When Mobutu finally went in 1997 the country was in as much disorder as it had ever been. But his successor Laurent Kabila did not have much of a reputation. Ironically, in 1965 he had fought alongside Che Guevara who was then in Congo. Cuban soldiers were supporting Lumumbists against the Mobutu government. Guevara did not think much of Kabila.
Congo remains, geographically and in terms of natural resources, the heart of Africa.
By virtue of outside forces, it has never had a chance to begin to establish itself as a stable, organised and prosperous state. And that is true of many other parts of Africa. It ill becomes those same outside forces to go on blaming Africa for not getting its act together. King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, Macmillan 1999.