The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (, FARDC) are the national military forces responsible for defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The modern Congolese army descends from the Force Publique (1885–1960) of the Congo Free State and Belgian Congo and has undergone multiple reorganizations and name changes since independence, including the Armée nationale congolaise (ANC) following independence, the Forces armées zaïroises (FAZ) during the Zaire period, and the Forces armées congolaises (FAC) under Laurent-Désiré Kabila, before adopting its current designation as the FARDC.
The FARDC was rebuilt in a fragmented and uneven manner following the end of the Second Congo War in July 2003, as part of the broader peace process that sought to integrate former government troops, rebel movements, and militia groups into a unified national army. Its legal foundation was initially established under the Transitional Constitution, notably articles 118 and 188, and later superseded by the 2006 Constitution, particularly articles 187 to 192. The overall framework for national defence and the armed forces was further outlined in Law No. 04/023 of 12 November 2004, and subsequently clarified by Organic Law No. 11-012 of August 2011, which regulates the organization, command, and use of the FARDC. The armed forces is composed predominantly of land forces, alongside a small air force and an even smaller naval component, while the country also maintains a separate presidential force known as the Republican Guard and an independently operating Congolese National Police (PNC), neither of which is formally part of the armed forces. The national territory is divided into three major defence zones, supported by military regions, bases, and specialized air and naval groupings. Since 2014, these forces have operated under three regional combatant commands corresponding to the western, south-central, and eastern regions of the country.
Since independence, and throughout its successive institutional forms, the Congolese army has been repeatedly engaged in mutinies, rebellions, and secessionist conflicts. These have included the Kwilu rebellion and eastern uprisings of 1964; the mutinies of former Katangese Gendarmerie in Stanleyville; the war of Bukavu involving Jean Schramme's 10th Commando Battalion in 1967; mercenary attacks on Luashi and Kisenge in November 1967 under the command of Bob Denard; the "Eighty Days' War" (quatre-vingt jours) of March–June 1977; the Battle of Kolwezi of May 1978; the conflicts known as Moba I and Moba II; Shaba I and Shaba II; and the First and Second Congo Wars. During the Second Congo War, the United Nations established a peacekeeping presence through Security Council Resolutions 1279 (1999) and 1291 (2000), leading to the creation of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), later renamed MONUSCO. The mission was tasked with monitoring the peace process and assisting post-war governments, and until 2023 maintained a force of more than 16,000 peacekeepers in the country, with a primary focus on security in eastern provinces such as North Kivu and South Kivu, as well as support for national reconstruction efforts. The Congolese government, in cooperation with the United Nations, the European Union, and bilateral partners including Angola, South Africa, and Belgium, attempted to create a viable force with the ability to provide the Democratic Republic of Congo with stability and security. However, this process has been hampered by corruption,Ian Johnston (ed.), Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2007, Center for International Cooperation – Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, p. 62. inadequate donor coordination, and competition between donors.A. AUGÉ and P. KLAOUSEN, eds, Réformer les armées africaines. En quête d'une nouvelle stratégie Paris: Karthala, 2010. , pp. 120–122.
Foreign armed groups have also operated on Congolese territory for much of the post-independence period. Among the most significant have been the M23, FDLR, ADF, CODECO, Mai-Mai, alongside other groups such as the anti-Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army.
History Background
The first organized Congolese troops, known as the , were created in 1888 when King Leopold II of Belgium, who held the Congo Free State as his private property, ordered his Secretary of the Interior to create military and police forces for the state. In 1886, many Belgian officers were dispatched to the Congo Free State to set up this military force. The Force Publique was not composed solely of Belgian officers; it also included Swedes, Danes, and other Europeans. The rank-and-file soldiers were predominantly African, with a significant proportion recruited from local Congolese populations. In 1908, under international pressure, Leopold ceded administration of the colony to the government of Belgium as the Belgian Congo. It remained under the command of a Belgian officer corps through to the independence of the colony in 1960.
Force Publique conducted military campaigns during the First World War (1914–1918), notably in East and Central Africa, notably in Cameroon and German East Africa (present-day Tanzania), including Rwanda and Burundi. It achieved several military successes (Tabora, Mahenge), and earned the respect and confidence of its Portuguese and British allies. During this period, the Force Publique was organized into 21 companies, in addition to separate artillery and engineering units. Each company was to include four European officers and 150 African soldiers, of whom 80 were Congolese. Historical records indicate that Belgian and Congolese officers gradually replaced Europeans from various bodies that had previously formed the officer corps under the Congo Free State. The troops deployed in Katanga were organized as a distinct autonomous force consisting of six companies and a cyclist unit. Force Publique overall comprised a strength of 12,100 men, distributed among the twenty-one companies. Over time, by around 1914, the Force Publique already numbered approximately 17,000 soldiers, recruited under a quota system, with forced recruitment practices continuing.
