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Zaire EVOLUTION OF THE ARMED FORCES
The Colonial Period
The FAZ traces its lineage back to the late
nineteenth-century
creation of the Force Publique in the area then known as
the Congo
Free State
(see The
Colonial State
, ch. 1). In October
1885, King
Léopold II of Belgium directed the organization of a
government for
the Congo Free State and charged the Ministry of Interior
to create
necessary police and military forces. In 1886 Belgium sent
Captain
Léon Roget to the Congo Free State with a small group of
European
officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) to organize a
military
force, although the Force Publique was not formally
constituted
until 1888.
From its inception, the Force Publique was an
ethnically mixed
African army although officered by Europeans. It was both
a defense
force, for counterinsurgency operations, and a
gendarmerie. The
repressive measures employed by the Belgian colonial
authorities to
attain the quiescence of the local African population
ultimately
produced relative stability in the Congo Free State. There
were,
however, a number of mutinies, and during the early 1890s,
battles
were fought against Arab invaders who had entered the
country from
the east looking for slaves and ivory and had established
control
over much of the eastern part of present-day Zaire. By
1894,
however, the Belgian colonial administration had
eliminated Arab
control of this region.
Some of the worst tendencies of the present-day FAZ are
traceable to the early organization and practices of the
Belgian
colonial force. Particularly evident during the colonial
period
prior to World War II was the extensive autonomy of
territorial
administrators, who operated virtually independent
fiefdoms. These
administrators often used the military to gain their own
ends,
diverting soldiers to various nonmilitary activities and
treating
local military units as private armies. Although this
practice
contravened colonial policy, the state proved unable to
control its
own coercive instruments. The practice of scattering
military
personnel among numerous small garrisons in the hinterland
compounded the problem. The soldiers at isolated posts
received
little military training and were at times no more than
undisciplined armed bands. A shortage of officers and the
practice
of diverting them from military to administrative duties
further
aggravated this situation, because the Force Publique was
inadequately supervised.
The organization of the Force Publique remained
unchanged
throughout the period of the Congo Free State (1885-1908)
and the
pre-World War I Belgian Congo (as Zaire was called from
1908 to
1960). By the beginning of World War I, the Force Publique
was not
a coherent, well-organized army but more of a police force
designed
to aid civilian authorities in occupying the territory. As
a
result, the force initially assumed a defensive posture
against
German forces in German East Africa (later Tanganyika) and
was
virtually incapable of offensive action during the first
eighteen
months of the war. In fact, in most of the country the
highest
echelon of command in the Force Publique was the company;
beyond
that there was no semblance of military command.
Specialized units
such as artillery or engineering did not exist. Only in
Katanga
were there battalion-size units with an autonomous command
structure.
These organizational problems continued to plague the
Force
Publique throughout the war, hindering effective
operations.
Nevertheless, Belgian colonial forces in East Africa did
enjoy
limited tactical success as part of a half-hearted
cooperation with
the British against the hopelessly outnumbered German East
Africa
Force known as the Shutztruppe. Ironically, one reason for
the
force's success may have been its reputation for
cannibalism.
Historian Charles Miller notes that many Africans in
German areas
believed that the Belgians economized on pay and food by
serving
their porters to the troops when the loads they carried
had been
used. Nevertheless, although the Force Publique's
reputation for
cannibalism may have been of peripheral concern to German
forces,
Belgian success in East Africa resulted mostly from the
greater
numbers of Allied forces, not from superior tactical
skills.
The problems experienced in World War I led the Belgian
administration to reorganize the army along lines that
would better
fulfill the dual missions of external defense and internal
security. A commission convened to study this matter
recommended
that units of the force be organized for army or police
duties. The
colonial administration eventually adopted this
recommendation and
established the Garrison Troops (Troupes Campées) as a
general
military force oriented against external threats and the
Territorial Service Troops (Troupes en Service
Territorial) to
handle police and gendarme duties, both under the
commandant of the
Force Publique. Troops performing police duties would
rotate
periodically with soldiers garrisoned in military units.
