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| 1957, Dec |
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| Municipal elections in Leopoldville (Kinshasa); Elizabethville (Lubumbashi); and Jadotville (Likasi) gave a vast majority to the Nationalist Alliance de Bakongo (ABAKO), which demanded “immediate independence.” | 1 |
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| 1958 |
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| Gen. Charles de Gaulle announced the independence of all of French Africa at Brazzaville. | 2 |
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| 1958–59 |
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| Foreign investment in Congo dried up, and capital quickly flowed out as the tide of nationalism rose higher. | 3 |
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| 1959 |
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| Belgium was forced to abandon its slow pace of reform by popular mobilization in Congo and agreed to immediate independence. | 4 |
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| 1960–64 |
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| The Congo crisis continued, including the division and collapse of the central government; intervention of Belgian and UN forces, the U.S., and the USSR; the death of Lumumba; and the secession of Katanga and other provinces before the restoration of central government could be effected. | 5 |
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| 1998 |
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| War raged in Angola between the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) (See 1998). Although the UN spent some $1.6 billion between 1994 and 1998 in peacekeeping activities, the fighting continued as UN forces withdrew substantially in 1999. The ongoing war directly affected more than one-third of Angolan citizens, some 2 million of whom fled as refugees. | 6 |
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| Aug. 2 |
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| Fighting in the Congo civil war escalated to the international level when Rwanda and Uganda sent 20,000 troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in support of Tutsi opposition to the government of Pres. Laurent Kabila. Kabila was backed by Hutu support and by the Mayi-Mayi, a group of indigenous warriors who were mainly allied with the Hutu in a shared hatred of the Tutsi (See 1998, Aug. 2). | 7 |
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| Oct. 21 |
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| Angola agreed to send 2,000 troops (along with Zimbabwe, 10,000, and Namibia, 2,000) in support of Pres. Kabila in the Congo civil war (See Oct. 21). | 8 |
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