to
stop it or prosecute those responsible.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Aug 1, A passenger train
derailed in central Congo and eight cars tumbled off the tracks,
killing about 100 people and trapping some passengers in the wreckage.
People in the southeastern town of Moba attacked the UN office after a
local radio station aired false rumors that the United Nations was to
resettle Congolese ethnic Tutsis in the region. 4 UN military observers
were wounded and 21 staff were evacuated.
(AP, 8/2/07)(AP, 8/4/07)
2007 Aug 3, In Uganda gunmen on
Lake Albert attacked a boat operated by Canada's Heritage Oil Corp.,
killing a British contractor. 3 armed patrol boats from Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), on the other side of the lake, had opened fire
on Heritage's boat.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 18, UNESCO said a joint
mission of several UN agencies is conducting an emergency investigation
into the shooting of endangered mountain gorillas in a Democratic
Republic of Congo national park. In the last two months, seven of the
primates have been killed in separate incidents in the Virunga park.
(AP, 8/19/07)
2007 Aug 20, South African
President Thabo Mbeki arrived in Kinshasa for a working visit aimed at
boosting relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
(AFP, 8/20/07)
2007 Aug 28, Africa's Great Lakes
nations (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda)
vowed to eliminate rebel groups roaming their territory and spurring
insecurity in the continent's most volatile region.
(AFP, 8/28/07)
2007 Aug 29, It was reported that
more than 100 people have died in a remote part of Congo, including all
those who attended the funerals of two village chiefs, in what health
officials fear is an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Sep 3, Congolese officials
reported killing 28 soldiers loyal to Gen. Nkunda, a renegade army
officer, in exchanges of machine gun and heavy weapons fire lasting
several hours.
(Reuters, 9/4/07)
2007 Sep 4, Rangers and 300
villagers abandoned a gorilla reserve in eastern Congo as government
soldiers battled troops loyal to a renegade general in sections of
Virunga park. The UN said ten thousand Congolese refugees have fled to
neighboring Uganda following clashes between the Congolese army and
renegade troops in its eastern provinces.
(Reuters, 9/4/07)(AP, 9/4/07)(Econ, 9/8/07, p.52)
2007 Sep 7, Renegade Congolese
General Laurent Nkunda said the Congolese army had attacked his
position, breaking a fragile ceasefire negotiated by United Nations
mediators in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AP, 9/7/07)
2007 Sep 8, Congo and Uganda
signed an agreement to immediately move refugee camps 93 miles from
their shared border to improve security.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 11, The World Health
Organization issued an alert urging more doctors to travel to Congo to
combat an outbreak of Ebola fever, which kills nearly all of those it
infects and has no cure or treatment.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 11, Six Congolese
soldiers were detained by the Burundian navy for repeatedly attacking
fishing boats on Lake Tanganyika and stealing their catch.
(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Sep 13, The UN said the
repatriation of Congolese refugees from neighbouring Zambia was
suspended, due to insecurity in the small town of Moba where they are
headed.
(AP, 9/13/07)
2007 Sep 14, A UN spokesman said
UN peacekeepers have discovered three graves, each containing several
bodies, at Rubare, a military base in eastern Congo recently abandoned
by rebels loyal to a renegade Gen. Nkunda.
(Reuters, 9/14/07)
2007 Sep 17, China and the
Democratic Republic of Congo signed a draft accord in which China would
lend $5 billion to modernize Congo’s decrepit infrastructure and rich
but deteriorated mining sector. Congo’s government later announced that
Chinese state-owned firms would build or refurbish various railways,
roads and mines at accost of $12 billion.
(Reuters, 9/18/07)(Econ, 3/15/08, SR p.3)
2007 Sep 24, Two Congolese troops
and a Ugandan soldier were killed in clashes on the flashpoint border
of Lake Albert where oil was recently discovered. Six civilians were
killed when Ugandan soldiers opened fire on a Congolese passenger boat
on Lake Albert.
(AFP, 9/25/07)(Reuters, 9/25/07)
2007 Sep 25, The World Health
Organization said 8 more cases of Ebola have been identified in Congo,
raising to 17 the number of people confirmed to have contracted the
deadly illness.