This reorganization did little to improve professional
competence during the interwar years and in fact laid the
base for
many of the problems that continued to plague the FAZ in
the 1990s.
The Territorial Service Troops, which became known for
their lack
of discipline, were particularly derelict. In 1929 even
the
commandant of the Force Publique noted that the
Territorial Service
Troops were poorly trained and of little value. In 1933
the
commandant commented again that command of the Territorial
Service
Troops was "more often a fiction than a reality" and that
they were
incapable of conducting "serious operations of whatever
scope, or
even coping with local riots." These problems continued
throughout
the interwar period and even (though to a lesser extent)
through
World War II and forced the local administrators to use
the
Garrison Troops to provide internal security. This
diversion,
however, proved destructive to the troops' cohesion,
training, and
discipline. The colonial government attempted to rectify
these
problems on numerous occasions, with little effect. A 1946
commission to study the reorganization of the Force
Publique
actually found itself facing the same concerns that had
plagued the
force prior to World War I.
Despite these internal difficulties, the Force Publique
performed adequately during both world wars when employed
outside
the boundaries of the colony. As early as 1914, a
detachment was
deployed to the Cameroons to join French forces in
operations
against German forces there.
The Force Publique again mobilized in 1940, when
Belgium was
overrun by Germany. In early 1941, Congolese troops
deployed to
Italian East Africa (present-day Ethiopia) to help
eliminate the
last Italian centers of resistance, and in the next year,
other
Congolese troops joined forces with the West African
Frontier Force
in British colonial Nigeria. Later, Congolese soldiers
went to
Egypt where they guarded supply dumps and prisoner-of-war
camps.
During both wars, Allied leaders commended the actions of
these
representatives of the Force Publique.
During the early postwar period, Belgium, like other
colonial
powers, failed to recognize the strengthened desire of the
Congolese elites to have a hand in shaping their own
political
destiny, especially following the successful deployment of
Congolese soldiers among Allied units in World War II.
Even in the
late 1950s, the Belgian authorities had no intention of
granting
independence to the Belgian Congo in the near future. As a
result,
the composition and organization of the Force Publique
remained
unchanged (except that the Territorial Service Troops were
known as
the gendarmerie from 1959) from the end of World War II
until
independence. The Force Publique remained officered by
Belgians,
and only in the late 1950s did the colonial administration
take
steps to institute a military education system to prepare
Congolese
for commissioned service. In 1958 Belgium accepted only
twenty-
three Congolese for enrollment in the military secondary
school. At
this rate, it would have taken generations to completely
Africanize
the military. This approach was based on the premise that
Europeans
would continue to staff key institutions, such as the
military, for
a prolonged period after independence.
At independence in 1960, none of the top military
leaders were
African. Moreover, Belgium's attitude toward the Congo
(or, more
formally, Republic of the Congo and then Democratic
Republic of the
Congo), as Zaire was known from 1960 to 1971, was little
different
than it had been throughout the colonial period. An
excellent
example of this posture occurred a few days after
independence.
When Lieutenant General Émile Janssens, Belgian commander
of the
Force Publique, heard grumbling by the Congolese soldiers
and NCOs
who saw little chance to advance in an army still
controlled by
expatriates, he called a meeting of the Léopoldville (now
Kinshasa)
garrison on July 5, 1960, to remind them of their oaths of
loyalty
and obedience. In addition, he wrote on a blackboard,
"After
independence equals before independence." The indignation
aroused
in the Congolese soldiers by this comment led to a mutiny
by the
end of the day. At a meeting that evening, the mutineers
called for
Janssens's removal and the immediate Africanization of the
officer
corps. This mutiny set off political turmoil that
embroiled the
newly independent republic for the next several years
(see The
Crisis of Decolonization
, ch. 1).
Data as of December 1993
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