PATRICE ÉMERY LUMUMBA: GREAT AFRICAN MARTYR
From 1971 to 1997, the country was officially the Republic of Zaire; a change made by then ruler Gen. Mobutu Sese Seko to give the country what he thought was a more authentic African name.
“Zaire” is a variation of a term meaning “Great River” in local Kongo language; like the country’s current name, it refers to the Congo River, which drains a large basin that lies mostly in the republic. Unlike Zaire, however, the name Congo has origins in the colonial period, when Europeans identified the river with the kingdom of the Kongo people, who live near its mouth. Following the overthrow of Mobutu in 1997, the country’s name prior to 1971, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was reinstated. Congo subsequently was plunged into a devastating civil war; the conflict officially ended in 2003, although fighting continued in the eastern part of the country.
A nation as big as Western Europe, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a topic for most political, social and human rights activists for decades. A quarter century of experimentation with Marxism was abandoned in 1990 and a democratically elected government took office in