Independence and revolt
At independence on 30 June 1960, the army suffered from a dramatic deficit of trained leaders, particularly in the officer corps. This was because the Force Publique had always only been officered by Belgian or other expatriate whites. The Belgian Government made no effort to train Congolese commissioned officers until the very end of the colonial period, and in 1958, only 23 African cadets had been admitted even to the military secondary school. The highest rank available to Congolese was adjutant, which only four soldiers achieved before independence. Though 14 Congolese cadets were enrolled in the Royal Military Academy in Brussels in May, they were not scheduled to graduate as second lieutenants until 1963. Ill-advised actions by Belgian officers led to an enlisted ranks' rebellion on 5 July 1960, which helped spark the Congo Crisis. Lieutenant General Émile Janssens, the Force Publique commander, wrote during a meeting of soldiers that 'Before independence=After Independence', pouring cold water on the soldiers' desires for an immediate raise in their status.
Historian Louis-François Vanderstraeten says that on the morning of 8 July 1960, following a night during which all control had been lost over the soldiers, numerous ministers arrived at Camp Leopold with the aim of calming the situation. Both Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and President Joseph Kasa-Vubu eventually arrived, and the soldiers listened to Kasa-Vubu "religiously." After his speech, Kasa-Vubu and the ministers present retired into the camp canteen to hear a delegation from the soldiers. Vanderstraeten says that, according to Joseph Ileo, their demands (revendications) included the following: that the defence portfolio not be given to the Prime Minister that the name Force Publique be changed to Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) and that the commander-in-chief and chief of staff should not necessarily be Belgians The "laborious" discussions which then followed were later retrospectively given the label of an "extraordinary ministerial council." Gérard-Libois writes that "...the special meeting of the council of ministers took steps for the immediate Africanisation of the officer corps and named Victor Lundula, who was born in Kasai and was burgomaster of Jadotville, as Commander-in-Chief of the ANC; Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu as chief of staff; and the Belgian, Colonel Henniquiau, as chief advisor to the ANC". Thus General Janssens was dismissed. Both Lundula and Mobutu were former sergeants of the Force Publique.
On 8–9 July 1960, the soldiers were invited to appoint black officers, and "command of the army passed securely into the hands of former sergeants," as the soldiers in general chose the most-educated and highest-ranked Congolese army soldiers as their new officers.Jean-Claude Williame in Kitchen, ed, Footnotes to the Congo Story, New York: Walker & Co., 1967, pp. 166–167. Most of the Belgian officers were retained as advisors to the new Congolese hierarchy, and calm returned to the two main garrisons at Leopoldville and Thysville. The Force Publique was renamed the Armée nationale congolaise (ANC), or Congolese National Armed Forces. However, in Katanga Belgian officers resisted the Africanisation of the army.
There was a Force Publique mutiny at Camp Massart, in Elizabethville, on 9 July 1960; five or seven Europeans were killed. The army revolt and resulting rumours caused severe panic across the country, and Belgium dispatched troops and the naval Task Group 218.2 to protect its citizens.Vanderstraeten, 1983, 93–94. Belgian troops intervened in Elisabethville and Luluabourg (10 July), Matadi (11 July), Leopoldville (13 July) and elsewhere. There were immediate suspicions that Belgium planned to re-seize their former colony whilst doing so. Large numbers of Belgian colonists fled the country. At the same time, on 11 July, Moise Tshombe declared the independence of Katanga Province in the south-east, closely backed by remaining Belgian administrators and soldiers.
On 14 July 1960, in response to requests by Prime Minister Lumumba, the UN Security Council adopted United Nations Security Council Resolution 143. This called upon Belgium to remove its troops and for the UN to provide military assistance to the Congolese forces to allow them "to meet fully their tasks". Lumumba demanded that Belgium remove its troops immediately, threatening to seek help from the Soviet Union if they did not leave within two days. The UN reacted quickly and established the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). The first UN troops arrived the next day but there was instant disagreement between Lumumba and the UN over the new force's mandate. Because the Congolese army had been in disarray since the mutiny, Lumumba wanted to use the UN troops to subdue Katanga by force. Lumumba became extremely frustrated with the UN's unwillingness to use force against Tshombe and his secession.Oliver Ramsbotham, Tom Woodhouse, Encyclopedia of International Peacekeeping Operations, (ABC-CLIO: 1999), p. 54 . He cancelled a scheduled meeting with Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld on 14 August and wrote a series of angry letters instead.Hobbs, Nicole, "The UN and the Congo Crisis of 1960" (2014). Harvey M. Applebaum '59 Award. To Hammarskjöld, the secession of Katanga was an internal Congolese matter and the UN was forbidden to intervene by Article 2 of the United Nations Charter. Disagreements over what the UN force could and could not do continued throughout its deployment.