(AP, 9/25/07)
2007 Oct 4, In Congo a cargo plane
crashed in a residential neighborhood near the main airport in
Kinshasa, plowing into homes and killing at least 52 people. The next
day Congolese President Joseph Kabila sacked Transport Minister Remy
Henri Kuseyo Gatanga.
(AP, 10/4/07)(Reuters, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 11, Rebel leader Laurent
Nkunda in eastern Congo called for a cease-fire as the army said the
death toll from five days of clashes had risen to 122.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 14, Opiyo Makasi,
reported to be an operations and logistics commander of Uganda's Lord's
Resistance Army, gave himself up along with his wife and they were
transferred to Kinshasa, DRC. On Oct 25 Congolese authorities handed
him to the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC), which should
prepare his eventual return to Uganda.
(AP, 10/23/07)(AP, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 18,
Former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, suspected of war crimes
committed in northeast Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003, began his
transfer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
(AP, 10/18/07)
2007 Oct 22,
The United Nations Refugee agency (UNHCR) said some 8,000
Congolese refugees have fled to neighboring Uganda following clashes
between Congo's army and dissident general Laurent Nkunda.
(Reuters, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 22,
Congolese militia leader Germain Katanga became only the second
war crimes suspect to appear before the International Criminal Court at
The Hague.
(AFP, 10/22/07)
2007 Oct 25, Rebels in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo set new conditions for disarming, stalling
the surrender of hundreds of fighters who have begun massing near a
designated UN camp.
(Reuters, 10/25/07)
2007 Oct 26, In Congo heavy rains
swelled into a torrent of water that swamped Kinshasa, killing 30
people in less than 24 hours.
(AP, 10/27/07)
2007 Oct 27, Mai Mai militia
leader and army deserter Kibamba Kasereka said he had surrendered to
the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo's
restive Nord-Kivu province, agreeing to calls to disarm his forces.
(AFP, 10/27/07)
2007 Nov 5, In eastern Congo 27 UN
peacekeepers from India were injured when attacked by a mob of hungry
civilians who claimed not to have received any food aid.
(Econ, 11/17/07, p.54)
2007 Nov 13, Thousands of refugees
fled camps in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's violent North Kivu
province after the army said Tutsi-dominated insurgents attacked its
positions nearby.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 17, The UN children's
agency said aid groups in Congo have secured the release of 232 child
soldiers from militia fighters who forcibly recruited them in the east
of the country. The 232 children, whose average age is 14, were
separated this month in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu
from three different factions of the Mai Mai.
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 20, It was reported that
Congo is setting aside more than 11,000 square miles of rain forest to
help protect the endangered bonobo, a great ape that is the most
closely related to humans and is found only in this Central African
country.
(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 21, The UN Security
Council welcomed a deal signed by Congo and Rwanda to forcibly disarm
Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo in an effort to reduce tensions between
the central African neighbors.
(Reuters, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 22, The UN resumed the
repatriation of 12,000 Congolese refugees from Zambia which was
suspended three months ago due to insecurity in the Democratic Republic
of Congo's (DRC) Katanga province.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 23, Explosions and
machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Congo, where
government troops battled rebels for a third day amid a deepening
humanitarian crisis the UN says has displaced nearly 200,000 people in
the past few months.
(AP, 11/23/07)
2007 Dec 3, In Congo (DRC) some
25,000 government forces army attacked a stronghold of renegade Tutsi
General Laurent Nkunda, a day after his men seized a strategic town
from the government and forced out thousands of civilians. The troops
were routed by some 4,000 insurgents.
(Reuters,
12/3/07)(www.mail-archive.com/ugandanet@kym.net/msg25522.html)(Econ,
6/14/08, p.63)
2007 Dec 5, Congo's army said it
retook a strategic town on from rebels loyal to renegade Tutsi General
Laurent Nkunda in the violence-torn eastern province of North Kivu.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 5, An international aid
organization said Angolan soldiers routinely and repeatedly rape
Congolese women who have crossed the border illegally in search of work
in the diamond fields.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 14, Diplomats from the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda met in Kampala to discuss
border tensions that have triggered deadly clashes on one of Africa's
hottest frontiers in the search for oil. The UN said rival factions in
Congo are forcibly recruiting hundreds of children and sending them to
fight on the front lines of an escalating conflict in the east of the
country.
