Zaire in the context of "Ngbandi language"

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo, or more infrequently Zaire (its official name from 1971 to 1997), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 112 million, the DR Congo is the fourth-most populous in Africa and the most populous nominally Francophone country in the world. French is the official and most widely spoken language, though there are over 200 indigenous languages. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the economic center. The country is bordered by the Republic of the Congo, the Cabinda exclave of Angola, and the South Atlantic Ocean to the west; the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north; Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika) to the east; and Zambia and Angola to the south. Centered on the Congo Basin, most of the country's terrain is covered by dense rainforests and is crossed by many rivers, while the east and southeast are mountainous.

The territory of the Congo was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was settled in the Bantu expansion about 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to the 19th century. In the center and east, the empires of Mwene Muji, Luba, and Lunda ruled between the 15th and 19th centuries. These kingdoms were broken up by Europeans during the colonization of the Congo Basin. King Leopold II of Belgium acquired rights to the Congo territory in 1885 and called it the Congo Free State. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory after international pressure in response to widespread atrocities, and it became a Belgian colony. Congo achieved independence from Belgium in 1960 and was immediately confronted by a series of secessionist movements, the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the seizure of power by Mobutu Sese Seko in 1965. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a personalist dictatorship.

An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within society. This criterion differentiates ethnic conflict from other forms of struggle.

Academic explanations of ethnic conflict generally fall into one of three schools of thought: primordialist, instrumentalist or constructivist. Recently, some have argued for either top-down or bottom-up explanations for ethnic conflict. Intellectual debate has also focused on whether ethnic conflict has become more prevalent since the end of the Cold War, and on devising ways of managing conflicts, through instruments such as consociationalism and federalisation.

The Republic of the Congo (French: République du Congo), formerly the Belgian Congo and now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a state in Central Africa that gained independence in 1960 and continued until its name was changed to Zaire in 1971.

The country had been a colony of Belgium since 1908 and was granted independence in 1960 as a result of pressure from the Congolese nationalist movement led by Patrice Lumumba. Almost immediately after independence, the country was plunged into the Congo Crisis, a series of civil wars and secessionist conflicts, notably with the break-away State of Katanga, which lasted until 1965. The democratic government of Lumumba was overthrown in an army coup led by Joseph-Désiré Mobutu and Lumumba was killed by Katangan forces in 1961. A UN peace-keeping mission operated in the country from 1960 to 1964 during which a multi-national force of 20,000 troops was deployed. In 1965 Mobutu seized absolute power in a second coup and changed the country's name to Zaire in 1971. Mobutu remained in power until he was overthrown in 1997.

Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga (/məˈbuːtuː ˈsɛseɪ ˈsɛkoʊ/ mə-BOO-too SESS-ay SEK-oh; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), often shortened to Mobutu Sese Seko or Mobutu and also known by his initials MSS, was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the first and only president of Zaire from 1971 to 1997. Previously, Mobutu served as the second president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, from 1965 to 1971. He also served as the fifth chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 1967 to 1968. During the Congo Crisis in 1960, Mobutu, then serving as Chief of Staff of the Congolese Army, deposed the nation's democratically elected government of Patrice Lumumba with the support of the U.S. and Belgium. Mobutu installed a government that arranged for Lumumba's execution in 1961, and continued to lead the country's armed forces until he took power directly in a second coup in 1965.

To consolidate his power, he established the Popular Movement of the Revolution as the sole legal political party in 1967, changed the Congo's name to Zaire in 1971, and his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko in 1972. Mobutu protected his rule through an intensely autocratic regime and came to preside over a period of widespread human rights violations. He attempted to purge the country of all colonial cultural influence through his program of "national authenticity". Mobutu was the object of a pervasive cult of personality.

The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had gained control of the country at the end of the genocide. However, the humanitarian relief effort was vastly compromised by the presence among the refugees of many of the Interahamwe and government officials who carried out the genocide, who used the refugee camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government led by Paul Kagame. The camps in Zaire became particularly politicized and militarized. The knowledge that humanitarian aid was being diverted to further the aims of the genocidaires led many humanitarian organizations to withdraw their assistance. The conflict escalated until the start of the First Congo War in 1996, when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire and sought to repatriate the refugees. The conflict escalated again with the start of the Second Congo War, also called Africa's World War or the Great War of Africa, that began in 1998 when the Congolese president Laurent-Désiré Kabila turned against his former allies from Rwanda and Uganda. The conflict continues with the Kivu conflict that started in 2004 with the start of the M23 rebellion that started in 2012.

The second Mobutu coup d'état, launched on November 25, 1965, was a successful coup attempt in the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville) by General Joseph Mobutu which overthrew President Joseph Kasa-Vubu and Prime Minister Evariste Kimba. The coup was caused by the political impasse between President Kasa-Vubu and Moïse Tshombe, which threatened to develop into a violent confrontation and destabilize the country even further. The coup was initially met with cautious approval domestically and abroad. It marked the end of the years-long Congo Crisis.

During his first coup in 1960 however, Mobutu temporarily removed Kasa-Vubu from power to "restore order" before stepping down and reinstating him. This time, Mobutu seized full power and became president himself. He then declared a state of emergency and assumed near-dictatorial powers. Though he promised to restore democracy in five years, he instead consolidated power and established an authoritarian regime that would dominate the Congo (later Zaire) for over three decades.