Military of The Democratic Republic of The Congo - History

History

The first organized Congolese troops, known as the Force Publique (FP), were created in 1888 when King Leopold II of Belgium, who held the Congo Free State as his private property, ordered his Secretary of the Interior to create military and police forces for the state. In 1908, under international pressure, Leopold ceded administration of the colony to the government of Belgium as the Belgian Congo. It remained under the command of a Belgian officer corps through to the independence of the colony in 1960. The FP saw combat in Cameroun, and successfully invaded and conquered areas of German East Africa, notably present day Rwanda, during World War I. Elements of the FP were also used to form Belgian colonial units that fought in the East African Campaign during World War II.

At independence on 30 June 1960, the army suffered from a dramatic deficit of trained leaders, particularly in the officer corps. This was because the FP had always only been officered by Belgian or other expatriate whites. The Belgian Government made no effort to train Congolese commissioned officers until the very end of the Colonial period and there were only about 20 African cadets in training on the eve of Independence. Ill-advised actions by Belgian officers led to an enlisted ranks' rebellion on 5 July 1960, which helped spark the Congo Crisis. Lieutenant General Ēmile Janssens, the FP commander, wrote during a meeting of soldiers that 'Before independence=After Independence', pouring cold water on the soldiers' desires for an immediate raise in their status.

Vanderstraeten says that on the morning of 8 July 1960, following a night during which all control had been lost over the soldiers, numerous ministers arrived at Camp Leopold with the aim of calming the situation. Both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu eventually arrived, and the soldiers listened to Kasa-Vubu 'religiously.' After his speech, Kasa-Vubu and the ministers present retired into the camp canteen to hear a delegation from the soldiers. Vanderstraeten says that according to Joseph Ileo, their demands ('revendications') included the following:

• that the Defence portfolio not be given to the Prime Minister
• that the name 'Force publique' be changed to 'Armée nationale congolaise'
• and that the commander-in-chief and chief of staff not necessarily be Belgians

The 'laborious' discussions which then followed were later retrospectively given the label of an 'extraordinary ministerial council'. Gérald-Libois writes that '..the special meeting of the council of ministers took steps for the immediate Africanisation of the officer corps and ..named Victor Lundula, who was born in Kasai and was burgomaster of Jadotville, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC); Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu as chief of staff; and the Belgian, Colonel Henniquiau, as chief advisor to the ANC.' Thus General Janssens was dismissed. Both Lundula and Mobutu were former FP sergeants. It appears that Maurice Mpolo, Minister of Youth and Sports, was given the defence portfolio.

On 8–9 July 1960, the soldiers were invited to appoint black officers, and 'command of the army passed securely into the hands of former sergeants,' as the soldiers in general chose the most-educated and highest-ranked Congolese army soldiers as their new officers. Most of the Belgian officers were retained as advisors to the new Congolese hierarchy, and calm returned to the two main garrisons at Leopoldville and Thysville. The FP was renamed the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC), or Congolese National Armed Forces. However in Katanga Belgian officers resisted the Africanisation of the army.

On 9 July 1960, there was an FP mutiny at Camp Massart at Elizabethville; five or seven Europeans were killed. The army revolt and resulting rumours caused severe panic across the country, and Belgium despatched troops and the naval Task Group 218.2 to protect its citizens. Belgian troops intervened in Elisabethville and Luluabourg (10 July), Matadi (11 July), Leopoldville (13 July) and elsewhere. There were immediate suspicions that Belgium planned to re-seize the country while doing so. Large numbers of Belgian colonists fled the country. At the same time, on 9 July, Albert Kalonji proclaimed the independence of South Kasai. Two days later on 11 July, Moise Tshombe declared the independence of Katanga province in the south-east, closely backed by remaining Belgian administrators and soldiers.

On 14 July 1960, in response to requests by Prime Minister Lumumba, the UN Security Council adopted United Nations Security Council Resolution 143. This called upon Belgium to remove its troops and for the UN to provide 'military assistance' to the Congolese forces to allow them 'to meet fully their tasks'. Lumumba demanded that Belgium remove its troops immediately, threatening to seek help from the Soviet Union if they did not leave within two days. The UN reacted quickly and established the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). The first UN troops arrived the next day but there was instant disagreement between Lumumba and the UN over the new force's mandate. Because the Congolese army had been in disarray since the mutiny, Lumumba wanted to use the UN troops to subdue Katanga by force. Referring to the resolution, Lumumba wrote to UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, ‘From these texts it is clear that, contrary to your personal interpretation, the UN force may be used to subdue the rebel government of Katanga.’ Secretary General Hammarskjöld refused. To Hammarskjöld, the secession of Katanga was an internal Congolese matter and the UN was forbidden to intervene by Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Disagreements over what the UN force could and could not do continued throughout its deployment.

The last Belgian troops left the country by 23 July, as United Nations forces continued to deploy throughout the Congo.