(AP, 12/14/07)(AP, 12/15/07)
2007 Dec 19, Uganda's military
said it had shot dead two Congolese soldiers on the volatile border
between the two countries, after they tried to resist being arrested on
suspicion of raping two teenage girls.
(Reuters, 12/19/07)
2007 Dec 21, The Security Council
voted unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo for a
year and demanded that all militias and armed groups in the volatile
east lay down their weapons and start disarming.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2007 Dec 24, The international
charity Save the Children said boys and girls are being recruited in
record numbers to act as soldiers, spies and sex slaves in Congo and
children have been spotted marching in formation in the war-wracked
east of the country over the past week.
(AP, 12/24/07)
2007 Congo’s operating budget for
this year was $2.4 billion. Its population stood at about 60 million.
(Econ, 7/28/07, p.46)
2007 Transparency Int’l. ranked
Congo 168th out of 179 countries for freedom from corruption.
(Econ, 3/15/08, SR p.13)
2008 Jan 6, In Kinshasa a peace
summit aimed at ending fighting in Congo's blood-steeped eastern
provinces of North and South Kivu opened without the presence of
President Joseph Kabila and rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda.
(Reuters, 1/6/08)
2008 Jan 13, Delegation chief
Kambasu Ngeze said at a Congolese peace conference that renegade
general Laurent Nkunda's Kivu movement vowed to continue its armed
struggle "with neither remorse nor regret."
(AP, 1/13/08)
2008 Jan 21, Officials said Congo
government negotiators and rebel groups reached a deal to end fighting
in the vast country's restive east, where some 800,000 people had to
flee their homes over the last year.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 22, A new survey said
war, disease and malnutrition are killing 45,000 Congolese every month
in a conflict-driven humanitarian crisis that has claimed 5.4 million
victims in nearly a decade.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 23, Militia leaders
signed a peace accord with Congo's government aimed at ending years of
fighting in the country's restive east.
(AP, 1/23/08)
2008 Jan 27, At least 10 bodies
were recovered after a boat capsized on Lake Tanganyika in eastern
Congo. An official later said the overloaded boat was piloted by a
drunken captain.
(AP, 1/30/08)
2008 Jan 28, Congolese Tutsi
rebels and Mai Mai militia clashed in eastern Democratic Republic of
Congo, breaking a ceasefire signed last week aimed at ending A
long-running conflict in the east.
(AP, 1/28/08)
2008 Jan 29, Congolese Tutsi
rebels and a rival Mai Mai militia group pledged to respect a
recently-signed peace accord, a day after clashes between their
fighters broke the ceasefire.
(AP, 1/29/08)
2008 Feb 3, Two strong earthquake
shook the African Great Lakes region, killing at least 37 people in
Rwanda and six in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 2/3/08)(AFP, 2/4/08)
2008 Feb 6, Congo arrested and
turned over for trial Mathieu Ngudjolo, an army colonel and former
rebel leader accused of leading a deadly 2003 attack on a village in
the country's lawless east. Ngudjolo was expected to arrive at the
International Criminal Court in the Hague the next day.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Mar 15, Congo’s foreign debt
stood at $12 billion and interest payments consumed a large chunk of
its budget.
(Econ, 3/15/08, SR p.12)
2008 Mar 19, Conservationists said
Honore Mashagiro, a ranger in Congo's Virunga National Park, has been
arrested for allegedly masterminding the massacre last summer of 10
endangered mountain gorillas.
(AP, 3/20/08)
2008 Mar 19, Uganda said that
Lord's Resistance Army rebel leader Joseph Kony has left his base in
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and moved to the Central African
Republic.
(AP, 3/19/08)
2008 Mar 21, The Democratic
Republic of Congo banned the ethnic-based religious and political sect
Bundu dia Kongo (BDK), a shadowy separatist sect, following a 3-week
police offensive against its western strongholds which UN investigators
say killed dozens of people.
