I know that one of Kabila’s first acts of government after overthrowing Sese Seko was to change the name of the country from Zaire to The Democratic Republic of Congo. My question is, what on Earth made Sese Seko change the name of the country (that colonially was the Free Congo) to Zaire?? And then, why the change back?
P.S. When I take over a country, I think I’ll name it the Democratic Federated People’s Republic of Libertonia. 
As I recall Sese Seko was a big-time African “nationalist” (continentalist?) who rejected “Congo” as a label that was thrust upon the country by Europe. I also remember that he also encouraged (maybe forced) Zairans to adopt more African-ized names as well instead of Christian names.
I believe Kablia changed it back to Congo because “Zaire” was a label thrust upon the country by the recently defrocked Sese Seko.
Zaire is one of the many local names along the river. The Congo crosses about 15 linguistic groups.
Would it be correct to assume that it was the name of the river in Mobutu’s native language? Do you know what his native language was?
I think he was Ngbandi; I think he spoke Lingala.
AFAIK, the Bakongo live in the western region and up and down the coast into Angola. It might have been considered divisive to have the name “Congo” for the country, since it would seem to be asserting dominance of the Bakongo over other groups. Also there was a risk associated with an idea of “Greater Congo” that would encroach on Portuguese and French territory. Zaire was supposedly another name for the river, and not being associated with a particular tribe would probably be a good unifying name for the highly artificial and unstable country. It would probably have got the nod from the US (Mobutu was a CIA puppet).
The above is unadulterated speculation. Take it or leave it.
I’ll supply a little humor.
I remember watching the “Miss Universe” pageant in the early 1970s. The host was Bob Barker. It was the first time that Zaire had submitted a contestant. Apparently, it was also the first time Bob Barker had encountered the word “Zaire.” Not realizing that it had two syllables, he pronounced it as though it rhymed with “fair.”
The contestant spoke no English, and thus needed a translator. He turned toward the camera and said something like “Well, if she had spoken English, I was going to ask her how far it was from here to ‘Zair.’”
Ha Ha.
The name change for the Congo occurred in the early 70s, when Mobutu Sese Seko started his “authenticity” campaign to solidify his identity and the country’s identity. I taught there for two years in the mid-70s and it was effective in a country with 1200 discernible language groups and thousands of tribes. (I can still sing the Zairian national anthem because we did it every day before high school classes started.)
Zaire itself is an old word, indeed used along certain portions of the river. Hibernicus is correct about Mobutu’s tribe and linguistic group: Lingala is a language used mainly along the river and used by the military. It’s small vocabulary (about 12,000=15,000 words) mean that words for “please” and “thank you” are missing.
Mobutu was certainly installed with the aid of the CIA. The CIA also used Zaire for its own purposes during the war in Angola. But it might be more accurate by the end to describe the CIA as the puppet of Mobutu.
Another reason for changing the name is actually rather obvious (hibernicus I believe was hinting at this.) There was/is in fact another country called Congo to the West (now Republic of Congo, formerly People’s Republic of Congo, aka Congo-Brazzaville, once “Middle Congo”). Even if there were other more overt and political reasons related to it, that was probably a psychological source of pressure to change the name at some point.
one of the many reasons Mobutu’s “Authenticity” campaign was reversed was because much of it had no basis in history. He was claiming as authentic practice things which hadn’t been practiced before and things which were relatively recent innovations.
as per that idea, the name Zaire itself shows Mobutu’s flaw. It’s a bastardization of the old Portugeuse cognate of a local word for the river. Hardly a way to break away from colonialism.
jb,
mobutu was a bad bad dude
but his official title was badder