During the crucial period of July–August 1960, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu built up "his" national army by channeling foreign aid to units loyal to him, by exiling unreliable units to remote areas, and by absorbing or dispersing rival armies. He tied individual officers to him by controlling their promotion and the flow of money for payrolls. Researchers working from the 1990s have concluded that money was directly funnelled to the army by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the UN, and Belgium. Despite this, by September 1960, following the four-way division of the country, there were four separate armed forces: Mobotu's ANC itself, numbering about 12,000, the South Kasai Constabulary loyal to Albert Kalonji (3,000 or less), the Katanga Gendarmerie which were part of Moise Tshombe's regime (totalling about 10,000), and the Stanleyville dissident ANC loyal to Antoine Gizenga (numbering about 8,000).

In August 1960, due to rejection of requests to the UN for aid to suppress the South Kasai and Katanga revolts, Lumumba's government decided to request Soviet help. de Witte writes that 'Leopoldville asked the Soviet Union for planes, lorries, arms, and equipment. .. Shortly afterwards, on 22 or 23 August, about 1,000 soldiers left for Kasai.' de Witte goes on to write that on 26–27 August, the ANC seized Bakwanga, Albert Kalonji's capital in South Kasai, without serious residence. 'In the next two days it temporarily put an end to the secession of Kasai.'

The Library of Congress Country Study for the Congo says at this point that: " Kasavubu also appointed Mobutu as head of the ANC. Joseph Ileo was chosen as the new prime minister and began trying to form a new government. Lumumba and his cabinet responded by accusing Kasa-Vubu of high treason and voted to dismiss him. Parliament refused to confirm the dismissal of either Lumumba or Kasavubu and sought to bring about a reconciliation between them. After a week's deadlock, Mobutu announced on September 14 that he was assuming power until December 31, 1960, in order to "neutralize" both Kasavubu and Lumumba."

In early January 1961, ANC units loyal to Lumumba invaded northern Katanga to support a revolt of Baluba tribesmen against Tshombe's secessionist regime. (ACIG)

United Nations Security Council Resolution 161 of 21 February 1961, called for the withdrawal of Belgian officers from command positions in the ANC, and the training of new Congolese officers with UN help. The various efforts made by ONUC to retrain the ANC from August 1960 to their effective end in June 1963 are described in Arthur House's book The UN in the Congo : The Civilian Operations, pages 145-155. By March 1963 however, after the visit of Colonel Michael Greene of the United States Army, and the resulting 'Greene Plan,' the pattern of bilaterally agreed military assistance to various Congolese military components, instead of a single unified effort, was already taking shape.

In early 1964, a new crisis broke out as Congolese rebels calling themselves "Simba" (Swahili for "Lion") rebelled against the government. They were led by Pierre Mulele, Gaston Soumialot and Christophe Gbenye who were former members of Gizenga's Parti Solidaire Africain (PSA). The rebellion affected Kivu and Eastern (Orientale) provinces. By August they had captured Stanleyville and set up a rebel government there. As the rebel movement spread, discipline became more difficult to maintain, and acts of violence and terror increased. Thousands of Congolese were executed, including government officials, political leaders of opposition parties, provincial and local police, school teachers, and others believed to have been Westernized. Many of the executions were carried out with extreme cruelty, in front of a monument to Lumumba in Stanleyville. Tshombe decided to use foreign mercenaries as well as the ANC to suppress the rebellion. Mike Hoare was employed to created the English-speaking 5 Commando ANC at Kamina, with the assistance of a Belgian officer, Colonel Frederic Vanderwalle, while 6 Commando ANC was French-speaking and originally under the command of a Belgian Army colonel, Lamouline. By August 1964, the mercenaries, with the assistance of other ANC troops, were making headway against the Simba rebellion. Fearing defeat, the rebels started taking hostages of the local white population in areas under their control. These hostages were rescued in Belgian airdrops (Dragon Rouge and Dragon Noir) over Stanleyville and Paulis with U.S. airlift support. The operation coincided with the arrival of mercenary units (seemingly including the hurriedly-formed 5th Mechanised Brigade) at Stanleyville which was quickly captured. It took until the end of the year to completely put down the remaining areas of rebellion.

After five years of turbulence, in 1965 Mobutu used his position as ANC Chief of Staff to seize power in the Congo. Although Mobutu succeeded in taking power, his position was soon threatened by the Kisangani Mutinies, also known as the Stanleyville Mutinies or Mercenaries' Mutinies, which were eventually suppressed.

As a general rule, since that time, the armed forces have not intervened in politics as a body, rather being tossed and turned as ambitious men have shaken the country. In reality, the larger problem has been the misuse and sometimes abuse of the military and police by political and ethnic leaders.

On 16 May 1968 a parachute brigade of two regiments (each of three battalions) was formed which eventually was to grow in size to a full division.