The natural resources of a country could represent a valuable source of wealth. The primordial condition is to set up proper, functional institutions and to have the minimal basis of a state. If not, everything could be at the mercy of small or larger entropic groups with terrific effects on the population and the resources are spoiled in the advantages of military/armed groups. In Congo, for example, since 1998, 5, 400,000 people have died because of a deadly conflict, the equivalent of the population of Denmark.
The total population is of 65.75 million, distributed on 905,063 square miles, being the third largest country by area in Africa. It is reach in natural resources, as diamonds, copper, zinc and coltan.
The victims are dying mostly because of hunger and diseases.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, former Belgian colony, acquired its independence in 1960. After the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the power was seized and kept for 30 years by Mobutu Sese Seko, whose reign was rotten by corruption and dictatorship. In 1994, he was lashed following a civil war, nurtured by the Rwandan refugees, after the Hutu’s massacre of the Tutsi tribe, who occupied the Eastern part of the country. Laurent D. Kabila, a former rebel himself, became president in 1997. He was later assassinated in 2001 and followed by his son Joseph. Despite some efforts to create certain normality, by organising elections – the first free elections ever, in 2006, confirming Joseph Kabila as president – or signing peace accords, in 2003, the conflict between various warrior groups are continuing. According to International Rescue Committee, almost 1.250 people are dying daily, while the UN is hesitating to take a final decision to send more troops in the area.
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