The Congo from Leopold to KabilaThe people of the Congo have suffered a particularly brutal experience of colonial rule; and, following independence in 1960, external interference by the United States, the rapacious and dictatorial regime of Mobutu, and periodic warfare which even now continues fitfully in the East of the country. But the Congolese people have not taken these multiple oppressions lying down. They have struggled to improve their living conditions by trying both to