(Reuters, 3/22/08)
2008 Apr 15, In eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo at least 44 people were killed and up tot 100 injured
when a passenger plane crashed onto a market district after taking-off
at Goma.
(Reuters, 4/16/08)(WSJ, 4/18/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 29, The International
Criminal Court in The Hague published an arrest warrant for Bosco
Ntaganda (35), known as "the Terminator," a Congo militia leader wanted
for allegedly using child soldiers.
(Reuters, 4/29/08)
2008 May 23, UN peacekeepers found
over 100 bodies in three mass graves in the east of Democratic Republic
of Congo. A UN spokesman said they apparently were graves dating back
to the 1990s, but that is was difficult to know accurately.
(Reuters, 5/24/08)
2008 May 24, Belgian police in
Brussels arrested Jean-Pierre Bemba (45), a Congolese warlord and
ex-presidential candidate, after he was secretly charged with rape and
torture. Bemba was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity as
head of a militia that allegedly committed atrocities in Central
African Republic's conflict in 2002-2003.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 May 26, A small faction of
Rwandan Hutu rebels in east Democratic Republic of Congo pledged to lay
down their guns and return home, but the main rebel movement refused
and rejected the ceremony as a sham.
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 Jun 7, Congo President Joseph
Kabila met with UN envoys who backed his plans to disarm and expel
Rwandan rebels behind years of strife. They also planned to refocus the
biggest UN peace force on rebuilding the shattered nation.
(Reuters, 6/7/08)
2008 Jun 16, A conservation group
said the northern white rhino of central Africa was on the verge of
being wiped out. 4 surviving specimens in Congo’s Garamba National Park
had not been seen since 2006.
(SFC, 6/17/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese rebel
leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face war crimes
charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Congo (DRC)
unidentified gunmen ambushed a vehicle belonging to the World Wildlife
Fund in Virunga national Park, killing two people and wounding three
others.
(AP, 7/9/08)
2008 Jul 23, In Democratic
Republic of Congo at least 45 people were killed and another 100 were
missing after a boat sank on a remote stretch of the Ubangi river.
(Reuters, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 28, Antoine Wendo Kolosoy
(aka Papa Wendo, b.1925), Congolese riverboat mechanic, boxer and rumba
singer, died at age 82. He cut his first records in 1947 for Olympia, a
Belgian label.
(Econ, 8/16/08, p.84)
2008 Aug 5, Wildlife researchers
said they have discovered some 125,000 western lowland gorillas deep in
the forests of the Republic of Congo.
(WSJ, 8/6/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 13, The Indian army said
that it was investigating UN allegations its troops had engaged in
sexual abuse while on peacekeeping duties in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. A five-story building in a crowded residential neighborhood of
Mumbai, India's main financial city, collapsed after monsoon rains,
killing at least 20 people.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 28, Government forces
fought Tutsi rebels in the fiercest clashes for months in eastern
Congo, threatening a struggling peace process.
(Reuters, 8/28/08)
2008 Sep 1, In east Democratic
Republic of Congo a humanitarian plane carrying 17 passengers and crew
crashed into a mountain with no sign of survivors.
(Reuters, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 11, A Paris court
convicted Didier Bourguet, a former UN employee, for the rape of young
Africans during his postings in Central African Republic and Congo.
Bourguet was sentenced to nine years in prison for having committed
about 20 rapes of teenage girls between 1998 and 2004 during his
postings as a mechanic for the UN.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 14, In eastern Congo a
riot ensued following accusations that a soccer player was using
witchcraft. 13 people were left dead.
(SFC, 9/16/08, p.A7)
2008 Sep 27, It was reported that
the elephant population in Congo’s Virunga National Park had dropped to
under 200, mostly due to poaching. In 1964 there were an estimated
2,900. In 2006 the number had dropped to 400.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.62)
2008 Oct 7, The UN refugee agency
said at least 5,000 people have fled violence in northeastern Congo and
sought shelter in neighboring Sudan over the last two weeks due to
ferocious attacks by rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army from
neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 10, Congo's President
Joseph Kabila named Budget Minister Adolphe Muzito (51) as the new
prime minister following the resignation of 83-year-old Antoine Gizenga.
