What is with the Congo – is it a country blessed or a nation and it’s people cursed? Belgian Congo, Zaire, The Democratic Republic of Congo, is indeed a land cursed – a curse that turned a country with the potential to be the richest in the region into one of the poorest nations of Africa persists despite various changes in name and governance. The Democratic Republic of Congo, to give it its present name, lies in the fertile river basin of the mighty Congo River, straddling the equator. Steep mountains stand sentinel in the north and west while volcanoes rumble in the lake district of Kivu.

The steamy tropical rainforests in the west house a virtual treasury of rare animals and plants and if perchance, you dig deep into the earth, it yields a bounty of mineral and agricultural wealth unparalleled in the harsh and hostile African terrain.  So what compulsion tears this country apart, what drives its people to destroy each other and what will make them stop? The answers have eluded Congo for the past centuries as its people continue to struggle against exploitation, internecine war and abject penury. The future remains bleak, though if good does come even from evil, then perhaps the assassination of Laurent Kabila and the ascendance of his son, Joseph offers a chink of light in the dark days ahead for Congo.