Congo, Democratic Republic of the: The Independence Movement

In 1955, when demands for independence were mounting throughout Africa, Antoine van Bilsen, a Belgian professor, published a “30-Year Plan” for granting the Congo increased self-government. The plan was accepted enthusiastically by most Belgians, who assumed that Belgian rule in the Congo would continue for a long period. Events proved otherwise.

Congolese nationalists, notably Joseph Kasavubu (who headed ABAKO, a party based among the Kongo people) and Patrice Lumumba (who led the leftist Mouvement National Congolais), became increasingly strident. They were impressed greatly by the visit in late 1958 of French president Charles de Gaulle to neighboring Middle Congo (now the Republic of the Congo), where he offered Africans the opportunity to vote in a referendum for continued association with France or for full independence. In Jan., 1959, there were serious nationalist riots in Kinshasa, and thereafter the Belgians steadily lost control of events in the Congo. At a roundtable conference (which included Congolese nationalists) at Brussels in Jan.–Feb., 1960, it was decided that the Belgian Congo would become fully independent on June 30, 1960.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Government and Ongoing Instability
• Rebellion and Civil War
• The Mobutu Regime
• Independence and Conflict
• The Independence Movement
• The Belgian Congo
• The Congo Free State
• European and Arab Contacts
• Early History
• Government
• Economy
• Land and People
• Bibliography

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