(Reuters, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 10, The UN urged Congo
and Rwanda to hold talks to avoid a war after Kinshasa accused its
eastern neighbor of sending troops over the border to back Congolese
rebels.
(Reuters, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 14, The UN said intense
fighting between the Congolese army and Ugandan rebels have forced over
50,000 people to flee their homes in the north-eastern Democratic
Republic of the Congo's Ituri region.
(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 24, The World Food
Program said fighting in eastern Congo has driven some 200,000 from
their homes during the last 8 weeks, exacerbating an already dire
humanitarian crisis.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 26, Rebels seized an east
Congo army base and the headquarters of a refuge housing some of the
world's last mountain gorillas, in heavy fighting that sent thousands
of civilians fleeing. An unknown number of soldiers, rebels and
civilians were killed in the renewed fighting in North Kivu province.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2008 Oct 27, Thousands of
civilians threw rocks at four UN offices in eastern Congo, venting
outrage at the organization's inability to protect them from rebel
forces advancing on the provincial capital of Goma.
(AP, 10/27/08)
2008 Oct 28, Rebels vowing to take
Congo's eastern provincial capital of 600,000 people advanced toward
Goma as Congolese troops and UN tanks retreated, while tens of
thousands fled to a makeshift shelter.
(AP, 10/28/08)
2008 Oct 29, Congolese rebel
forces advanced on the eastern city of Goma, threatening to overwhelm
government troops and a 17,000-strong UN force deployed to halt a
return to all-out war. The Congolese army said troops from Rwanda have
crossed the nearby border and attacked its soldiers in support of a
minority Tutsi rebellion. Congolese rebels declared a ceasefire after a
four-day push to the gates of Goma that threatened to drag Congo back
to all-out war, but heavy gunfire resumed near the eastern city after
dark.
(Reuters, 10/29/08)(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Oct 30, Laurent Nkunda, the
rebel general besieging Congo's eastern provincial capital Goma, said
he wants direct talks with the government about ending fighting in the
region and his objections to a $5 billion deal that gives China access
to the country's vast mineral riches in exchange for a railway and
highway. Nkunda said he sent a letter to the UN peacekeeping mission in
Goma saying he will set up an "urgent humanitarian corridor" for
refugees and humanitarian aid. Refugees have continued fleeing the
war-torn eastern province for neighbouring Uganda.
(AP, 10/30/08)(AFP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 31, Thousands of
war-weary refugees set out on foot for their homes in eastern Congo,
taking advantage of a cease-fire as American and UN envoys joined
efforts there to find a political solution to the region's long-running
rebellion.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Nov 1, Tutsi-led rebels
tightened their hold on newly seized swaths of eastern Congo, forcing
tens of thousands of frightened, rain-soaked civilians out of makeshift
refugee camps and stopping some from fleeing to government-held
territory. Congolese soldiers killed nine fighters from Uganda's Lord's
Resistance Army (LRA) after 30-50 rebels attacked a village in
northeast Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AP, 11/2/08)(AFP, 11/2/08)
2008 Nov 4, Congolese rebel leader
Laurent Nkunda threatened to take his eastern guerrilla war westwards
to the capital Kinshasa unless the government agreed to talks on the
country's future. Congo's government refused rebel leader Laurent
Nkunda's demand for direct talks.
(Reuters, 11/4/08)(AP, 11/4/08)
2008 Nov 5, In Congo heavy
fighting erupted for a second day between rebels and a pro-government
militia in lawless North Kivu province, but a wider cease-fire was
holding around this provincial capital. In Kiwanja fighters loyal to
rebel General Laurent Nkunda drove out pro-government Mai-Mai militia,
sending its inhabitants fleeing in panic. A local clergyman said at
least 180 civilians had been killed overnight. The next day UN
peacekeepers found the bodies of a dozen shot civilians.
