Democratic Republic of the Congo

After the Democratic Republic of the Congo gained freedom from Belgium in 1960, they had to build a stable government and economy. When the Belgium left the DCR a lot of Belgian people left also. Few teachers, doctors and other professions remained. In the chaos that was left behind, ethnic groups fought for power to gain control of DCR. In 1965, 5 years after DCR gained freedom, Joseph Mobutu gained power as a dictator. He took over foreign industries and tried to make those industries a monopoly. He decided to borrow money from foreign countries to expand local industries. However, he misused many of the funds that he acquired from abroad. Mobutu became very rich while the rest of the country went into poverty. He mostly used violence to persuade and murder people who challenged him. Under him, DCR seemed to be in a worse situation than when they were a colony.