Editing Zaire (section)

===Growing conflict===
[[File:Idi Amin and Mobutu.jpeg|thumb|[[Idi Amin]], president of [[Uganda]], visiting Mobutu in Zaire during The [[Shaba I]] Conflict in 1977]]
In 1977 and 1978, Katangan rebels based in [[People's Republic of Angola|Angola]] launched two invasions, [[Shaba I]] and [[Shaba II]], into the [[Katanga Province]] (renamed "Shaba" in 1972). The rebels were driven out with military assistance from the [[Western Bloc]], particularly from the [[Safari Club]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

The [[Battle of Kolwezi]], fought in May 1978, resulted in an [[airborne operation]] in an aim of rescuing Zairian, [[Belgian people|Belgian]] and [[French people|French]] miners held as hostages by pro-Communist [[State of Katanga|Katangan]] guerrillas.

[[Pope John Paul II]] made a [[List of pastoral visits of Pope John Paul II|papal trip]] to Zaire on 2 May 1980, on the centenary of Catholic evangelization. During his tour, he greeted over a million people, making him the first pontiff to visit Africa as a "messenger of peace". He left Zaire four days later on 6 May shortly after 9 people were trampled to death trying to attend mass.

In 1981, despite slow progress, Zaire launched an economic reform to revive its economy in order to keep up its rescheduled payment on the country's tremendous debt of $4.4 billion, which had recorded a small rate of economic growth in the last three quarters of 1980.

During the 1980s, Zaire remained a one-party state. Although Mobutu maintained control during this period, opposition parties, most notably the [[Union for Democracy and Social Progress (Democratic Republic of the Congo)|Union for Democracy and Social Progress]] (Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social—UDPS), were active. Mobutu's attempts to quell these groups drew significant international criticism.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

As the [[Cold War]] came to a close, internal and external pressures on Mobutu increased. In late 1989 and early 1990, Mobutu was weakened by a series of domestic protests, by heightened international criticism of his regime's human rights practices, by a faltering economy, and by government corruption, most notably his massive [[embezzlement]] of government funds for personal use.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} In June 1989, Mobutu visited [[Washington, D.C.]], where he was the first African head of state to be invited for a state meeting with newly elected U.S. President [[George H. W. Bush]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.heritage.org/research/africa/upload/91612_1.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060721174238/http://www.heritage.org/Research/Africa/upload/91612_1.pdf|url-status=unfit|title="Zaire's Mobutu Visits America", by Michael Johns, Heritage Foundation Executive Memorandum #239, June 29, 1989.|archive-date=21 July 2006}}</ref>

In May 1990, Mobutu agreed to the principle of a [[multi-party system]] with elections and a constitution. As details of a reform package were delayed, soldiers began [[1991 Zaire unrest|looting Kinshasa in September 1991]] to protest their unpaid wages. Two thousand French and Belgian troops, some of whom were flown in on U.S. Air Force planes, arrived to evacuate the 20,000 endangered foreign nationals in Kinshasa.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In 1992, after previous similar attempts, the long-promised Sovereign National Conference was staged, encompassing over 2,000 representatives from various political parties. The conference gave itself a legislative mandate and elected Archbishop [[Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya]] as its chairman, along with [[Étienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba]], leader of the UDPS, as prime minister. By the end of the year Mobutu had created a rival government with its own prime minister. The ensuing stalemate produced a compromise merger of the two governments into the High Council of Republic–Parliament of Transition (HCR–PT) in 1994, with Mobutu as head of state and [[Léon Kengo wa Dondo|Kengo wa Dondo]] as prime minister. Although presidential and legislative elections were scheduled repeatedly over the next 2 years, they never took place.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}