(AP, 11/5/08)(AP, 11/6/08)(Econ, 11/8/08, p.61)
2008 Nov 7, The UN
secretary-general joined African leaders to try to end the fighting in
eastern Congo, where a fragile cease-fire is close to collapse. A UN
official and a peacekeeping officer said Angolan troops are fighting
alongside Congolese soldiers battling rebels outside the eastern
provincial capital of Goma. The UN official said an unspecified number
of Angolans arrived four days ago.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 7, India said it will
send one of its most decorated army units to join a UN mission in Congo
and support other Indian troops as Congolese rebels advance to seize
fresh areas.
(Reuters, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 8, Congolese soldiers
advanced toward rebel lines in renewed fighting that threatens a
tenuous cease-fire around the eastern provincial capital Goma.
(AP, 11/8/08)
2008 Nov 9, Doctors struggled to
contain an outbreak of cholera in a sprawling refugee camp near Congo's
eastern provincial capital of Goma, as new fighting ignited fears that
infected patients could scatter and launch an epidemic.
(AP, 11/9/08)
2008 Nov 11, The UN reported that
hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several villages in
eastern Congo raping women and pillaging homes as they pulled back
ahead of a feared rebel advance.
(SFC, 11/12/08, p.A7)
2008 Nov 12, Angola announced it
is mobilizing troops to send to neighboring Congo, heightening fears
that the fighting in this central African nation will engulf other
countries in the region. North of Kibati the bodies of two dead
government soldiers lay in the center of the road beside a rebel
checkpoint.
(AP, 11/12/08)
2008 Nov 16, Congo's main rebel
leader promised a UN envoy to support a cease-fire and UN efforts to
end the fighting, and the diplomat said he hoped the warring sides
would hold peace talks in Kenya. Congo government troops abandoned
their position at Rwindi, 130 km (80 miles) north of Goma in North Kivu
province, after a battle with the rebels involving small arms and
heavier weapons. UN peacekeeping troops at Rwindi stayed in their base
during the fighting.
(AP, 11/16/08)(AP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 18, Demoralized Congolese
government troops, retreating before eastern rebels, clashed with their
own local militia allies who tried to make them stand and fight after
the armed forces chief was replaced.
(Reuters, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 20, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to send some 3,000 additional UN peacekeepers
to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help prevent a new war in
the country's east.
(AP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 20, Britain called on
Rwandan President Paul Kagame to use his "influence" over Congolese
rebels led by general Laurent Nkunda to end to violence in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 11/20/08)
2008 Nov 21, In eastern Congo
armed men shot and killed a 20-year-old woman at the Kibati refugee
camp where thousands of displaced people live in constant fear, caught
between soldiers and rebels. Armed men also forced families there out
of their huts and looted them. Didace Namujimbo, a journalist working
for a UN-backed radio station, was shot dead in Bukavu.
(AP, 11/21/08)(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 22, Congolese rebel
leader Laurent Nkunda sought to reassure people in territory recently
seized in a lightning advance, telling thousands gathered in Rutshuru
for his first mass rally that his men intend to bring peace, not war,
to Congo. A rebel offensive under Nkunda began to push some 1,500 Hutu
FDLR militiamen from Ishasha. The move forced over 3,000 civilians to
flee to neighboring Uganda.
(AP, 11/22/08)(SFC, 11/27/08, p.A8)
2008 Nov 22, In eastern Congo 2
mass graves containing as many as 2,000 bodies were discovered in
Bukavu on a plot of land formerly owned by a member of the Congolese
Rally for Democracy (RCD), a Rwandan-backed rebel group. The RCD became
a political party in 2003. Many of its top leaders were integrated into
the government, taking jobs as vice presidents and army chiefs.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Nov 23, Congolese soldiers
stopped a peacekeepers' convoy at an impromptu roadblock and dragged 23
Congolese men off the trucks, accusing them of being rebels. UN
officials said the men were rebels who had surrendered as well as
national policemen and civilians.
(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Nov 24, Congolese soldiers
went on an overnight looting and shooting spree in a sprawling
Congolese refugee camp, stealing from hungry and traumatized people who
have fled fighting in the country's east.
