LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Congo: Belgian Congo
built 649 days ago
The Congo Free State was established as a neutral independent sovereignty[2] without reference to its inhabitants save a few autocratic chiefs. In 1876 Leopold II, King of the Belgians organized the International African Association with the cooperation of the leading African explorers and the support of several European governments for the promotion of African exploration and colonization. In 1877, Henry Morton Stanley called attention to the Congo region and was sent there by the association, the expense being defrayed by Leopold.[2] Through corrupt treaties with native chiefs, rights were acquired to a great area along the Congo, and military posts were established. The treaties were extremely one-sided in favor of Leopold. In some cases chiefs not only handed over their lands, but ... promised to help provide workers for forced labor.
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In the late 19th century, Congo's disparate tribes were drawn together into the private fiefdom of King Leopold II of Belgium, whose exploitation was notorious for its brutality. An ensuing period of official Belgian rule left the country unprepared for its sudden independence in 1960, when it became a pawn in the superpowers' Cold War struggle. After its early leader, Patrice Lumumba was assassinated, Mobutu Sese Seko seized power in 1965. Mobutu, whose 30 years of dictatorial rule spawned the term "kleptocracy," renamed the nation Zaire and presided over an increasingly unstable nation rotted through by corruption.
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The Congo Free State was a corporate state privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians through a dummy non-governmental organization, the Association Internationale Africaine. Leopold was the sole shareholder and chairman. The state included the entire area of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo and existed from 1885 to 1908.
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Starting in June 30, 1960, the Belgian Colony of Congo ceases to exist. The Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R. Congo) arises. This of course was a time of great conflict which was anti-colonialist by nature and eventually paved the way for U.N. intervention. It was a struggle known as the
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The Democratic Republic of Congo has known no respite whatsoever in the last 500 years of its history. After the enslavement of the Congolese people in the Americas, King Leopold acquired Congo as his own property; then sold it to the Belgian government and so it became a colony.
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The area known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was populated as early as 10,000 years ago and settled in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. by Bantus from present-day Nigeria. Discovered in 1482 by Portuguese navigator Diego Cao and later explored by English journalist Henry Morton Stanley, the area was officially colonized in 1885 as a personal possession of Belgian King Leopold II as the Congo Free State. In 1907, administration shifted to the Belgian Government, which renamed the country the Belgian Congo. Following a series of riots and unrest, the Belgian Congo was granted its independence on June 30, 1960. Parliamentary elections in 1960 produced Patrice Lumumba as prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu as president of the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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Belgian Congo