DR Congo Army
Throughout the first five years of independence, the armed forces fragmented into several competing power centers, working for various ethnic political leaders as well as their own interests. A combination of ineffective national leadership and a chaotic political and social environment limited the ANC's ability to operate in a professional manner. As a result, the ANC was a national armed force in name only. It was not only incapable of protecting the country, but at times even threatened its existence. Only the performance of the United Nations (UN) forces in ending the 1960-63 secession of Katanga Province (now Shaba Region) kept Zaire intact.
A succession of governments proved unable to restore calm to the country until Joseph-Desire Mobutu (subsequendy Mobutu Sese Seko) seized power in a bloodless coup d'etat in November 1965. From 1965 until 1970, Mobutu consolidated and expanded his power by pacifying the countryside, eliminating political and military rivals, and consolidating coercive power in his hands. Although Mobutu used the military to gain power, he did not establish a military dictatorship; instead, he relegated the armed forces to a secondary supporting role.
Throughout the early 1970s, Mobutu continued to build up his military with significant United States and Belgian assistance. Despite this effort, the armed forces, known as the FAZ from late 1971, were not much improved when Mobutu decided to commit them to support the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (Frente Nacional de Libertacao de Angola — FNLA) in 1975 during the Angolan civil war. Mobutu hoped to prevent the Sovietbacked Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola—MPLA) from gaining power.
Despite initial advances, the Zairian force was routed by Cuban and MPLA forces. Mobutu's bold adventure with a demonstrably weak force would prove disastrous eighteen months later, when a Zairian dissident group, the Front for the National Liberation of the Congo (Front pour la Liberation Nationale du Congo — FLNC), backed by the now victorious MPLA, invaded Zaire in the first of two incursions of Zaire's mineral-rich Shaba Region. These invasions, in 1977 and 1978, highlighted the political and military weakness of the Mobutu regime, and only foreign intervention kept the Zairian state intact.
Zaire responded to this demonstrated lack of capability during the Shaba crises by an extensive reorganization of the military. This process, however, improved neither the discipline nor the performance of the FAZ. For example, in November 1984, the FAZ was unable to prevent a small armed band from the People's Revolutionary Party (Parti Revolutionnaire du Peuple—PRP) from taking the town of Moba on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Although the town was retaken two days later, this action demonstrated that some portions of the country still escaped government control. Moba was again occupied by PRP partisans in June 1985, but government forces quickly retook the town. Reprisals against civilians in Moba after these incidents, particularly in 1984, were condemned by Amnesty International and served as further examples of the FAZ's lack of discipline.
Once again, Mobutu responded to the FAZ's poor performance by reforming and reorganizing the military. He forced many senior officers to resign, established the post of inspector general, and created a Civil Guard. Despite these changes, low and irregular pay, corruption, and poor morale continued to plague the armed forces and undermine their capabilities. The widespread political, economic, and social disintegration that characterized Zaire in the early 1990s further undermined military coherence and capabilities.
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