(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Nov 27, More than 10,000
Congolese civilians fled to Uganda in a matter of hours to escape
renewed fighting.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Nov 28, Congo rebels captured
the border post of Ishasha in eastern Congo, increasing their
stranglehold over the region. At least 13,000 frightened civilians have
fled into Uganda over the last two days.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Nov 30, Rebels in eastern
Congo pulled out of Ishasha, a town on the Ugandan border they captured
in fighting that forced 10,000 people to flee.
(AP, 12/2/08)
2008 Dec 8, Congolese rebels
opened peace negotiations with a government delegation in Nairobi in
their first direct talks on ending the conflict in eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 12, A UN Security Council
panel said that Rwanda and Congo are fighting a proxy war by aiding
each other's enemies, a conclusion that could lead to additional UN
sanctions over the conflict in the central African region. A UN report
cited an advisor to Rwandan President Paul Kagame and a member of the
Congolese opposition, both wealthy businessmen, as key financial
backers of rebels in eastern DR Congo.
(AP, 12/12/08)(AFP, 12/13/08)
2008 Dec 14, Uganda, southern
Sudan and Congo launched an offensive against the Lord's Resistance
Army bases based in eastern Congo in an attempt to end one of the
continent's longest and most brutal wars.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 21, Congolese Tutsi
rebels threatened to advance into UN-monitored buffer zones in eastern
Congo after refusing to sign a declaration ending hostilities with the
government.
(AP, 12/21/08)
2008 Dec 26, A Chinese man and two
Lebanese nationals were shot dead in a crime wave in southeastern
Democratic Republic of Congo that also left 10 Congolese dead this
week. The mayor of Lubumbashi, Marie-Gregoire Tambila, said that 11
people had been killed in the last four days in her city, including a
Lebanese national who was killed on Christmas day. In eastern Congo
attackers, identified as members of the Lord’s Resistance Army, killed
some 100 people at a church in Doruma. The UN said rebels had killed
189 people over 2 days.
(AFP, 12/26/08)(SFC, 12/30/08, p.A10)
2008 Dec 30, Congo’s health
minister said An Ebola virus outbreak has killed 11 people in western
Congo. Caritas, a Catholic charity, reported that over 400 people have
been killed in northeaster Congo since Christmas day.
(AP, 12/30/08)(SFC, 12/31/08, p.A3)
2008 In CongoDRC Col. Samy Matumo,
the commander of a renegade brigade, controlled the tin operations in
Bisie, North Kivu province. He and his men extorted, taxed and
appropriated as much as $80 million a year from mining operations in
the area.
(SSFC, 11/16/08, p.A21)
2008 Lisa F. Jackson (57),
American filmmaker, produced her 75-minute film: “The Greatest Silence:
Rape in the Congo.
(SFC, 4/5/08, p.E1)
2009 Jan 2, Ugandan Lord's
Resistance Army rebels killed two wildlife rangers and six other people
in a remote national park in northeastern Congo.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 5, In eastern Congo rival
rebel chief of staff Bosco Ntaganda announced the dismissal of Laurent
Nkunda and has taken control of the CNDP rebel movement.
(AFP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 8, In eastern Congo Mai
Mai militiamen attacked a group of seven rangers killing one in a
government-controlled sector in the far north of Virunga National park.
(AP, 1/10/09)
2009 Jan 12, War crimes
prosecutors in The Hague accused former Congolese vice president
Jean-Pierre Bemba of using systematic rape to terrorize civilians
suspected of supporting rebels during a bloody power struggle in
neighboring Central African Republic.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 16, In eastern Congo the
leader of a splinter rebel faction said his forces would stop fighting
the government and the two sides would work together to battle Rwandan
militias at the heart of the conflict. Ugandan rebels, according to the
UN, massacred 100 civilians in Tora, a village in northeast Congo, the
latest atrocity blamed on the insurgents.
(AP, 1/16/09)(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 17, A human rights groups
said Ugandan rebels in eastern Congo have ruthlessly killed at least
620 people in the past month, and vulnerable civilians in the region
desperately need protection. According to Ugandan troops, the Lord's
Resistance Army rebels set fire to a church in the village of Tora. it
was unclear how many people were killed.
