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Zaire PUBLIC ORDER AND INTERNAL SECURITY
In the early postindependence days, the new nation was
beset by
regional and tribal factionalism, tremendous violence,
chaos, and
repression. After Mobutu's 1965 coup d'état, this unstable
situation provided an excuse for the steady growth and
entrenchment
of Mobutu's personal authority. Yet in spite of the
buildup of a
massive, centrally controlled internal security apparatus,
political and social dissent persisted. Moreover, this
apparatus
was itself responsible for exacerbating much of the public
disorder
that characterized modern Zaire.
As of 1993, no official statistics on crime had been
published
since 1959. Although general law and order and supremacy
of central
authority were largely restored under Mobutu, the
incidence of
crimes against persons has been consistently high,
especially when
general economic conditions deteriorate. Theft, robbery,
murder,
and rape have become increasingly common in and around the
country's urban centers and along its main transportation
routes,
making travel dangerous. The police and security forces
themselves
commit many of these acts and frequently participate in
armed
banditry. Furthermore, both their ability and desire to
protect the
citizenry from common criminals are slight. In the early
1990s,
crime was described as endemic in many areas of the
country,
including Kinshasa and both Nord-Kivu and Shaba, where
ethnic
violence was widespread.
Prior to the 1990s, public protest and civil unrest
occurred
periodically, although the events were usually localized
and were
on nowhere near the scale of 1960-65
(see Opposition
to the Regime prior to 1990
, ch. 4). The roots of such activity lay
typically in
economic hardships but were also sometimes sparked by
overzealousness or impropriety on the part of the security
forces.
The regime's response was usually harsh and violent in
discouraging
more widespread protest. University students and teachers
were
among the more frequent demonstrators. In February 1989,
for
example, students in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi went on
strike to
protest IMF-inspired austerity measures and inadequate and
costly
transportation. The universities were temporarily closed
and army
units quickly sent in to quell the disturbances. In the
process,
several students were killed and others wounded. However,
the
episode was brought to an effective close only after
President
Mobutu had agreed to reduce the students' bus fares and
had
announced the initiation of court martial proceedings
against the
officers and troops responsible for the killing. In May
1990,
students at Lubumbashi were killed by the DSP in an action
widely
characterized as a massacre.
Political resistance to the one-party regime was also
accompanied by sporadic guerrilla activity. Guerrilla
resistance
centered on the activities of several insurgent groups.
For
example, on November 12, 1984, some 200 rebels belonging
to the
People's Revolutionary Party (Parti Révolutionnaire du
Peuple--
PRP), a force that had operated for years in the rugged
mountains
near Lake Tanganyika, temporarily seized and occupied
Moba, a town
on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Elements of the 31st
Airborne
Brigade recaptured the town two days later. Again in 1985,
the PRP
briefly occupied Moba on June 17, but its forces were
quickly
dislodged. Although Moba possessed no strategic
importance, its
capture had significant psychological importance. It
demonstrated
that the Zairian government was still unable to exercise
effective
control over portions of the country. Even more important,
the Moba
incidents vividly demonstrated the incompetence of the
front-line
Zairian units stationed in the interior, notwithstanding
the 31st
Airborne Brigade's recapture of the town. The PRP was
officially
registered as an opposition party in late 1990.
Another organization, the Congolese Liberation Party
(Parti de
Libération Congolaise--PLC), also officially registered in
late
1990, operated in northern Zaire during the mid-1980s. The
PLC,
formed in 1984 with the stated purpose of toppling the
Zairian
government, operated primarily out of bases in the
Ruwenzori
Mountains along the Zaire-Uganda border. It staged
numerous attacks
on towns, government forces, and installations along the
Zairian
side of the border. Although the PLC was unable to take
and hold
any terrain and posed no serious threat to the Kinshasa
regime, the
rebels demonstrated the government's lack of control of
this area.
In the ostensibly multiparty era of the Third Republic
in the
early 1990s, opposition activity proliferated. The
creation of
political parties was tolerated for the most part (except
for
blatantly ethnic groupings), but military and security
forces
continued to suppress demonstrations, often with violent
results.
Data as of December 1993
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