Writing Battleground Africa

This book was a work from my heart for many years. It began as a class paper, became a dissertation, and then the book. You're told a dissertation is not a book, but once you succeed, you're reminded that your book can’t simply be your dissertation. Whatever phase of the work, I was captivated by Patrice Lumumba and his ambitions and worked hard to present him justly, fairly, and accurately. His assassination was indeed a tragedy for Congo, something the country has never fully reconciled.

History of Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) is the largest country in Africa south of the Sahara. It includes about a million square miles of land draining into the Congo River and more than 250 ethnic groups. Along with all its diversity, Congo’s recent history of statehood is marked by turmoil.

After a brutal experience with colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by the struggle for independence from Belgium, its former colonizer, Congo quickly became intertwined with the Cold War. This development was the inspiration for Battleground Africa (2013). Both the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to support a UN intervention in Congo, primarily to keep a watch on their rival but also to manage their all-too-rapidly growing global expansion. Research in state and party archives in Moscow revealed that Soviet interest was greater than previously thought but insufficient to sustain serious risks. The book balances the superpower competition with the Congolese aspirations for genuine independence and the major UN intervention to keep the peace. Nevertheless, the result of superpower involvement would be an increased role for dictatorship and foreign aid in Congo, a trend starting to spread across Africa.

Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) depended on the United States to help seize power, but once he did, he stayed for 22 years, from 1965 to 1997. His rule was based on a strong personality cult, more aid from the United States, and, increasingly, a sizeable personal fortune.

His rule was followed by four years of his opponent Laurent-Desire Kabila until he was assassinated. Kabila, Sr.’s son Joseph Kabila, continued the centralized rule from 2001-2019 when his legitimacy was repeatedly challenged. In 2019, Felix Tsisekedi was elected 5th president. In Congo, as elsewhere in Africa, the coronavirus pandemic brought limited infections and deaths but has also tempered talk of reform. Now that signs suggest the disease is waning, the question of reform looms again. As does another chance to reassess the legacy of Lumumba.