(AP, 1/18/09)(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 20, Hundreds of Rwandan
troops rolled into the Democratic Republic of Congo to join Congolese
forces hunting Rwandan rebels operating there since 1994.
(AFP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 22, Congolese and Rwandan
troops advanced on the headquarters of Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent
Nkunda, as Kinshasa used its neighbor to smother a rebellion in eastern
DR Congo. Rwanda arrested Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda after he
fled a joint operation launched by the armies of the two nations.
(AP, 1/22/09)(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 26, The armies of Congo
and Rwanda, battling together against Rwandan Hutu militiamen in
eastern Congo, clashed with fighters trying to retake a village and
killed 4 of them.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 26, In the Netherlands
the first-ever trial of the International Criminal Court began at The
Hague with Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia commander, denying he
committed war crimes by recruiting hundreds of child soldiers to kill
and rape.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 27, The UN refugee agency
said thousands of Congolese civilians have fled across the border to
South Sudan to escape rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army.
(AP, 1/27/09)
2009 Jan 29, The first of more
than 6,000 Congolese rebels took part in a ceremony to integrate their
units into the regular army as part of a deal to end the conflict in
eastern DR Congo.
(AFP, 1/29/09)
2009 Feb 13, A Congolese military
spokesman said more than 40 members of a Hutu militia suspected of
atrocities during Rwanda's 1994 genocide were killed in an overnight
air raid.
(AP, 2/13/09)
2009 Feb 25, Rwandan troops began
pulling out of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after a
controversial joint operation with Congolese troops against Rwandan
Hutu rebels.
(AFP, 2/25/09)
2009 Mar 15, Uganda began
withdrawing troops hunting brutal Lord's Resistance Army rebels in
neighboring Congo after the deadline for them to leave expired. Felix
Kulaigye, a Ugandan military spokesman, said the operation had been a
success, with around 100 rebels killed and more than 200 abductees
rescued, and that Congo would continue the hunt.
(AP, 3/15/09)
2009 Mar 26, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy visited Brazzaville and Kinshasa. During the Kinshasa
trip, given over in large part to regional political issues, Areva
signed an agreement with the government allowing the company to
prospect for and mine uranium.
(AP, 3/27/09)
2009 Mar, The IMF disbursed nearly
$200 million to boost the foreign-currency reserves of the Democratic
Republic of Congo and maintain macroeconomic stability.
(Econ, 4/18/09, p.54)
2009 Apr 6, In Zambia western
nations and lending agencies meeting in Lusaka agreed a financing
package of more than $1 billion to improve infrastructure in southern
and central Africa at an investment conference meant to expand
transport links and trade. Britain said it would separately provide 100
million pounds ($149.2 million) to transform the region's
infrastructure to increase trade and mitigate the effects of the global
financial crisis. New projects will link businesses in 8 African
countries: Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi,
Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 9, A top human rights
group said in a report that at least 90 women have been raped and 180
villagers killed over the past two months by rebels as well as
government forces in volatile eastern Congo.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 29, A Boeing 737 on a
test flight from Brazzaville crashed southeast of Kinshasa, killing 7
people.
(AP, 4/30/09)
2009 May 10, In the eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo at least 60 people were killed over the
last 48 hours during attacks blamed on Rwandan Hutu rebels.
(AFP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 18, UN military
commanders told top UN officials that Congolese rebels integrated into
the country's army as part of a peace deal are looting, raping and
killing the civilians they are meant to protect.
(AP, 5/18/09)
2009 May 19, The UN Security
Council said that it had asked the Congolese government to investigate
and arrest five high-ranking army officers known to have committed
atrocities.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 Jun 15, The Hague-based
International Criminal Court ordered former Congolese rebel warlord
Jean-Pierre Bemba to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity
and war crimes, including murder, rape and pillaging.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 19, A top Congo army
officer said 32 people have been killed in three days of fighting in
eastern Congo between government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu rebels
backed by Congolese militia allies.
(Reuters, 6/19/09)
2009 Gerard Prunier authored
“Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a
Continental Catastrophe.”
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.88)
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Subject = CongoDRC
End of file