More of the same: Bloodshed and corrupt leadership in what is today the DRC is nothing new. King Leopold II of Belgium acquired the Congo Free State in 1885 and ran it as his own private project, brutalizing the local population, particularly through slavery in the rubber industry. After international outrage, the Belgian government in 1908 took over the area as a colony, which gained independence in 1960. From 1965 to 1997, it was run by dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, seen here, second right, on June 30, 1970. At left are Belgium’s King Baudouin and Mobutu’s then wife, Marie Antoinette Mobutu; at right is Queen Fabiola.