Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville)
The Republic of the Congo () was a sovereign state in Central Africa that was created with the independence of the Belgian Congo in 1960. From 1960 to 1966, the country was often known as "Congo-Léopoldville" (after its capital) in order to distinguish it from its north-western neighbour, also called the Republic of the Congo or Congo-Brazzaville. With the renaming of Léopoldville as Kinshasa on 1 June 1966, it was known as "Congo-Kinshasa" until 1971.
History of Kinshasa
On May 20, 1997, after the First Congo War, Laurent-Désiré Kabila triumphantly marched with his rebel forces to take control of the country's capital after Mobutu fled into exile in France. However, the city was later nearly taken over by other rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda during the earlier part of the Second Congo War. It was very recently the scene of fighting between loyalists of Jean-Pierre Bemba and Joseph Kabila following the 2006 general elections; 600 people, including untold numbers of civilian bystanders were killed or wounded. Joseph Kabila, raised in Tanzania, and a poor speaker of French and Lingala, has not endeared himself to the locals.