Difference between revisions of "Shaba"

Revision as of 22:21, 19 March 2006

Province du Shaba

Provincial flag of Shaba
Country	Zaïre
Capital	Lubumbashi
Largest city	Lubumbashi
Languages	Swahili, Tshiluba
Area	496,871 km²
Governor	Nguza Tshombe
Population	4,125,000
Density	8.30/km²
Districts	5
Cities	3

Shaba (formerly called Katanga) is the southeastern province of Zaïre. Due to its vast geological wealth, the strategic value of this province can is inestimable. The bulk of the nation's copper reserves, as well as significant reserves of cobalt, tin, radium, uranium, and diamonds. These minerals have been a curse and a blessing for Shaba and her people over the years, as their immense value has the potential to make it a prosperous, thriving region, yet also an alluring prize that has attracted the attention of many plunderers and would-be plunderers over the years.

The province came under Belgian control in the late 19th century, or more specifically, under the control of Union Minière du Haut Katanga (known today as Gécamines). While the Belgians were heavy-handed and exploitive in subduing the population, they did develop and modernize the province to a much greater extent than the rest of the Belgian Congo (as Zaïre was then known), making it a relatively prosperous region.

After the Belgian Congo became indepdent in 1960 and shortly afterwards disintegrated into civil war, the Christian, pro-Western, anticommunist president of Katanga, Moise Tshombe, declared Katanga's secession from the Congo and announced that it was now an independent state. While the rest of the Congo was devastated by plunder, rape, murder, and all-out war, Katanga thrived as a peaceful, prosperous bastion of liberty and anticommunism. Unfortunately, the arch-Marxist, psychotic demagogue Patrice Lumumba, the Soviet stooge that ran the Congo, called in United Nations "peacekeepers" to forcibly re-integrate Katanga with the Congo, literally at gun-point. Resorting to brutal terrorist tactics such as rape, bombing hospitals, gunning down ambulances, and bayoneting children, the U.N. dogs savagely terrorized the people into submission, finally forcing Tshombe to surrender. Katanga's war of freedom thus over, it was re-united with the Congo.

In 1965, Joseph-Désiré Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) came to power in the Congo via a coup d'etat, and in 1971 changed the name of Katanga to Shaba and the name of the country to Zaïre. Katanga remained relatively peaceful, except for when Angola based communists invaded in 1977 and 1978 (but were quelled by foreign troops).

After Mobutu Sese Seko was overthrown by Laurent Kabila in 1997, the province was renamed Katanga, and suffered greatly during the ensuing civil wars.

In 2006, Léopold Honoré Mobutu (no relation to Mobutu Sese Seko) seized power, and one of his first actions as president/dictator was to change the name of Katanga to Shaba once more.